A Charlie Brown Christmas

Tonight was the "Charlie Brown Christmas Special" on TV. I know you remember the one... it was the one we all waited for as kids.... and ran to the TV... it was a "special event".

My kids are a bit more jaded. After all, their generation has Boom, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, etc., etc.

Somehow, though, it still retains its magic.

So, there we were, snuggled up together under the quilt, watching Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Pigpen, and the whole gang get ready for Christmas. My kids thought it was hilarious that every time Pigpen would sing a cloud of dust would rise up. :-)

When Charlie Brown and Linus went to the Christmas Tree lot and picked their way through all the shiny, metal, over-processed Christmas trees, and selected the one sad little tree that just needed some love, I thought "Hmm... are my kids going to 'get' this....?"

Later on, we were getting them ready for bed and my 11 year old son said "Mom, I've decided what the 3 best things about Christmas are." (I fully expected to hear: PS2, Nintendo, and X-Box). He shocked me when he continued: "Jesus is first. Spending time with family is second. And then presents are third." I smiled, nodded through my blurry, tear-stained vision, and kissed him goodnight. I guess he did "get it" after all.

Spices for Mulling

Not literally, of course.... but below are little snips from an aforementioned book, The Pursuit of God (one of my very favorites..)

It's good stuff. All about the nature of God. Enjoy mulling it over.

"That which is real has being in itself. It does not depend upon the observer for its validity."

"Now by our definition God is also real. He is real in the absolute and final sense that nothing else is. All other reality is contingent upon His. The great Reality is God, the Author of that lower and dependent reality which makes up the sum of created things, including ourselves."

"Imagination is not faith. The two are not only different from, but stand in sharp opposition to, each other. Imagination projects unreal images out of the mind and seeks to attach reality to them. Faith creates nothing; it simply recknons upon that which is already there."

"God is eternal. He antedates time and is wholly independent of it. Time began in Him and will end in Him. To it He pays no tribute and from it He suffers no change."

"The highest love of God is not intellectual, it is spiritual. God is Spirit and only the spirit of man can know Him."

"God is so vast that He can, without anything other than Himself, meet and overflow the deepest demands of our total nature, mysterioius and deep as that nature is. "

Happy Birthday, Jeff Buckley...

Everyone who knows me knows I'm a huge Jeff Buckley fan (my husband would say 'fanatic'). Jeff's one and only studio album, "Grace", is, in my humble opinion, the best album of all time.

Today, November 17, 2007, would have been Jeff's 41st birthday.

As a sort of "birthday tribute" to Jeff, I wanted to post a really great BBC documentary about Jeff that I located online. Link is below.

Rest in peace, Jeff. Thank you for the incredible, soul-stirring and beautiful music you gave us.

UPDATE: The original link I had on this post is no longer functional. I finally found another link for this documentary.... who knows how long this one will be good for. The documentary is GREAT though.

Here is it is. Scroll halfway down the page and you'll see it. -HWHL 6.12.08

November Light

So yesterday afternoon I was with my kids, driving home. It was a gorgeous Fall day, late in the afternoon. The sun was just beginning its slow descent towards the horizon and the clouds in the sky were tinged orange and pink. The sinking sun made the Fall leaves incredibly brilliant. I glanced over to my left and suddenly had the whole palette of Fall colors right in front of me. Everything from a dazzling red maple to some unknown tree which had the most fiery orange leaves I had ever seen. And then on to a beautiful golden maple, and countless other shades in between. Even the simple tall stalks of grass were bathed in the warm afternoon light. And then, as if on cue, 5 geese flew above the treetops, towards the setting sun, their feathers soft and golden in the November sky.

It was just a moment, mind you. The whole scene unfolded in 10, maybe 15 seconds, tops. No one else on the little two lane road seemed to notice or even care. Certainly not my children, who were bickering in the backseat. But, in that moment, the beauty of the creation that is God’s gift to us, day after day, was so profound and amazing; so graceful and good; that I was left with a deep serene thankfulness in my heart and in my soul to the Creator-Artist who made it so.

The Pursuit of God

Below is a link to the online version of The Pursuit of God, by A. W. Tozer. This is an exceptional book, full of profound insight, beauty, and wisdom.

http://www3.calvarychapel.com/library/Tozer-AW/PursuitOfGod/0.htm

The Power of One Kind Gesture

See below for a lovely short movie about the power of one kind gesture, and its "ripple effect". Enjoy, and realize that your everyday actions, no matter how small or insignificant you feel they might be, impact the lives of others.

Click Here To View The Movie!

Beauty and Benevolence

"The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands." -Psalms 19:1

My favorite passage from all of fiction

As we walked homeward across the fields, the sun dropped and lay like a great golden globe in the low west. While it hung there, the moon rose in the east, as big as a cart-wheel, pale silver and streaked with rose colour, thin as a bubble or a ghost-moon. For five, perhaps ten minutes, the two luminaries confronted each other across the level land, resting on opposite edges of the world.
In that singular light every little tree and shock of wheat, every sunflower stalk and clump of snow-on-the-mountain, drew itself up high and pointed; the very clods and furrows in the fields seemed to stand up sharply. I felt the old pull of the earth, the solemn magic that comes out of those fields at nightfall. I wished I could be a little boy again, and that my way could end there.
We reached the edge of the field, where our ways parted. I took her hands and held them against my breast, feeling once more how strong and warm and good they were, those brown hands, and remembering how many kind things they had done for me. I held them now a long while, over my heart. About us it was growing darker and darker, and I had to look hard to see her face, which I meant always to carry with me, the closest realest face, under all the shadows of women's faces, at the very bottom of my memory.

Flicker & the Fringe

Happiness

I believe happiness which is derived from external circumstances will always be elusive and fleeting. True happiness must come from within, and must be regardless of external circumstances in order for it to be lasting and of any significance.

Below are a few quotes I've found regarding Happiness, Contentment, Joy, etc. Some are serious; some are humorous. All of them will make you think. Enjoy. :-)

-HWHL

Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps the singing bird will come.

-Chinese Proverb

There is nothing more beautiful than cheerfulness in an old face.

-Jean Paul Richter

Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.

-Mark Twain

When we cannot find contentment in ourselves it it useless to seek it elsewhere.

-La Rochefoucauld

The secret of contentment is the realization that life is a gift, not a right.

-Anonymous

In the depth of Winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible Summer.

-Albert Camus

The bird of paradise alights only upon the hand that does not grasp.

-John Berry

That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great.

-Willa Cather

Joy is not in things; it is in us.

-Richard Wagner

Look and See

This morning, at waterside, a sparrow flew
to a water rock and landed, by error, on the back
of an eider duck; lightly it fluttered off, amused.
The duck, too, was not provoked, but, you might say, was
laughing.

This afternoon a gull sailing over
our house was casually scratching
its stomach of white feathers with one
pink foot as it flew.

Oh Lord, how shining and festive is your gift to us, if we
only look, and see.