Take. Have. Be.

Last night Miss Dog Lover and I watched the 2015 Cinderella. If you've seen it you probably remember the oft-repeated theme quote: Have courage and be kind. We had a stormy night and the wind rumbled the phrase through my head as I slept or tossed. 

I keep thinking about the words have and be. It is along the lines of:

 “To be is to do”—Socrates.
“To do is to be”—Jean-Paul Sartre.
“Do be do be do”—Frank Sinatra.

 but 

why do we say have one and be the other? Seems it must be that the being flows from what we have. And maybe the have is a matter of reaching up and plucking what we've been given in Christ so that we can live in a manner pleasing to Him. 

I also think of the little word take. One of my favorite books, Tasha Tudor's Take Joy, derives its title from Fra Giovanni's Christmas prayer: 

I salute you! There is nothing I can give you which you have not; but there is much that, while I cannot give, 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 the present moment. Take Peace.
The gloom of the world is but a shadow; behind it, yet within our reach is joy. Take Joy!
And so, at this Christmas time, I greet you, with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and the shadows flee away.

It is the Lord of life Who tells us to take heart:  I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world. ~ John 16:33. We become more like Him when we take the things that have been given.