New Apple holiday film tells a story of a girl who is bursting with ideas but is afraid to share them. Music: Billie Eilish with come out and play
Tag: gifts
Sunday Morning
What was precious—flexing.
Fingers wrapping bottle, jar,
fluent weave of tendon, bone, and nerve.
To grip a handle, lift a bag of books,
button simply, fold a card—…
Unthinking movement, come again.
These days of slow reknitting…
Thank your ankles, thank your wrists.
How many gifts have we not named?
~ Naomi Shihab Nye, from “Broken” in Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners
Poem: Thank you Beth @ Alive on all Channels. Photo via seemore
Day and night, gifts keep pelting down on us
Day and night, gifts keep pelting down on us.
If we were aware of this, gratefulness would overwhelm us. But we go through life in a daze.
A power failure makes us aware of what a gift electricity is; a sprained ankle lets us appreciate walking as a gift, a sleepless night, sleep.
How much we are missing in life by noticing gifts only when we are suddenly deprived of them.
~ David Steindal-Rast, A Listening Heart from The Spirituality of Sacred Sensuousness
Notes: Photo – via Your Eyes Blaze Out
In Celebration of Modest Christmases Past
A long time ago in a country far, far away, America had less of everything and holidays were easier and more modest.
Only 50 and 60 years ago, well within human memory, Christmas was a plainer, simpler affair. Everyone—even the rich, but certainly the poor and in-between—had less. Because America had less. You’d get a sweater and socks instead of five toys, or five toys instead of 10. Technology was something that existed at places like NASA. No one’s wish list had a hoverboard, an iPad, or a brightly wrapped drone. There were more big families, whose children understood that even Santa couldn’t cover them all.
You could make gifts. Or you could buy one after saving up, and the recipient could guess the sacrifice involved. And because there were fewer gifts, the one you got made a big impression.
And so a nod to the more modest Christmases of years past. These memories came with a declared or implied, “We didn’t have much, but . . .” And this was said not with resentment or self pity but a kind of pride and wistfulness. […] Continue reading “In Celebration of Modest Christmases Past”
