Christmas Treasures

Advent is primarily about the coming of God, and only in a secondary way about our asking, seeking, waiting, and longing. There is hope, because we are unconditionally loved, whatever may be our failures, our tepidity, or our secret despair.
Maria Boulding

Hope

Hope, like a gleaming taper’s light,
Adorns and cheers our way;
And still, as darker grows the night,
Emits a brighter ray.

Oliver Goldsmith

The Yule trees and the dreams all children dream
The tremulous glow of candles in rows
The gold and silver of angels and globes
And the splendor of tinsel and toys under trees.
Boris Pasternak

Our religion is one which challenges the ordinary human standards by holding that the ideal of life is the spirit of a little child. We tend to glorify adulthood and wisdom and worldly prudence, but the Gospel reverses all this. The Gospel says that the inescapable condition of entrance into the divine fellowship is that we turn and become as a little child.
Elton Trueblood