Eric Sevareid was a talented writer who spent most of his life as a radio and TV
journalist working with Edward R. Murrow during World War II as part of “a band
of brothers” and later at CBS-TV in its glory days. He was a hero and a role
model to me.
Herewith,
excerpts from Sevareid’s essay:
"Christmas
offers us peace in one hand but in the other it carries a sword. The peace it
offers is the love we felt in childhood and may still feel again if we have
lived our lives as we were instructed in our early days. The sword is our
conscience, glittering as sharply as the icicles on the Christmas tree.
"Christmas
is an anticipation for the children; it is memory for most adults. It fastens
the grip of truth upon us and will not let us go. Implacably it demands of us
that we regard our work and what we have made of our lives, our country and our
world.
"By
the glow of the soft lights, by the sound of child voices in song, piercing us
with an almost unendurable purity, we are obliged to remember that our first
and only commandment was to love, and we have not truly obeyed; that men were
so commanded not to improve them, but to save them from themselves, and we have
not truly understood.
"Of
course, we say as the moment of truth approaches, 'Christmas is really for the
children.' Suffer the little children to take this burden from us.
"Perhaps,
were we to know the realities of our own deepest motivations, we would conclude
that this is why we have made of the Christmas occasion an immensely
complicated business. It is the sheer busyness of Christmas, not so much its
commercialization, that has changed its forms and rituals. Perhaps we have lost
not only the art of simplicity but the desire for it as well. But not, I think,
in our deepest beings. And as long as we know in our hearts what Christmas
ought to be, then Christmas is.
"The
sophisticated may belittle the almost assembly-line transaction of the printed
Christmas cards that swamp our parlors in piles and windows. It is impersonal,
yes, as compared with the old-fashioned family trek down the street for
greetings at the door. But each little square or rectangular printed card is a
signal of human recognition, a reassurance that we live in part, at least, of
their consciousness, however small a part, and so are not alone...
"We
cannot live, in our families, in our nations or in the world, if we cannot open
our hearts. I do not know how this compressed, elbowing and suspicious world is
to go on in peace if this cannot be done. I see no ultimate security in any
'balance of power' or 'balance of terror' peace. We know instinctively that in
the end only a peace through a balance of kindness will preserve us...
"There
are a few words I read every time the Christmas season comes around...[perhaps]
written by Fra Giovanni in the year 1513...which sometimes I think of as the
most perfect passage in our language...
"'There
is nothing I can give you which you have not; but there is much that, while I
cannot give you, 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 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.'"
From
Sevareid, long gone now, and me, wishes to all for a day of heaven, peace and
joy.
Thank you for sharing this and thank you for your blog. I look forward to every post.
ReplyDeleteHeaven, peace and joy to you Robert.
ReplyDelete