Kathye (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} dubghall) wrote,@ 2007-12-24 17:14:00 |
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Merry Christmas!
Instead of a song, a letter today:
Fra Giovanni Giocondo (c.1435–1515) was a Renaissance pioneer,
accomplished as an architect, engineer, antiquary, archaeologist,
classical scholar, and Franciscan friar. Today we remember him
most for his reassuring letter to Countess Allagia Aldobrandeschi
on Christmas Eve, 1513.
I salute you. I am your friend, and my love for you goes deep.
There is nothing I can give you which you have not. But there
is much, very much, that, while I cannot give it, you can take.
No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it
today. Take heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not
hidden in this present little instant.
Take peace! The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it,
yet within our reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in
darkness, could we but see. And to see, we have only to look.
I beseech you to look!
Life is so generous a giver. But we, judging its gifts by their
covering, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the
covering, and you will find beneath it a living splendor,
woven of love by wisdom, with power. Welcome it, grasp it,
and you touch the angel's hand that brings it to you.
Everything we call a trial, a sorrow or a duty, believe me,
that angel's hand is there. The gift is there and the wonder
of an overshadowing presence. Your joys, too, be not
content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts.
Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty
beneath its covering, that you will find earth but cloaks
your heaven. Courage then to claim it; that is all! But
courage you have, and the knowledge that we are pilgrims
together, wending through unknown country home.
Instead of a song, a letter today:
Fra Giovanni Giocondo (c.1435–1515) was a Renaissance pioneer,
accomplished as an architect, engineer, antiquary, archaeologist,
classical scholar, and Franciscan friar. Today we remember him
most for his reassuring letter to Countess Allagia Aldobrandeschi
on Christmas Eve, 1513.
I salute you. I am your friend, and my love for you goes deep.
There is nothing I can give you which you have not. But there
is much, very much, that, while I cannot give it, you can take.
No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it
today. Take heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not
hidden in this present little instant.
Take peace! The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it,
yet within our reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in
darkness, could we but see. And to see, we have only to look.
I beseech you to look!
Life is so generous a giver. But we, judging its gifts by their
covering, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the
covering, and you will find beneath it a living splendor,
woven of love by wisdom, with power. Welcome it, grasp it,
and you touch the angel's hand that brings it to you.
Everything we call a trial, a sorrow or a duty, believe me,
that angel's hand is there. The gift is there and the wonder
of an overshadowing presence. Your joys, too, be not
content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts.
Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty
beneath its covering, that you will find earth but cloaks
your heaven. Courage then to claim it; that is all! But
courage you have, and the knowledge that we are pilgrims
together, wending through unknown country home.
