“”In all things we should try to make ourselves be as grateful as possible. For gratitude is a good thing for ourselves, in a manner in which justice, commonly held to belong to others, is not. Gratitude pays itself back in large measure.” Seneca, Moral Letters, 81.19

Think of all the things you can be grateful for today. That you are alive, that you live in a time primarily of peace, that you have enough health and leisure to read this.. What of the little things? The person who smiled at you, the woman who held the door open, that song you like on the radio, the pleasant weather.
Gratitude is infectious. Its positivity is radiant.
Even if today was your last day on earth – if you knew in advance that it was going to end in a few short hours – would there still be plenty to be grateful for? How much better would your life be if you kicked off every day like that? If you let it carry through from morning to night and touch every part of your life?”

From The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman

“Real rest feels like every cell is thanking you for taking care of you. It’s calm, not full of checklists and chores. It’s simple: not multitasking; not fixing broken things.”

Jennifer Williamson

“O noble Love, do in me Your holy will in all things
My life and my death belong to you.
May you make of me one of those spirits tuned to perfect praise
Who let God be God in silence.”

Hadewijch of Antwerp, 13th century mystic

“If you have patience, then you’ll also have love. Patience leads to love. If you forcefully open the petals of a bud, you won’t be able to enjoy its beauty and fragrance. Only when it blossoms by following its natural course, will the beauty and fragrance of a flower unfold.”

Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, known as Amma

Christmas Day

“It is in the simplicity of your ordinary walk that you have to find the secret, which is hidden from so many, of something great and new: love.”

Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer y Albás (1902 – 1975)

“Lord, may we all love Your creation-
All the earth and every grain of sand in it.
May we love every leaf, every ray of Your light.
For we acknowledge to You that all life is
Like an ocean, all is flowing and blending
And that to withhold any measure of
Love from anything in Your universe
Is to withhold the same measure from You.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, novelist (1821 – 1881)

“Is there anything that can take from you the hope of being someday in the God you are helping to create in each attentive act of love?

Please celebrate this Christmas with the earnest faith that He may need this very anguish of yours in order to begin. These very days that are such a trial for you may well be the time when everything in you is working at Him, as once you so urgently did as a child. Be patient and without resentment, and know that the least we can do is make His Becoming no more difficult than Earth makes it for spring when it wants to arrive. Be comforted and be glad.”

From Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, Rome, 23 December 1903

“If you want to love, take the time to listen to your heart. In most ancient and wise cultures it is a regular practice for people to talk to their heart. There are rituals, stories, and meditative skills in every spiritual tradition that awaken the voice of the heart. To live wisely, this practice is essential, because our heart is the source of our connection to and intimacy with all of life. And life is love. This mysterious quality of love is all around us, as real as gravity… Yet how often we forget about love.”

Jack Kornfield

Winter Solstice

“As the nights grow longer and all of nature seems to sleep, the rebirth of the sun draws near. The Winter Solstice, in the northern hemisphere at least, is a time of crackling fires, faery lights in the trees and deep, silent rest. Now is our chance to look within and enjoy spiritual hibernation, peace and renewal. The seeds of our future, resting in the rich earth, need this period of stillness, as do we.

This modern holiday season can also be a hectic time, when the stresses and strains of life keep us locked away from nature and more natural ways of being. The Winter Solstice, when the world appears to stand still, can serve as a moment out of time, an opportunity to reconnect with our own souls once again. As we mark the descent of the seasonal wheel and the height of the year’s darkness, we realize that the light and warmth of the sun will soon be returned to us…

If we now go within, into the deep caves of our own psyches, our instinct to seek quiet and warmth can lead to our regeneration, allowing us to enter the new year with renewed vigour and enthusiasm.”

From The Magical Year by Danu Forest

International Human Solidarity Day

“Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitariness and pride of power and with its pleas for the weak. Christians are doing too little to make these points clear rather than too much. Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offence, shock the world far more than they are doing now. Christians should take a stronger stand in favour of the weak rather than considering first the possible right of the strong.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 – 1945), executed by the Nazis for his stance against them, quoted in Christian Mystics by Matthew Fox