a few hearty souls

Julie (aka Cookie)'s avatarcookiecrumbstoliveby

“When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.”
Billy Graham

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(a tall standing Gerber daisy braves a sunny November day while an impending cold front fast approaches / Julie Cook / 2014)

The lines have been drawn as two opposing forces prepare to collide.
A line of division stares at the unsuspecting.
The assault will be coming, whether anyone is ready or not.
However, time is of the essence.
It is now or never.
Prepare or pack.
The choice is to stand and fight, or to run for cover.
But will there be any cover in which to seek?
Only a few have stayed behind, relishing and lingering in what little warm comfort remains.
When the first small wave of change appeared, the masses had already fled.
It is all now left to only the few brave souls, those who dared to claim what…

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545. Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but courage and the soul. ~Michel de Montaigne

How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
~William Shakespeare

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As WW II raged on in the fall of 1942, my dad was drafted into the U.S. Army on the day I was born and was sent to St. Augustine, Florida, for basic training. Afterwards he was moved to Camp Shelby in Mississippi for medical training before being sent overseas. My mom then traveled by train with me at the age of six months from Los Angeles, California, to Camp Shelby so Dad could see and spend a little time with her and me before being shipped out. (The picture above was taken in Mississippi before he shipped out.) A few months after he left, Mom began receiving small gifts and letters in French from a young Algerian woman whose children’s hands had been severely burned during an air-raid and whose home had been destroyed in the bombing. For several weeks, Dad who was a medic in the Army, made his way from the camp where he was stationed to the town in which the family lived to bring medication and change the children’s bandages. Today, I pray the little candle of Dad’s good deed shines on in the lives of those two little girls.

Marywbabies43

Although Dad came home to my mom and the two oldest of his babies as seen in in the photo above, he had been inducted into the army with an enlarged heart, which in retrospect seems to have been large both physically and spiritually. Even though he was shot in the line of duty, it was not the shrapnel in his legs, the wounds of war that ended his life. At the age of 51, my father suffered a massive heart attack which brought an end to his valiant and cherished life. It was then and is now the most tragic of my life as well as a profoundly defining moment. I was the only one of his three children whom he got to see graduate from high school, and 50+ years later I still cry when I see his face or speak his name. He was and is now my hero, and I honor him and ALL who have served and died to protect our freedoms.  And I pray for safety for the ones who are currently serving and for their waiting families.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die… time for war and a time for peace. ~Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 and 8b   ✝

The gift

Julie (aka Cookie)'s avatarcookiecrumbstoliveby

Gift better than Himself God doth not know,
Gift better than God no man can see;
This gift doth here the giver given bestow
Gift to this gift let each receiver be;
God is my gift, Himself He freely gave me,
God’s gift am I, and none but God shall have me.”

― Robert Southwell
(also known as Saint Robert Southwell–a martyred English Catholic Jesuit, known for being a clandestine missionary in Post Reformation England)

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Conspicuous
Pretty
Inviting
Beckoning

A pretty little box, with a simple white bow, sits for no one in particular.
There is no sign of the one who placed it on the counter. There is no specific occasion in which one should or would leave such a gift.

Seeing such a box arouses curiosity,
wonderment
expectancy
delight

It begs to be unwrapped,
opened
explored
enjoyed

Just seeing such a box evokes excitement,
anticipation
joy
happiness

How…

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544. When I admire the wonder of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in worship of the Creator. ~Mahatma Gandhi

See how nature – trees, flowers, grass – grows in silence;
see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move
in silence…
we need silence to be able to touch souls.
~Mother Teresa

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No sky could hold
so much light–
and here comes the brimming,
the flooding and streaming
out of the clouds
and into the leaves,
glazing the creeks,
the smallest ditches!
And so many stars!
The sky seems stretched
like an old black cloth;
behind it, all
the celestial fire
we ever dreamed of!
And the moon steps lower,
quietly changing
her luminous masks, brushing
everything as she passes
with her slow hands
and soft lips–
clusters of dark grapes,
apples swinging like lost planets,
melons cool and heavy as bodies–
and the mockingbird wakes
in his hidden castle;
out of the silver tangle
of thorns and leaves
he flutters and tumbles,
spilling long
ribbons of music
over forest and river,
copse and cloud–
all heaven and all earth–
wherever the white moon
fancies her small wild prince–
field after field after field.
~Mary Oliver

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

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543. Miracles do not, in fact, break the laws of nature. ~C.S. Lewis

Miracles, the sense of phenomena
we cannot explain,
surround us on every hand:
life itself is the miracle of miracles.
~George Bernard Shaw

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WHY! who makes much of a miracle?
As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach, just in the edge of the
 water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive, of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds–or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sun-down–or of stars shining so quiet
and bright,
Or the exquisite, delicate, thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These, with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring–yet each distinct, and in its place.
To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the 
same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same;
Every spear of grass–the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women,
and all that concerns them,
All these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles.
To me the sea is a continual miracle;
The fishes that swim–the rocks–the motion of the waves–the ships,
with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?
~Excerpts from Miracles
by Walt Whitman

He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted. ~Job 5:9   ✝

On November 9th, 2012, after two clots in my brain threatened my life, You, Lord Jesus, held me in Your precious hands and restored my health and wholeness. I praise and thank You, now and always.  Help me to stay under the mighty wings of Your grace and holiness!

