Have a Blessed Christmas!

“Silent Night”

WE HAVE TIME by OCTAVIAN PALER

I don’t know if you ever heard about OCTAVIAN PALER ? He was a Romanian Journalist, a most respectable one. He died last year, age 80. Click on his name to read some lines about his bibliography.

One of his most known and wonderful writing is “WE HAVE TIME…” (“Avem timp…” – the original title – in romanian). Click on the romanian flag to read the romanian version on Shalom – Jurnal de Pace.

BUT,

If you don’t speak romanian, I invite you to read this writing in english, on another wordpress weblog, host by Aurel Mateescu. I am sure you will not regret. Click HERE to open this weblog and scroll down because the english version is under the romanian one.

GABRIEL GARCIA MARQUEZ – A FAREWELL LETTER

Gabriel Garcia Marquez has retired from public life due to health reasons: cancer of the lymph nodes. It seems that it is getting worse. He has sent his farewell letter to his friends, which has been translated and posted on the Internet. Please read and forward to any who might enjoy it. This is possibly, sadly, one of the last gifts to humanity from a true master. This short text, written by one of the most brilliant Latin Americans in recent times, is truly moving.

A Farewell Letter

If for an instant God were to forget that I am rag doll and gifted me with a piece of life, possibly I wouldn’t say all that I think, but rather I would think of all that I say.I would value things, not for their worth but for what they mean.

I would sleep little, dream more, understanding that for each minute we close our eyes we lose sixty seconds of light.

I would walk when others hold back. I would wake when others sleep.I would listen when others talk, and how I would enjoy a good chocolate ice cream!

If God were to give me a piece of life, I would dress simply,throw myself face first into the sun, baring not only my body but also my soul.

My God, if I had a heart, I would write my hate on ice, and wait for the sun to show.Over the stars I would paint with a Van Gogh dream a Benedetti poem, and a Serrat song would be the serenade I’d offer to the moon.

With my tears I would water roses, to feel the pain of their thorns, and the red kiss of their petals.My God, if I had a piece of life…

I wouldn’t let a single day pass without telling the people I love that I love them.I would convince each woman and each man that they are my favorites, and I would live in love with love.

I would show men how very wrong they are to think that they cease to be in love when they grow old, not knowing that they grow old when they cease to love!

To a child I shall give wings, but I shall let him learn to fly on his own.I would teach the old that death does not come with old age, but with forgetting.

So much have I learned from you, oh men…I have learned that everyone wants to live on the peak of the mountain, without knowing that real happiness is in how it is scaled.I have learned that when a newborn child squeezes for the first time with his tiny fist his father’s finger, he has him trapped forever.

I have learned that a man has the right to look down on another only when he has to help the other get to his feet.
From you I have learned so many things, but in truth they won’t be of much use, for when I keep them within this suitcase, unhappily shall I be dying.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
from: http://www.perryland.com/inspire5.shtml

IF by Rudyard Kipling

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You can listen and wacth Dennis Hopper reciting IF by Rudyard Kipling in a youtube file, below:

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

the you tube file is copied from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AJqESdw7xs

Joseph Rudyard Kipling (December 30, 1865 – January 18, 1936) was an English author and poet, born in Bombay, India, and best known for his works The Jungle Book (1894), The Second Jungle Book (1895), Just So Stories (1902), and Puck of Pook’s Hill (1906); his novel, Kim (1901); his poems, including Mandalay (1890), Gunga Din (1890), and “If—” (1910); and his many short stories, including “The Man Who Would Be King” (1888) and the collections Life’s Handicap (1891), The Day’s Work (1898), and Plain Tales from the Hills (1888). He is regarded as a major “innovator in the art of the short story”; his children’s books are enduring classics of children’s literature; and his best work speaks to a versatile and luminous narrative gift.Kipling was one of the most popular writers in English, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

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THE BUTTERFLY AND THE FLOWER

 

God always knows what we need, and He knows that better that we do. He wants only THE BEST for us, due to His amazing, huge love. So, the only thing we need is TO ENTIRELY TRUST in His love, power and wisdom