The holidays are running together as time flies. St. Patrick’s Day is coming; so, it’s a perfect time to listen to a new holiday guitar collection – one that recalls Christmas, winter, snow.

Music, especially Christmas tunes, helps me keep a celebratory heart. So, in March, when it seems like the holidays run together, the carols are sweet dividers.

Gentle, quite music a guitar produces delights, soothes, calms.

The craziness of the times; the cacophony that life in all its wonderful wackiness seems on steroids, just like me.

Hearing God Rest You Merry Gentlemen played on a guitar reminds me that Lent, like Advent, are times the liturgical church has set aside so that the seeker and saved, as well as the skeptic, might grapple with the proposition that God became a man, the only man, who restores us to our Maker.

A power greater than I entered life the way I did . . . because  He had compassion on His creation. That’s really the bottom line of what I believe – even when I doubt God is. Now, the guitar music is Carol of the Bells . . . bringing good cheer . . . fades into Santa Claus is Coming to Town: a mellow summation of what I once believed God was like.

Saint Patrick came to believe in Christ; he knew his Savior was no myth. So, his prayer,  which I hope you will read, helps me pray on a lovely March day – to better thoughts and better control over that which I can control: my thoughts and my actions.

I read the words and breathe:

I arise today
Through the strength of heaven;
Light of the sun,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of the wind,
Depth of the sea,
Stability of the earth,
Firmness of the rock.

I arise today
Through God’s strength to pilot me;
. . . 
Afar and anear,
Alone or in a multitude.

Christ shield me today
Against wounding
. . . 

I arise today
Through the mighty strength
Of the Lord of creation.

Yes, the Holidays seem to be running together. So is a lot of stuff in my brain and heart.

I remember a variation of breathing words, and pray:

God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know it’s me.
~Author unknown,variation of an excerpt from “The Serenity Prayer” by Reinhold Neibuhr