“There is an inmost center in us all, where truth abides in fullness;….and, to know,
rather consists in opening out a way where the imprisoned splendor may escape,
then in effecting entry for a light supposed to be without.” ― Robert Browning
Monthly Archives: May 2015
751. What light through yonder window breaks? ~William Shakespeare
A single sunbeam is enough
to drive away many shadows.
~St. Francis of Assisi
Birds sing after a storm;
why shouldn’t people
feel as free to delight
in whatever sunlight remains
to them.
~Rose Kennedy
The top picture above was taken a month ago of a river in our area. The photo beneath it is that same river now, a month later. But today the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and all’s right with the world. Praise the Lord! Thank you for the rain and for the end of this awful drought here; thank you now for the sun that’s blessing this Sabbath.
The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the Lord binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted. ~Isaiah 30:26 ✝
**Top photo via Pinterest; bottom two aerial photos via local news station
Veiled in light
Let the veil of silence fall presently over what happened afterwards.
Silence, too, can speak out.
Lech Walesa
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
― C.S. Lewis
(tiny tomato blooms basking in the sun / Julie Cook / 2015)
She teases, tantalizes and titilates, dancing in and out. . .
Often hiding behind a thin gossamer veil.
Embracing with tender warmth, she soothes and caresses weary souls.
Yet like a fickle temptress, her sweet warmth can grow hot with rage. . .
It is without warning that she can assail the unsuspecting with her wicked wrath.
Yet more often than not, she greets each day sweetly . . .
In a sleepy silence. . .growing ever more beautiful and bright.
She beams in glowing radiance. . .
Yet as it…
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Positive Thoughts
Somebody is watching your life: INSPIRE!
750. The rivers rise and the rains keep coming. ~Philip Levine
Rain now falls from the roof
The staccato of the heavy
Drops on the hard ground below
The world is muffled.
~Excerpted lines from a poem
by Raymond Foss
Listening to the timpani
the rhythm of the rain
the rap, the tap,
the ratta-tat-tat,
the staccato of the drumming
on the roof of the house
The storm raging ‘round us
in the stillness of the night
trying to drum the beat
on the window panes and
keeping time with the
randomness of noisy traffic
blocks away on the interstate
Too few drummers for the task
capturing the sound of rain
~Edited and adapted poem
by Raymond Foss
The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. ~Matthew 7:25 ✝
**Image via Pinterest
749. It has been said, “time heals all wounds.” I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind protecting it’s sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone. ~Rose Kennedy
The love of Christ reaches
to the very depths
of earthly misery and woe…
It also reaches to
the throne of the eternal…
~Excerpts from Ellen G. White
Oh, misery, what’s gonna become of me?
It’s raining, a-rainin’ in my heart again
‘Cause this awful pain keeps me alone and awake.
The heavy, tearful rain’s a-fallin’ even though
I hear Your voice, Lord, a-callin,’ “It’s all right.”
But this salty, rain of teary sadness mixed
With desperation keeps a-fallin on my pillow
While outside it’s another rainy night in Texas.
And it seems like both rains are never gonna stop.
Lightning bolts a-flashin’, thunder booms a rumblin’
And the distant moanin’ of a train seems to play
A sad, sad refrain on this hard and rainy night.
Oh Lord, it’s such a rainy night in Texas,
It’s like it’s a-rainin’ everywhere in my world.
And no matter how many times I wonder
The story still comes out the same…
Whichever way one looks at it or thinks on it
It’s life and one’s just got to play the game
.
So I tell my pain-filled blues they mustn’t show
But these tears tonight I cannot keep from flowin’
‘Cause it’s rainin’ in my sad, despairin’ heart.
~Edited and adapted lyrics from a song
by Tony Joe White, and another song
by Bouleaux Bryant, and Felice Bryant
Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and body with grief. ~Psalm 31:9 ✝
A Simple Prayer
748. Red is passion-lit, orange is flowerageous, yellow is suntastic, pink is lipsensual, green is lifebursting, blue is skyful, purple is berrydancing, gray is cloudrainy. ~Terri Guillemets
Beauty is the adjustment of all parts
proportionately so that one cannot add
or subtract or change without
impairing
the harmony of the whole.
~Leon B. Alberti
To conquer a piece of earth and make it as beautiful
as one can dream of it being: That is art, too.
A man cannot be separated from the earth.
I come out of the garden every day feeling,
oh, inspired in a way that one needs
in order to convert the daily-ness of the life
into something greater than that little life itself.
~Stanley Kunitz
Nothing is more the child
of art than a garden.
~Sir Walter Scott
But who can paint
like Nature?
Can imagination boast,
amid its gay creation,
hues like hers?
~James Thomson
Nature is painting for us,
day after day,
pictures of infinite beauty.
~James Russell Lowell
If you ask me what I came
to do in this world,
I, an artist, will answer you:
I am here to live out loud.
~Emile Zola
My garden is the canvas
upon which nature paints,
and in it I daily toil.
With my camera in hand
at other times,
I let live
Yahweh’s art
out loud!
~Natalie Scarberry
Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are al the work of your hand. ~Isaiah 64:8 ✝
**I took all these photos of flowers blooming in my yard.
747. Give me the splendid silent sun, with all his beams full-dazzling… ~What Whitman
I’ll tell you how the sun rose,
-a ribbon at a time.
The steeples swam in amethyst,
The news like squirrels ran.
The hills untied their bonnets,
The bobolinks begun.
Then I said softly to myself,
“That must have been the sun!”
~Emily Dickinson
“The sun says his prayers,” said the fairy,
Or else he would wither and die.
“The sun says his prayers,” said the fairy,
“For strength to climb up through the sky.
He leans on invisible angels,
And Faith is his prop and his rod.
The sky is his crystal cathedral.
And dawn is his altar to God.”
~Vachel Lindsay
Ya know coming all to soon upon us now are the days when I’ll be begging for clouds, any kind of clouds, even one big cloud to shade us at least for a little while from the sweltering heat of the summer sun here in Texas, but today after more than a month of gray, gloomy, cloudy, rainy days, I was thrilled to see the sun at daybreak. And although we have more chances for more the rest of the week, it has been deliciously sunny most of the day. Throughout the last decade we have been through a harsh and severe drought that left our water reservoirs in dangerously low or in some areas where the lakes or other water supplies had completely dried up. So I prayed and prayed for rain and promised never to complain about it ever be importune again. And I won’t break that promise to the Lord, but now that our rivers and lakes are approaching flood stage or already flowing over, I pray that the Lord spread the rains out over the summer months before there’s any more loss of life and/or property.
This is what the Lord says to me: “I will remain quiet and will look on from my dwelling place, like shimmering heat in the sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.” ~Isaiah 18:4 ✝
**Images via Pinterest; notice the photo of the deer who seems to be praising the Lord for the sun’s appearance.
Sacred Touches 