Monthly Archives: August 2014

457. When you bow deeply to the universe, it bows back; when you call out the name of God, it echoes inside you. ~Morihei Ueshiba

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Divine Protector! let my prayer
Be wafted on the morning air,
Bright as the bird that soars on high,
Light as the breeze which fans the sky,
Swift as the light’ning through the air…
All nature flows in rapturous lay,
Life beams in one eternal ray…
The prayer of soul—the soul of prayer,
How unrestrained upon the air,
As perfume from the beauteous flower
Is breathed in sweetness more than power,
So let our incense fill the air
With deep humility and prayer.
~Mrs. H. A. Adams

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Lord, oh beautiful and beloved Lord
Fill me with Your Heavenly Peace
Hold me in Your calm, strong embrace
and fill me with Heaven

I stand before You
tired and weary
Lift me into the quiet room
of Your Heart
and let me rest
in Your Love

Lord, oh beautiful and beloved Lord
Fill me with Your Heavenly Peace
I have walked through a storm today
and I need the stillness of Your Heart

Let me hold Your Hand, dear Lord
and walk with me
I am a vessel for Your Love
but today,
I need You to carry me

Lord, oh beautiful and beloved Lord
Fill me with Your Heavenly Peace
Hold me in Your calm, strong embrace
and fill me with Heaven
Prayer by Trini at: http://pathsofthespirit.wordpress.com/2014/08/14/may-you-have-peace/

Hear me when I call, O God of righteousness! You have relieved me in my distress; Have mercy on me, and hear my prayer. Psalm 4:1    ✝

Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you save, you heal, you restore, and you reveal Your Father’s heart to us! May I dwell in Your holy presence and praise Your name for all that you have given and done.

** Image via loveliegreenie.tumblr.com

 

456. Grace is the celebration of life, relentlessly hounding all the non-celebrants in the world. ~Robert Farrar Capon, Episcopal priest and author

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She, a sapphire queen,
sits perched atop
her throne of green
filling her cup
with day’s holy gleam.
~Natalie Scarberry

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“We need to learn to enjoy life more. We should relax, remembering that Immanuel, God is with us, is always present. He crafted His people with enormous capacity to know Him and enjoy His Presence, and when His people wear sour faces and walk through their lives with resigned rigidity, He is displeased. But when they walk through the day with childlike delight, savoring every blessing, they proclaim their trust in Him, their ever-present Shepherd. The more they focus on His Presence with them, the more fully they can enjoy life. And if they glorify Him through their pleasure in Him, they, thus, proclaim His presence to the in-need, watching world.” ~Edited passage from a devotional by Sarah Young

The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I(Jesus) have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.  “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.” John 10:10-11    ✝

Thank you, Jesus, that you save, you heal, you restore, and you reveal Your Father’s heart to us! May I dwell in Your holy presence and praise Your name for all that you have given and done.

455. For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life. ~Albert Camus

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People usually consider
walking on water or in thin air a miracle.
But I think the real miracle is not
to walk either on water or in thin air,
but to walk on earth.
Every day we are engaged in a miracle
which we don’t even recognize:
a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves,
the black, curious eyes of a child —
our own two eyes. All is a miracle.
~Thich Nhat Hanh

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Did you hear them? There were explosions, lots and lots of big explosions! And yet there were no bombs falling from above, no heat seeking missiles flying through space, no rapid fire from automatic weapons, nor the noisy advance of charging legions. Rather there were the quiet explosions of life that I’m blessed to witness every morning in my yard. In lieu of bombs and missiles and guns, there are the bursts of light at dawn, the fluttering of avian wings, the buzz of nectaring bees, the dancing rhythms of butterflies, the sizzle of the sun, the gentle zephyrs that ruffle leaves, the bursting open of blossoms, the purring of furry felines, the hopping of grasshoppers and toads, the slithering of lizards and snakes and on and on and on it goes…Life, too wondrous and thrilling and miraculous for a mere mortal’s words.

Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? ~Galatians 3:5   ✝

Thank you, Jesus, that you save, you heal, you restore, and you reveal Your Father’s heart to us! May I dwell in Your holy presence and praise Your name for all that you have given and done.

454. Faith is the bird that sings when the dawn is still dark. ~Rabindranath Tagore

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Faith in God is the gift
that takes us beyond our limited self,
with all its incessant demands.
It opens us to a life that stretches us,
enlightens us, and it springs surprise upon us.
Such faith, like love, sees that which
is invisible and lives by it.
~Vincent Nichols

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Holy Life-Giver,

Doctor of the desperate,
Healer of everyone broken past hope,
Medicine for all wounds,
Fire of love,
Joy of hearts,
fragrant Strength,
sparkling Fountain,
Protector,
Penetrator,
in You we contemplate
how God goes looking for those who are lost
and reconciles those who are at odds with Him.

You bring people together.
You curl clouds, whirl winds,
send rain on rocks, sing in creeks,
and the lush earth green.
You teach those who listen,
breathing joy and wisdom into them.

We praise You for these gifts,
Light-giver,
Sound of joy,
Wonder of being alive,
Hope of every person,
and our strongest Good.

~St. Hildegard of Bingen

The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid? ~Psalm 27:1   ✝

Thank you, Jesus, that you save, you heal, you restore, and you reveal Your Father’s heart to us! May I dwell in Your holy presence and praise Your name for all you have given.

** Image via Pinterest

453. I like the serendipitous surprises of reality. ~Lawrence Wright

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I believe in the surprises of the Holy Spirit.
~L. J. Suenens

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A surprise! An unexpected or astonishing event, fact, or thing; something that causes one to feel wonder, astonishment, or amazement. And what happened at my house yesterday fits the description of all those things! It had been and still was a bright, sunny August Sabbath with a temperature that had soared up to 105, and then out of the blue, literally, in mid-afternoon it began to pour down rain. The sun was still shining brightly as the rain fell, and right here in my backyard a rainbow appeared. Sadly my camera was in the other room, and I couldn’t get it fast enough to take a picture of our personal little rainbow, but I did get a picture through the screen of my big patio doors of the rainy and sunny scene outside. Another interesting phenomena was that there were only two fairly good gusts of wind as it rained, but one of them was powerful enough to lift my neighbor’s backyard patio umbrella up off her deck and cast it over her house into the front yard. The rain only lasted about 3 or 4 minutes, but it was like manna falling from heaven for one as starved for the sight of rain as I. It may not have rained a lot or even enough to green up our parched land, but it was more than enough to bless our eyes, restore our hope that rain will come again, and make us smile about the rainbow and freakish umbrella incident.

**Don’t be misled by how green my yard looks; I spend a lot of money watering my “babies.” But the land around us is very parched and brown as it always is during August.

By the God of your father who will help you, and by the Almighty who will bless you with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies beneath, blessings of the breasts and of the womb. ~Genesis 49:25    ✝

Thank you, Jesus, that you save, you heal, you restore, and you reveal Your Father’s heart to us! May I dwell in Your holy Presence and praise Your holy name for that all you have given.

452. She told me about rolling hills covered with cornfields and treeless miles of land without water. ~A. LaFaye

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I have no hostility to nature,
but a child’s love to it.
I expand and live in
the warm day like corn and melons.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

