Christmas eve 1996
How many Christmas eve church services have I attended? I do not know. How far back does the memory go? That too is lost in the passing of time. I can however remember attending Christmas eve programs at the old Presbyterain church at Tasco. It was a celebration combined with the childrens' program. We may have rode to church in a horse drawn wagon. Maybe not on Christmas eve but we did so many a time. Times were hard and community gatherings were a welcome event. Perhaps the pace was less hurried. Perhaps we celebrated more than the birth of Christ but surely true worship of God was part of the gathering. Oh! that we might turn back the pages of time. Of what avail? Why these pensive moods? It is a season for reflection. Self examination is not easy and honest self examination may often be unpleasant. It has sometimes led to self destruction. Is life then an exercise in frustration? By no means. Man has a source of strength within his grasp. How strange it is that so many reject it. Mankind is doomed to live by the sweat of his brow, but this does not go on forever as if we were on a treadmill going nowhere. The poet Longfellow must have understood this. He both asked and answered this question when he penned "A Psalm of Life." "Tell me not in mournful numbers. Life is but an empty dream?" Next we exert another thought "Life is real, Life is earnest, And the grave is not the goal. Dust thou art to dust returnest was not spoken of the soul." And so it is. We may have melancholy moods but they can serve a purpose that is useful. They can serve us well as a reminder of how selfish we are by nature; but we have a power within our grasp. Grasp it we must or all is lost forever and that dear reader is a long time. Thus it behooves us to: "Go tell the untold millions, Jesus was crucified." I made a hard decision today. The question was really this. Who do I put first, my brother man or myself? There is but one answer and I firmly believe that I made the right choice.