A Christmas Salutation

I salute you!
There is nothing I can give you which you have not.
But there is much, that while I cannot give,
you can take.

No heaven can come to us, unless our hearts find rest in it today.
Take heaven!

No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present instant.
Take peace!

The gloom of the world is but a shadow.
Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy.
Take joy!

And so at this Christmastime, I greet you,
With the prayer that for you, now, and forever,
The day breaks, and the shadows flee away.

~Italian 16th Century Benison