Dear Reader:

I decided to keep the angel planter on the porch after the Christmas holidays came to a close last year. It just made me feel good seeing the ivy wrapped around the angel holding her candle (with even a little bird thrown in for good luck)

I have to say that today, however, even the ivy is struggling on the hot porch…might have to find a shady area to place the planter until we, hopefully, get a break from this heat wave that doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to depart our low country.

Every year it seems that less ornaments return to the big box marked “Christmas”… instead they find a home year round in the house or garden. Lots of my Christmas tree angels are now hanging from door knobs, wall hangings, mantles, or placed in house planters. The angels, also, watch over my garden…especially now as it struggles in these three digit heat indexes. They can use all the help they can get.

Surrounding myself year round with angels makes me feel secure and safe….and since reading Marianne Williamson’s definition of an angel (“For angels are God’s thoughts”) it feels good to know that God is thinking about me all the time…and it, also, helps remind me to reciprocate this loving gesture.

Yesterday a book arrived I ordered called All I Really Want by Quinn G. Caldwell.  (Readings for a Modern Christmas) I thought I would plan ahead for the holidays this year and have some great stories to share.

I started reading it last night and it wasn’t exactly what I expected…it was better. Once again…an “A-Ha” moment revealed itself.

The book is broken down into morning and evening readings for each day in December. Each reading consists of a Bible passage, a short reflection, and a prayer. Because action precedes belief, not the other way around, the reading will more often that not include a task for you to do  or at least a question for you to think about. 

Caldwell, also, includes a calendar with ideas to give yourself a little “holy breathing space.” After glancing at the calendar…I got the idea for the title of the blog…”Day by Day.”

The author suggested putting on the song “Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord” from the 1972 musical Godspell (it will really speed up the Christmas tree decorating task) and then, also, to listen to the repetitive stanza from the popular hit from this same musical … “Day by Day.“  Play it each day of the month of December.

(I don’t know if you realize that the lyrics to this song….repeated over and over for emphasis in the number) actually derived from a prayer ascribed to the 13th-century English bishop Saint Richard of Chichester.)

May I know Thee more clearly,
Love Thee more dearly,
Follow Thee more nearly.

You can pull either of these songs off itunes or u-tube from the musical (Godspell) but I, also, discovered a flash  mob recording that the actors, themselves, conducted one day in Times Square during its latest revision on Broadway in 2011 that I , also, love.

Godspell Flash Mob in Times Square – YouTube

My “A-Ha” moment came in the introduction to this little book by the author…who made no apologies for this not being a book on how to ‘simplify the season’…because as he says:

I’m not here to simplify anything for you. *Neither is God. If you have too many cookie exchanges or whatever, you’re just going to have to find a way to deal with that yourself.

This book is actually designed to complicate the season. It’s here to invite you to think and pray a little more deeply about it…not organize it all until it fits into your schedule.

The Christmas season is a time when churchgoers and non-churchgoers alike tend to experience strong spiritual longings. Whatever this longing looks like on the outside, for most of us, deep down it’s a longing for an experience of something holy, something beautiful. Something like God.

So although this book is here to add things for you to do, not take them away…I hope that the doing of them will create room-maybe just enough room- for God to show up. 

I don’t know about you, but this year, that’s all I really want.

…………………..

As you can already tell, the author has a wonderful sense of humor mixed with a strong sense of spirituality, wonder, and devotion to God.

So here I am…having Christmas in June on the blog…not even July. (though it certainly feels like it.) Why? Because I want to…(nothing too complicated about that)…I decided today I wanted Christmas and if I am lucky I will want it again tomorrow and the next day and the rest of my life.

So until tomorrow…Let us remember that the only “simplifying” in our lives that we actually need to do..is to simply make more room for God in our life.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*Kaitlyn has a wonderful sense of humor and I did get some chuckles out of this photo, along with the Dr. Seuss saying:

We all are a little weird and life’s a little weird and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours we join up…
And then we fall in mutual weirdness and call it love. -Dr. Seuss 😘 — with Tommy Dingle.

* Don’t you love honesty when it comes out of complete exhaustion…the best kind!

* Look at these adorable fairies Honey sculpted and put in her breathtaking garden beside the waterfall….I love that beautiful spot in the mountains!