Monthly Archives: September 2014

503. And even the sun in dawn chorus sings, a celestial melody to the earth below. ~Tjaden

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Aurora Musis Amica (est)
Dawn is a friend of the muses
~Latin Proverb

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Day has come, but the sun sits not yet high in the sky. The garden is quiet and still. Her winged paramours, the birds and bees and butterflies, have yet to stir from their drowsy realms. And sunlight has yet to kiss the plants and flowers and grass. The breeze stirs not. All that has quickened thus far is prevailing peace and earth’s discernible heartbeat, tha-thump, tha-thump, tha-thump, the beating that cradles me in Yahweh’s heart. And so I wait and I watch and I sink into the already delicious nowness.

The land yields its harvest; God, our God, blesses us. ~Psalm 67:6    ✝

502. The morrow was a bright September morn; the earth was beautiful as if newborn; 
there was nameless splendor everywhere, that wild exhilaration in the air… ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Did you hear them? Of maybe see them?! Did you? I didn’t either, but I know autumn fairies played upon the lawn last night; dew from their pixie dust was shining like diamonds upon the grass this morning. They must have worn themselves out in their playfulness, however, and vanished with the dawn because now where once they romped all I see are avian wings crisscrossing the yard.

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Fall has come but her red leaf and her gold have not. And so though the year is growing long in the tooth, the sparkle of life’s spark continues to pulse audibly to the beat of Yahweh’s heart. His Eden is still very much alive; spring and summer’s glory have not been vanquished. I know because I can hear it and see it bursting forth in the red of rosy faces, the yellow that sits atop the Maximillian sunflowers, the white that calls out from the Angel’s trumpets, the pink that plays on in phloxy mounds, the blue that paints the sky and the morning glories, the orange that echoes from the echinacea, the purple that mounts the ruella, and the green that continues to flesh out in grass and fern.

Splendor and majesty are before Him; strength and joy are in His dwelling place. ~1 Chronicles 16:27   ✝

Thank you, Lord, for the beauty of this amazing day as well as the power and strength that fills this aging, ailing body with enough oomph to praise you and rejoice in another day!

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501. There is no glory in star or blossom till looked upon by loving eye; there is no fragrance in autumn breezes till breathed with joy as they wander by. ~William C. Bryant

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He couldn’t stop smelling the air
in great, deep, loud sniffs.
It was so delicious.
It smelled of water, and mud,
and maple trees, and autumn.
~Elizabeth Enright

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Sweet fruit
high above me,
out of reach
up in the canopy
formed by wire and bush
Another smell of autumn
sweet sweet smell
of Concord grapes
warming ripening
ready to burst with flavor
strong urgent smell
lured me closer
spreading outward
from the makeshift arbor
a plume twenty feet wide
enticing, coaxing
me to linger
luxuriate in its aroma
smile at the memory
of other pickings
long ago
~Edited poem by Raymond A. Foss

But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. ~2 Corinthians 2:14   ✝

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500. Each time dawn appears, the mystery is there in its entirety. ~René Daumal

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The breeze at dawn
has secrets to tell you;
Don’t go back to sleep.
~Rumi

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Look to this day!
For it is life, the very life of life,
In its brief course
Lie all the verities and realities of your existence:

The bliss of growth,
The glory of action,
The splendor of beauty,
For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow only a vision,
But today well lived makes every yesterday
a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well, therefore, to this day!
Such is the salutation of the dawn.
~Kalidasa (2500 BC Sanskrit)

The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders; where morning dawns, where evening fades, you call forth songs of joy. ~Psalm 65:8    ✝

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499. A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for? ~Robert Browning

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Come,
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
the last of life,
for which the first was made.
~Robert Browning

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I go to prove my soul,
I see my way as birds their trackless way,
I shall arrive. –What time, what circuit first,
I ask not: but unless God send His hail
Of blinding fireballs, sleet, or stifling snow,
In some time, His Good time,I shall arrive;
He guides me and the bird. In His good time.
~Robert Browning

To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it. ~Deuteronomy 10:14   ✝

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498. Grace is but glory begun, and glory is but grace perfected. ~Jonathan Edwards

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The wine of divine grace is limitless:
All limits come only from the faults of the cup.
Moonlight floods the whole sky from horizon to horizon;
How much it can fill your room depends on its windows.
Grant a great dignity, my friend, to the cup of your life;
Love has designed it to hold His eternal wine.
~Rumi

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Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. ~Hebrews 4:6    ✝

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497. I wanted to know the name of every stone and flower and insect and bird and beast. I wanted to know where it got its color, where it got its life… ~George Washington Carver

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i thank You God for this most amazing day:
for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;
and for everything which is natural
which is infinite
which is yes
~e.e. cummings

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Of What Surrounds Me

Whatever it is I am saying, I always
Need a leaf or a flower, if not an
Entire field. As for sky, I am wildly
In love with each day’s inventions, cool blue
Or cat gray or full
Of the ships of clouds,I simply can’t
Say whatever it is I am saying without
At least one skyful. That leaves water, a
Creek or a well, river or ocean, it has to be
There. For the heart to be there. For the pen
To be poised. For the idea to come.

~Mary Oliver

The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. ~Ecclesiastes 1:8b   ✝

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496. Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the autumn tree. ~Emily Brontë

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the air is different today
the wind sings with a new tone
sighing of changes coming…
~Rhawk, Alban Elfed

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“Summer, barbarous in beauty,” ended yesterday in the autumnal equinox’s circle of equal light and equal night. Now we can, during the course of autumn’s mellow morns and brisk eves, savor long our harvests and go deep into our reflections of what has been accomplished and learned on this year’s trip around the sun. Harsh wintry chills, though soon to be on the horizon, will not set in for quite a while, and so there are yet ample hours before winter’s seclusion is imposed to spend time in nature’s haunts and reminisce about the fruitfulness of all that has come to us this year. So, let us all joyfully enter the autumn courts of Creation with what remains of our annual “time coin” and ponder why we were given this year, what reached in and touched us, and how deep the imprint of our encounters and experiences went. In so doing we shall be able to assess what we began that might endure, what or whom we impacted with goodness, where we allowed ourselves to receive and give love, as well as when and where we made a positive difference in the world.

For the LORD your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete. ~Deuteronomy 16:15b   ✝

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An Autumn Blessing

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Soul Gatherings

National Geographic National Geographic

An Autumn Blessing
Joyce Rupp & Macrina Wiederkehr

Blessed are you, autumn,
chalice of transformation,
you lift a cup of death to our lips
and we taste new life.

Blessed are you, autumn,
season of the heart’s yearning,
you usher us into places of mystery
and, like the leaves, we fall trustingly
into eternal, unseen hands.

Blessed are you, autumn,
with your flair for drama
you call to the poet in our hearts,
“return to the earth, become good soil;
wait for new seeds.”

Blessed are you, autumn,
you turn our faces toward the west.
Prayerfully reflecting on life’s transitory nature
we sense all things moving toward life-giving death.

Blessed are you, autumn,
you draw us away from summer’s hot breath.
As your air becomes frosty and cool
you lead us to inner reflection.

Blessed are you, autumn,
season of so much bounty.
You invite us to imitate…

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495. It is such a secret place, the land of tears. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

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The Holy Scriptures praise the dew of the morning
and the dew of the evening;
ros matutinum, ros serotinum!
Happy is he who possesses the gift of tears!
When young, he will bear flowers; 
when old, fruit!
~Joseph Roux, Meditations of a Parish Priest,
translated from French by Isabel F. Hapgood

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Tears are words
the heart can’t express.
~Author Unknown

“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” ~Revelation 21:4   ✝

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