Today is Epiphany, the official end to the Christmas season. Have you taken your Christmas decorations down? Ours are scheduled to go back into hiding today. When I was a child, I was so sad about Christmas being over that I made a chain of 365 paper rings to count down until the next Christmas. What an astonishing display of industry! By mid-summer I was sick of it and threw it away.

Here are a few words from my Commonplace book to enrich your day. You’re welcome.

Every day, we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and if possible, speak a few sensible words.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

If you haven’t gotten started on that today yet, get going!

We are masters of the unsaid words,
but slaves of those we let slip out.
Winston Churchill

I go into “babble mode” sometimes when there’s too much silence in a conversation. Words slip out and there are regrets.

Discipline is choosing between what you want now,
and what you want most.
Abraham Lincoln

Words to encourage you when it’s 20 degrees out and you’d rather stay home than go swim laps. Oh, I guess that’s just me.

It’s a sin to be boring.
Elisabeth Elliot

The trouble is, when we’re being boring, we don’t always KNOW we’re being boring. See above about “babble mode.” But point taken, Elisabeth. I suspect that if you do what Wolfgang said above, you will never be boring.

Let’s pretend that’s an exquisite picture and you can cross that off Wolfgang’s list. And just to show you how much I care about you, I’ll end this with a “good” poem. Now all you have to do is hear a little song and say a few sensible words. You’re on your own for that.

I’ve often repeated
This might be deleted.
You should believe me
I wouldn’t deceive thee.

Christmas music plays quietly in the background as I write this. The day is still dark, the room lit up by the Christmas tree. I just read the entire book of Ephesians in one sitting and am filled with wonder at the kindness of God in making me one of His own, one of His beloved. So let’s start off with something from that book, a prayer that I would pray for you if I knew you, especially if I knew that you were still wandering in darkness.

I pray also that the eyes of your heart would be enlightened, that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and His incomparably great power toward us who believe.
Ephesians 1:18-19

I remember reading through Ephesians as a new Christian and being absolutely transported by the beauty, eloquence and poetry of Paul’s prose. And the Holy Spirit gave them wings in my heart.

I promise you that joy
runs deeper than despair.
Corrie Ten Boom

Repeat those words often when you need them.

If you want to know where your heart is,
look to where your mind goes when it wanders.
Walt Whitman

Very revealing!

The best way to shorten winter is to prolong Christmas.
GK Chesterton

And now, a quote from the poet Luci Shaw, who died on December 1 of this year.

Planting seeds
inevitably
changes my feelings
about rain.
Luci Shaw

So much packed into so few words – that’s fine wordsmithy right there.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning…or will I?