Helen Steiner Rice

In 1993 my in-laws gifted me a book called CHRISTMAS BLESSINGS by the author Helen Steiner Rice. Do you remember her and her works?

Ms. Rice is and was known for her spiritual poetry about God’s wisdom, blessings and love. Even though I received this book in the 1990s, the original printing of it was in the 1940s.

I went to a concert the other night and got there early to get a good seat and had brought the book along to kill time. I was struck by the relevance of some of her words and images, almost as though they had been written today. This one, I share:

A CHRISTMAS PRAYER FOR PEACE

We pray to thee, our Father, as Christmas comes again,

For peace among all nations and goodwill among all men.

Give us strength and courage to search ourselves inside

And recognize our vanity, our selfishness and pride.

For the struggle of all ages is centered deep within

Where each man has a private war that his own soul must win.

For a world of peace and plenty of which all men have dreamed,

Can only be attained and kept when the spirit is redeemed.

The use of “men and he and him” in today’s verbiage would likely be redesigned to be more equitable to the genders, however the message rings loudly and clearly in this sometimes selfish, arrogant and divided society we live in.

O come, Emmanuel, make all things new!! AMEN.