2022 WILL BE A WONDERFUL YEAR

 

If you've ever doubted yourself, walk deep into any woods.  Notice how the pines still stand even though they are given no praise.  

Walk along any stream.  The water still flows, though no one stops to recognize it.  

Watch the stars late at night; they shine and never take a bow.

Hear the moon and the waves sing to eachother without acknowledgment.

See the buds go dormant in winter and revive in spring as naturally as rain falls to the earth.  The freshness a gift that expects no return.

Humans are just the same.  We are made out of the same elements as these everyday wonders.

Always remember your beauty and self-worth.  Always see the beauty and worth of others.  

Believe in the God who created us all, earth, air, fire and water; plant and animal; body and soul.

That's all we need to do and 2022 will be a wonderful year.  Our year.  A year full of miracles and blessings.  A year where we can live as faithfully as the sun rises and sets.  

With love, Nina Naomi  

 

LET'S SHARE . . . by Nina Naomi

 

Let's Share . . . 

by Nina Naomi

Not what you do for a living,

But what you have learned from the past.

Not the year I was born,

But my thrill in being alive.

Not if I'm Aries, you're Leo.

But what is the core of our sorrows.

If you've lied to yourself and regret it .

Or been lied to and now are on guard.

 

Can you can sit with grief (mine or yours)

And not try to hide it or fix it?

Can you dance with joy (yours or mine)

And not be self-conscious or shamed?

Tell me your day fills with beauty

As the simplest pleasures fill mine.

 

Let's not care where we live

Or what money we make.

Let's not tell who we know,

Where we travel,

Or any of that, let's just not. 

 

But if we can share despair when (and not if) it comes?

Stand in the center together

When all else falls away?

 

If we know that 

Alone with ourselves we are whole,

And could be the same with eachother,

Then will we know we are faithful,

And can each give our trust in return.

 

 

 

 

 

 

IS CHRISTMAS WORTH IT?

 

Now that it's over, was this Christmas worth it? The work, the travel delays, the risk of spreading or catching Covid, the worry, the rush, the mess, maybe even the loneliness. Last year we threw ourselves into the pre-vaccine-outdoors-firepit-Christmas. It was a challenge to be met and we met it. 

This year, well, like other years it depends upon our expectations, doesn't it?  If we expected every gift given or received to be just what was wanted, that probably didn't happen.  If we expected no disappointments over who was vaccinated or wasn't, only the most homogeneous families pass that test.  If, on the other hand, all were on best behavior; no disparities among family members emerged; no questions arose, even silent ones, about whose bad habits were evident again; no one drank too much; in other words, if there was not one thing to overlook or minimize or justify:  now that would be a perfect Christmas. 

Or would it?  We would still miss those who are absent, the empty chair or two.  Grief takes no holiday.  We would still remember when we were children ourselves and believed in Santa and fairies and magic; when whatever worries there were weren't our worries.  We would remember, if we're lucky, when there was always a live tree, gigantic and fresh, dripping with old-fashioned ornaments. We would feel time passing, as the children get older and the parents and grandparents come nearer to their final stages.  

Christmas carries so much freight.  Some of us (like me) throw ourselves in to it.  I have Christmas dishes, Christmas candles, Christmas throw pillows . . . . I begin clipping holly and pine boughs the weekend after Thanksgiving. I hang cards on a string. Some others of us, do less.  No tree. Maybe a poinsettia, or a table-top manger.   

But if we expected the angels to sing and the baby to be born we were not disappointed.  If we expected love to shine through every awkwardness or worse, that probably happened.  If we expected forgiveness to be circling like drifting clouds, it's never too late to put that in motion.  If something good happened that wasn't looked for, well that was nice.  If we noticed our blessings--enough to eat, shelter, someone or two showing us love, "Silent Night" by candlelight, a tree and a few presents, the security of faith in a God who is with us in joy and in sorrow--in that case who wouldn't say that Christmas was worth it? 

Who wouldn't say that reaching out and reaching in during the darkest days of winter wasn't the best thing ever to do?  If all you want to know is that a baby is born who on Good Friday will die and on Easter rise again, and that each of us moves from this earth to Eternal Life, then this Christmas was, like all the others, an affirmation.  If all you expect is on this Christmas to give your all for yourself and for those you love, or even just know; to be one with God and creation; to accept your life as it is and make it the best of it that you can, then this Christmas was worth it.  

If you believe no longer in Santa Claus, but in Christ our Savior who is willing to spend every moment of every day by your side, then this Christmas was worth it.  

In peace, Nina Naomi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS WORLD

 

Merry Christmas friends, family, strangers, readers, world.

May God be with you tonight 

And throughout the year.

May your soul find salvation, 

Your body nourishment,

And your heart peace.

May each of us give and receive love with abandon,

Warming to the joys that never cease, 

That live in abundance wherever we take time to look. 

Let us follow all that is good in ourselves

And recognize all that is good in others.

In the name of the baby who will be born again 

In the manger by the time we wake on the morrow. 

AMEN

 

 

 

 

 

THE ART OF LOSING

Helen by a Chair, 1904, Maurice Marinot

ONE ART

by Elizabeth Bishop (Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1956)

The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day.  Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.  The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:  places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel.  None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch.  And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went.  The art of losing isn't hard to master. 

I lost two cities, lovely ones.  And vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.  I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. 

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied.  It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.  

 

DUSK IN WINTER

 

I raise my head and spot her

In her winter coat, chestnut-colored, darker,

Rougher though I've never touched it, never gotten near

(We're merely yards apart).

No fawn to synchronize this time of year,

To mark each flutter, flick of ear.

They're meant to live in tandem, these white-tails.  

But there she is, independent,

Nosing deep for something almost gone.  I'm not here. 

Standing quiet now, now alert, then bends once more to the deed.

She's gone, so nimbly I barely see, sheltered by dusk, her own vigilance

Errless, dancing between bare trees.