Did heaven look on and would not take their part?

      -  Macduff, on the slaughter of his children, in William Shakespeare's MACBETH. 

Keeping Christmas In Your Heart

In honor of the season, here are a few of my favorite quotes from the Dickens classic A CHRISTMAS CAROL.  They say what needs to be said better than I ever could, or would wish to.

picture by jholbo

There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say ... Christmas among the rest.  But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time ... as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.  And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good and will do me good and I say God bless it!

                                                        - Scrooge's nephew Fred

Business! Mankind was my business.  The common welfare was my business.  Charity, mercy, forbearance and benevolence were all my business.  The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business.

                                  - Marley's Ghost

This boy is Ignorance.  This girl is Want.  Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.  Deny it! ... Slander those who tell it ye!  Admit it for your factious purposes and make it worse!  And bide the end!

                                  - The Ghost of Christmas Present 

 

Priorities

This weekend, I am pushing to finish a paper that's due on Monday.  Suddenly, I realized  something I was supposed to do for a friend that needed to be done today.

"But I've got to get this paper done.  I can't do this thing for my friend.  It's not a matter of life and death for them," I thought to myself.  And then I stopped.  I thought of some recent news about a family member that had reminded me how sudden life and death situations can be.  And I asked myself what mattered more, getting the graduate credit for this class or honoring my friendship.  I chose to honor my friendship.

That graduate paper doesn't have to be perfect, and I probably still have time to get it done.  In the end, friends and family matter more.  I'm not always very good at the niceties of friendships - the cards and little gifts and phone calls that hold a friendship together.  I wish I was better at that.  But in this one small instance, I managed to get my priorities straight, and I'm glad.

With the holidays upon us, remember your priorities.  What will really matter most to you in the end?