A Merry Christmas
and
Happy New
Year
From
The Sadony Family
In the Valley of the Pines
EVERY MAN
can be happy, and it
Is our duty to seek and
find how.
This is the 8th
PINE TREE BOOKLET
and its contents are
copyrighted 1929
By Joseph A. Sadony
Christmas and New Year
Valley of the Pines
Dear Friends,
Is there anything more
appropriate we can say then that in the garden of our memory you have planted
seeds that have blossomed, and exhale the fragrant odor of friendship and love;
and that this is the season to harvest by expression.
Let us learn to
appreciate our blessings, and forget our past mistakes. Let us try to understand the problems of our
friends. Why not criticise our own
short-comings today for tomorrow’s Success, instead of that of our friends, at
our expense of losing them because we are blind to their good influence.
Perhaps we may need their eyes and ears just at a time when we are blind, deaf,
or asleep while our wings still remain outstretched on our progress through
life.
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Let us go back a few years, and recall our heart’s wishes, and
see if we have forgotten how they have come to pass, and how the golden opportunity
realized is still pure gold, only covered with the dust of thoughtless lack of
appreciation.
If God be your highest ideal, strive to
still understand. If it be Love, give it
to retain it. If Wealth, do not destroy its value for purchasing happiness. We
think so little of real thought,--but too often of the selfish suggestions of
others, of approval, or apprehension to displease, in fear of being exposed of
sins committed that were but good intentions adulterated by the false opinion
of saintly sinners.
Let us invite our own self for meditation,
and review our accomplishments which our enemies try to surround with a
smoke-screen of criticism, envy and jealousy. Let us check up and see how
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far
ahead we are of those leaders who started at the same tape and time in our
youth, and see how little we have to wish for but what we already possess,
though unaware of it.
Just try this form of relaxation, and see
if you cannot send yourself a far more
valuable Christmas and New Year card than you have ever received on this
Holiday: so very appropriate for this occasion,
for if the impulse or spirit accompany the deed, or card, what shall be
its personality? Was it a Christmas
cheer, but only a false costume? - For to refuse may be to bring down on us the
condemnation and criticism of the recipient.
At
least if we search our human structure, we can easily find many new suits, of
clothes forgotten; canned goods of food; and many an unopened love-letter and
invitation from those whom we have condemned for their silence.
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These things appear very simple, but they
are the most important things in life – just as important as the expert
accountant in our banks; for if we forget our achievements, how know we when we
have arrived at our destination, the ambition of our Youth?
That is my Christmas wish to you, so you
may know all the good things you possess and have forgotten; and that is why we
love you, because we know.
So try it and see what a really New Year
you will have.
Always your Friend,
Joseph Sadony
Christmas Spirit
YOU must admit that there is
a greater purpose in life than merely to accumulate whims, finance or ambitions.
For these are but vehicles to greater purposes and acquirements.
These things are but sharp-edged tools to carve our names on
tombstones representing milestones we have erected as a blazed trail: others to
have faith in us, and we to welcome them for that faith.
We cannot deny some weakness in our
make-up. Can it be the inspiration of our soul’s Identity, and our denial, not
yet having caught our breath because of our struggles to achieve in the Jungle
of the masses?
Can we afford to sit in silence long enough
to question or analyze what next step to take by the help of that compass
within the brain of reason and logic?
Is it not our personal responsibility to
place everything we possess rightly, as we would were we to play chess with
human chess men?
Surely these things, if they be right and
just, will beget harmony and happiness. What more is there, if not that same
thing that has thrilled every nation under the sun since men learned how to
think, if it is not that subtle longing to believe in Immortality, whether we
will or not.
Have not the greatest arrogant powers tried
to strangle and abolish these principles – and still sought them at Death’s
door, to gain admittance?
And of these thoughts are we reminded once
a year, in spite of ourselves, by the SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS.
THE CROSS REVERSED
There were those who believed in
Jesus, and Him crucified.
The children of those followers of Christ
went at first to pray and worship at the Cross.
But they soon forgot. The cross
rotted at the foot; until at last, from neglect, it fell down.
From the next generation there
came a philosopher in whose breast stirred a half-forgotten memory as he saw it
laying there.
“It
seemed to me that this should be standing,” he mused. So he dug a hole, but
planted the cross upside down, head buried in the earth, jagged end up, -- a
symbol of the dagger – a rotted finger pointing towards the sky.
The blood of Jesus, caught in the cup,
turned upside down and sank into the earth. Therefore, white lilies sprang up
spotted with red: even Nature lifting
the blood towards the sky, saying--------------------------
“FATHER,
SEE!”
V
A MOTHER WAS
weeping over a
dead child.
The Master came by and
said, “Why weepest thou?”
The mother replied that the spark of life
and love in her child had gone.
The Master said, “If thou hadst loved me,
thou wouldst not have lost that love. Thou wouldst have lost nothing. For I am
that love in that child.”
If the world would understand these
things, there would have been no loss: - for love returns only to the giver.
This
booklet was done into print by
hand at THE VALLEY PRESS
which is the private Press
of
JOSEPH A. SADONY