Adoration

Julie (aka Cookie)'s avatarcookiecrumbstoliveby

“The love of Christ both wounds and heals, it fascinates and frightens, it kills and makes alive, it draws and repulses. There can be nothing more terrible or wonderful than to be stricken with love for Christ so deeply that the whole being goes out in a pained adoration of His person, an adoration that disturbs and disconcerts while it purges and satisfies and relaxes the deep inner heart.”
― A.W. Tozer

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(contrasting brilliant colors of Fall / Julie Cook / 2014)

As the colors of the earth reach up toward the heavens, touching the brilliance of the bluest blue sky, the cries of my soul sing out for your ears and your ears alone.

In my suffering and sorrow, in my loneliness and longing, my cries of emptiness and despair are but songs of praise.

For you are both the God of Joy and Sorrow, Emptiness and Richness. There…

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542. Most glorious night! Thou wert not meant for slumber! ~Lord Byron

I often think that the night
is more alive and more
richly
 colored than the day.
~Vincent Van Gogh

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On a dark, windy November night huge raindrops were slapping autumn leaves against the car or sending them whirling, willy-nilly all around us. As we drove on towards home, more and more of the colorful foliage litttered the slick black pavement ahead of us. As I listened to the sound of the leaves and rain smacking against the windshield in addition to the clicking back and forth noise of the wipers I was being lulled into a deep reverie of personal reflection. But as we turned onto a more traveled thoroughfare, the bright street lights illuminating our neighborhood duck pond broke my preoccupation with the day’s troubling matters. At that moment I looked up, away from my thoughts, and saw a few mallards and some geese gliding serenely along on the reservoir’s glazed, rain-spattered surface. In the halo-like light and the falling rain, the buoyant creatures looked surreal. They were like visions of floating grace and peace seemingly sent to testify that God is with us even in the midst of bothersome realities on cold, rainy nights.

I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. ~Psalm 16:7   ✝

**Image via Pinterest

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DARKNESS AND NIGHTTIME…a poem…

hitandrun1964's avatarRethinking Life

darkness
isn’t
always
nighttime
especially
when
it
bleeds
in
at
four
in
the
afternoon

THAT
kind
of
darkness
is
not
for
dancing
not
for
moving
through
the
city

THAT
kind
of
darkness
knows
nothing
about
nighttime

THAT
kind
of
darkness
just
shows
up
like
an
appetizer
without
substance
something
that
leaves
you
hungry
and
wanting
more

THAT
kind
of
darkness
is
just
something
to
tide
you
over
while
you’re
waiting
for
the
main
course
to
appear

true
NIGHTTIME
has
a
rhythm
and
a
beat
that
has
you
running
outside
barefoot
to
dance
in
the
street

NIGHTTIME
is
about
more
than
darkness

NIGHTTIME
alive

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Sense of scent

Julie (aka Cookie)'s avatarcookiecrumbstoliveby

“At no other time (than autumn) does the earth let itself be inhaled in one smell, the ripe earth; in a smell that is in no way inferior to the smell of the sea, bitter where it borders on taste, and more honeysweet where you feel it touching the first sounds. Containing depth within itself, darkness, something of the grave almost.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

“Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words, appearances, emotions, or will. The persuasive power of an odor cannot be fended off, it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally. There is no remedy for it.”

― Patrick Süskind

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(perfume bottles on a silver tray / Julie Cook / 2014)

Opening the door I immediately smelled March.
But this is November, how does one smell March in November?
It was the humid damp warmth…

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541. Little things seem nothing, but they give peace, like those meadow flowers which individually seem odorless but all together perfume the air. ~Georges Bernanos

Who will tell whether one happy moment
of love or the joy of breathing or walking
on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air,
is not worth all the suffering and effort
which life implies.
~Erich Seligmann Fromm

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Let us bless the air
Benefactor of breath,
Keeper of the fragile bridge
We breathe across.

Air waiting outside
The womb, to funnel
A first breath
That lets us begin
To be here,
Each moment
Drawn from
Its invisible stock.
~Excerpt from In Praise of Air
by John O’Donohue

In His hands is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind. ~Job 12:10  ✝

**Image via Pinterest