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August is upon us now with its usual dry nastiness and so the “parcels of corn” have indeed become “brown and sere.” Though their yield was harvested some time ago and the plants left to die under the blistering summer sun, I think their golden-brown, curled flag-leaves create a kind of unique beauty. And now that the farmers have begun the process of removing the dry, dead remains, even the barren, stub-filled fields have an intriguing eye-appeal. Although both my parents were raised on farms in farming communities, I had my very first experience with growing a crop like corn a few summers ago when our daughter and her husband decided to sow some corn in their inner city garden. Once the seedlings got going, it seemed like almost every day for a while that the stalks grew taller and taller. Then as the tassels appeared, the stalks began to buzz with the constant hum of more honey bees than I’ve ever seen in a suburban garden. Later on when the pale yellow silks started emerging, our excitement heightened again as the bees buzzed on harvesting the huge amounts of yellowish pollen falling from the floppy tassels. At that point I became so fascinated by the goings on that I went to the internet and was truly dumfounded to read that each piece of pollen that lands on a silk produces only one of the two to four hundred kernels that typically appear on a single ear of corn. How amazing is that! When it was all said and done, not only was their small crop of corn the tastiest any of us had ever eaten, but it also aroused in us and our offspring a sense of respect for the generations of farmers within our family lineage as well as for the ancient civilizations whose cultures had had a marked and ongoing influence on the global landscape. But more than anything, we marveled, as we always do, at the wonders of Creation and its Maker.

May the people praise you, O God; may all the people praise you. Then the land will yield its harvest, and God, our God will bless us. ~Psalm 67:5-7   ✝

Thank you, Jesus, that you save, you heal, you restore, and you reveal Your Father’s heart to us! You have captured me with grace and I’m caught in Your infinite embrace! Like Saint Hildegard Lord, may I too be a feather on your holy breath and spread, like seeds, the gospel abroad.

Interacting Impeccably

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Luggage Lady/Shauna Dickinson's avatarLUGGAGE Lady

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With every word spoken

Opportunity unfolds

A magical mechanism

Weaving the story of our days

Intent

Feelings

Dreams

Who we truly are

An unparalleled energy force

Powerful seeds planted in fertile minds

Yet, a profound choice exists:

Engage the world with integrity

or

Dampen the spirits of each soul we encounter

♥ ♥ ♥

Imagine the exhilarating, cumulative impact

If we chose to:

Vanquish negativity

Shun gossip

Eliminate needless emotional poison

Harnessing this uniquely human gift

By honoring our word

Sharing only truth and love

Leaving hearts full

And smiles wide

Infusing glee

Interacting Impeccably…

♥ ♥ ♥

Inspired by Don Miguel Ruiz’s book, The Four Agreements — an absolutely brilliant read I cannot recommend highly enough! 💞

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451. Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
Achieve at times a very star-like start.
~Robert Frost

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But wait, there’s yet another that “achieves at ties a very star-like start,” and it began blooming here this week. Though called Sweet Autumn Clematis, this handsome climbing vine displays its billowy masses of fragrant white flowers here in August. And when it does, the twining vine is one alluring diva that makes a very impressive statement. For when it blooms in the garden, it is blessed with an incredible number of small, star-shaped blossoms which form a white fleece-like blanket that drapes beautifully over large rocks, chain-link fences, arbors, pergolas, or even a dangling birdhouse. So as the “lovely stars” blossom in the “infinite meadows of heaven” in August over Texas, they bloom also day and night on her tamed prairies.

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Praise Him, sun and moon; Praise Him, all you stars of light. ~Psalm 148:3   ✝

Sweet Jesus, fill us with the mercy you bled on the cross and draw us back unto Yourself! Thank You for the gladness You put in our hearts. Help us to be aware of You in all that we see and hear in Creation’s realm.

450. A flash of harmless lightning, a mist of rainbow dyes, the burnished sunbeams brightening from flower to flower he flies. ~John B. Tabb

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a day of dreams
the garden and the hummingbird
float on my breath
~Haiku by Larry Gates

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Gift

A day so happy.
Fog lifted early. I worked in the garden.
Hummingbirds were stopping over the honeysuckle flowers.
There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess.
I knew no one worth my envying him.
Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot.
To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.
In my body I felt no pain.
When straightening up, I saw blue sea and sails.

~By Czeslaw Milosz

You (Lord) have put gladness in my heart… ~Psalm 4:7a   ✝

Sweet Jesus, fill us with the mercy you bled on the cross and draw us back unto Yourself! Thank You for the gladness You put in our hearts. Help us to be aware of You in all that we see and hear in Creation’s realm.

** Image via Pinterest