Christmas 2020: A Day of Joy in a Season of Covid-19

The Library of Congress

Christmas 2020 is upon us, and
 once again, I would like to share a Christmas Day poem 
by the 19th-century Scottish poet and essayist, 
Robert Louis Stevenson 
reflecting our common humanity:

A Prayer for Christmas Morning

By Robert Louis Stevenson

The day of joy returns, Father in Heaven, and

crowns another year with peace and good will.

Help us rightly to remember the birth of Jesus, that

we may share in the song of the angels, the 

gladness of the shepherds, and the worship of the

wise men.

Close the doors of hate and open the doors of

love all over the world.

Let kindness come with every gift and good

desires with every greeting.

Deliver us from evil, by the blessing that Christ

brings, and teach us to be merry with clean hearts.

May the Christmas morning make us happy to 

be thy children.

And the Christmas evening bring us to our bed

with grateful thoughts, forgiving and forgiven, for 

Jesus's sake.

Amen.

Wishing kind thoughts for a Merry Christmas. 

Although we are of many faiths,

it is important that our common humanity 

allows us to share a season of peace and goodwill.

May each of you stay healthy in the days, weeks and months ahead.

Photo Illustration: 

Christmas Tree at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; by Michael Dickens © 2019. 

Our day of joy returns: A Prayer for Christmas Morning

Christmas 2018 is upon us, and
 once again, I would like to share a Christmas Day poem 
by the 19th-century Scottish poet and essayist, 
Robert Louis Stevenson 
reflecting our common humanity:

A Prayer for Christmas Morning

By Robert Louis Stevenson

The day of joy returns, Father in Heaven, and

crowns another year with peace and good will.

Help us rightly to remember the birth of Jesus, that

we may share in the song of the angels, the 

gladness of the shepherds, and the worship of the

wise men.

Close the doors of hate and open the doors of

love all over the world.

Let kindness come with every gift and good

desires with every greeting.

Deliver us from evil, by the blessing that Christ

brings, and teach us to be merry with clean hearts.

May the Christmas morning make us happy to 

be thy children.

And the Christmas evening bring us to our bed

with grateful thoughts, forgiving and forgiven, for 

Jesus's sake.

Amen.

Wishing kind thoughts for a Merry Christmas. 

Although we are of many faiths,

it is important that our common humanity 

allows us to share a season of peace and goodwill.

Photo illustration: Michael Dickens © 2018.

Thoughts: Of Shakespeare, summer and sonnets

One of my favorite urban escapes is Shakespeare Garden, tucked away near the California Academy of Science and the de Young Fine Arts Museum in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. It's quiet, serene, and meditative. It's filled with shady trees and an abundance of pretty flowers. There's even a sun dial.

The garden is absolutely beautiful. I love, love, love it.

At the entrance to Shakespeare Garden
in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

As the number of remaining summer weekends can be counted on one hand, it only seems fitting to take time out from our hurried lives and think fondly of Shakespeare, sonnets and summer days.

Shakespeare Garden sun dial /
Count only sunny hours.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate;

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date;

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And too often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometimes declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

By thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

~ William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18

Of Shakespeare, summer and sonnets.

The history of Shakespeare Garden in Golden Gate Park dates back to 1928 and was the brainchild of Alice Eastwood, who served as the long-running director of botany for the Academy of Sciences. The California Spring Blossom and Wildflower Association originally established the space as the Garden of Shakespeare's Flowers.

Flowers and plants have always played an important tool of imagery throughout Shakespeare's literary masterpieces. In this Shakespeare Garden, there are over 200 flowers and plants dotting the beautiful and colorful landscape, including: poppies, mandrakes, daisies, violets, lilies and roses.

The quiet and the beauty inside Shakespeare Garden /
Standing near the back wall looking towards the entrance.

All photographs of Shakespeare Garden by Michael Dickens, copyright 2013.

A sacred space is graced with light

Sacred space /Graced With Light

Imagine a series of light pathways that connect heaven and earth, manifest as ribbons.

Graced With Light is a stunning, music-inspired installation created by American visual artist Anne Patterson that incorporates a French Gothic-style cathedral's vaulted ceiling arches.

In engaging audiences through this remarkable creation that synthesizes art and music, light and sound, space and self, Graced With Light, which had its debut last month in San Francisco's Grace Cathedral, brings the beauty of art into a famed sacred space.

Grace Cathedral, whose ancestral parish, Grace Church, was founded in 1849 during the California Gold Rush, has always been a place to belong; a place to explore; a place to go deeper in one's faith. And, Graced With Light, part of a celebration of 100 Years of Music at Grace Cathedral, is designed to grow and change.

As I entered Grace Cathedral on an overcast Easter Sunday morning, I saw the Episcopal cathedral, located on Nob Hill, in a brand new light. What I witnessed was miles upon miles of colorful ribbon ~ 20 miles-worth of shimmering ribbon ~ hand-assembled by Patterson, this year's cathedral artist in residence, with help from the Grace Cathedral community.

Each viewing of Graced With Light will be different thanks to the way in which light reflects inside the cathedral from both the natural ceiling lights as well as from the many colorful stained glass windows.

The message Patterson has conveyed is a personal one ~ and one which left a lasting impression with me. Imagine ribbons carrying our prayers, our dreams and our wishes skyward. And, in return, see grace streaming down the ribbons to each of us.

Graced With Light will be on view at Grace Cathedral through this summer.

To learn more about Graced With Light: http://www.gracecathedral.org/air.