These brief meditations incorporate the hope, celebration, love, compassion, and blessing of the Christmas season and encourage us to find them throughout the year. Features include the poem, "The Work of Christmas,": "When the song of the angels is stilled, When the star in the sky is gone...The Work of Christmas begins..."; and "I Will Light Candles This Christmas,": "Candles of joy, despite all sadness, Candles of hope where despair keeps watch. Candles of courage for fears ever present, Candles of peace for tempest-tossed days..."
"I know that the experiences of unity in human relations are more compelling than the concepts, the fears, the prejudices, which divide. Despite the tendency to feel my race superior, my nation the greatest nation, my faith the true faith, I must beat down the boundaries of my exclusiveness until my sense of separateness is completely enveloped in a sense of fellowship. I will light the candle of fellowship this Christmas, a candle that must burn all the year long." - The Mood of Christmas & Other Celebrations by Howard Thurman

Howard Thurman (1900-1981) was an African American theologian, pastor, and civil rights leader. He served as the dean of the chapel at both Howard and Boston universities and was a founder and co-pastor of the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco, California. Thurman's many books include Jesus and the Disinherited (1949) and Disciplines of the Spirit (1963).