16 December 2017

The Promises of Christmas ~ Good Will to Men

Happy Christmas Dear Reader,

I wonder if we really ponder what it is to have good will toward each other.  It could be as simple as having a good predisposition toward others.  It is as complex as laying aside what we are told to think about each other and obeying the command to love everyone.

It is as easy as choosing to be kind to everyone you encounter.  I have written about my “share my table” sign that I use at a local coffee house where I go to write.  The last three times I have been there someone has come to share my table.  That sign proclaims a promise to all who see it: “I offer you good will.  Join me if you wish.”

In the acceptance of that invitation I have made friends with a pastor, a cartographer, and an astrophysicist.  My life has been so very enriched by just leaving the door ajar.  The small promise of welcome at my table is a part of the greater promise of Christmas that I try to embody all year. 

We need to have constant good will toward each other.  It is vital to getting the world back to good.  It is easier than one would think.  I have mentioned in this series letting go of the past.  We must also not collect any ill will along the way.  If others have it seek to heal the situation if you can.  Do not take up the gauntlet of new burdens born by ill will.

We can change the world.  We can get to good.  We must first determine that we will be the difference.  We will have good will to everyone.  The promise of Christmas is that God has this toward us.  We should in turn pass it on to each other.

Old City Bar – Trans-Siberian Orchestra

In an old city bar
That is never too far
From the places that gather
The dreams that have been

In the safety of night
With its old neon light
It beckons to strangers
And they always come in

And the snow it was falling
The neon was calling
The music was low
And the night
Christmas Eve

And here was the danger
That even with strangers
Inside of this night
It's easier to believe

Then the door opened wide
And a child came inside
That no one in the bar
Had seen there before

And he asked did we know
That outside in the snow
That someone was lost
Standing outside our door

Then the bartender gazed
Through the smoke and the haze
Through the window and ice
To a corner streetlight

Where standing alone
By a broken pay phone
Was a girl the child said
Could no longer get home

And the snow it was falling
The neon was calling
The bartender turned
And said, not that I care
But how would you know this?
The child said I've noticed
If one could be home
They'd be already there

Then the bartender came out from behind the bar
And in all of his life he was never that far
And he did something else that he thought no one saw
When he took all the cash from the register draw

Then he followed the child to the girl cross the street
And we watched from the bar as they started to speak
Then he called for a cab and he said J.F.K.
Put the girl in the cab and the cab drove away
And we saw in his hand
That the cash was all gone
From the light that she had wished upon

If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last

By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask

Then he looked for the child
But the child wasn't there
Just the wind and the snow
Waltzing dreams through the air

So he walked back inside
Somehow different I think
For the rest of the night
No one paid for a drink

And the cynics will say
That some neighborhood kid
Wandered in on some bums
In the world where they hid

But they weren't there
So they couldn't see
By an old neon star
On that night, Christmas Eve

When the snow it was falling
The neon was calling
And in case you should wonder
In case you should care

Why we're on our own
Never went home
On that night of all nights
We were already there

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn
Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store.”

(͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

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