Take Joy!

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 Christmas time, I greet you,
with the prayer that for you, now and forever, 
the day breaks and the shadows flee away.
          -Fra Giovanni Giocondo

This bit of verse is commonly attributed to a guy named Giovanni Giocondo.  I'd never heard of him prior to stumbling upon this piece in Tasha Tudor's Christmas collection recently.  The story goes that Giocondo wrote this in a letter to a Countess on Christmas Eve 1513, to reassure and comfort her.  I can't speak for her, but I know that I loved it.  The empowering internal language makes my heart soar with hope and light.  We all have so much potential to realize.  So much within us already, waiting to be seized, to be taken, to be set free.  

We have everything we need if we can remember it and reach for it.  Take heaven.  Take Peace.  Take Joy.  They're possible for each of us and not just in a remote and distant way, but in an active present one.  I love that.