**Image found on Pinterest
Category Archives: Notes
1198. When you arise in the morning, think of what a privilege it is to be alive-to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love. ~Marcus Aurelius
Every morning, when we wake up,
we have twenty-four brand new hours to live.
What a precious gift!
We have the capacity to live in a way
that these twenty-four hours will bring
peace, joy, and happiness to ourselves and others.
~Thich Nhat Hanh
Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who made the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even,
the miserable and the crotchety –
best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light –
good morning, good morning, good morning.
Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.
~Mary Oliver
The path of the righteous is like the morning sun, shining ever brighter till the full light of day. ~Proverbs 4:18 ✝
**Morning glory in my yard
1197. Let me, O let me bathe my soul in colours; let me swallow the sunset and drink the rainbow. ~Kahlil Gibran
People observe the colors of a day
only at its beginnings and its ends,
but to me it’s quite clear that a day
merges
through a multitude
of shades and intonations,
with each passing moment.
A single hour can consist of
thousands of different colors.
Waxy yellows, cloud-spat blues.
Murky darknesses.
~Markus Zusak
Life is a celebration of passionate colors.
Some days are red. Those are the ones when our spirits are flying high.
Some are green. Those are the ones when we feel most productive and fruitful.
Some days are pink ones. They are full of moments when we feel young at heart. Others are blue. Those are the days we feel down in the dumps.
Then there are the orange ones. Those are peaceful and ones in which we sometimes feel a sense of satisfaction.
At last there are yellow ones. ‘Tis these that are bright and full of cheer.
~Edited passage I found on Pinterest
I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. ~Genesis 9:13 ✝
**Images via Pinterest; collage created by Natalie
Treat a man…
**Upper image found on Pixabay; lower image via Pinterest; collage by Natalie
1196. Every man has his secret sorrows of which the world knows not… ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I want to weep, she thought.
I want to be comforted.
I’m so tired of being strong.
I want to be foolish and
frightened for once.
Just for a small while,
that’s all….a day…..an hour.
~George R.R. Martin
My life is but a weaving
Between my God and me.
I cannot choose the colors
He weaveth steadily.
Oft’ times He weaveth sorrow;
And I in foolish pride
Forget He sees the upper
And I the underside.
Not ’til the loom is silent
And the shuttles cease to fly
Will God unroll the canvas
And reveal the reason why.
The dark threads are as needful
In the weaver’s skillful hand
As the threads of gold and silver
In the pattern He has planned
He knows, He loves, He cares;
Nothing this truth can dim.
He gives the very best to those
Who leave the choice to Him.
~Corrie ten Boom
According to mom, I started walking around the age of 9 months, and a week or so after that she had to take me in for a check up with the doctor. During that visit he gave me one of those routine immunizations in my little derriere. When I got home that day, I went to take a few steps and fell landing right on the area of the injection. It hurt so much that mom said it was a few days before I’d try to walk again. The image above is a photo she took that day as I sat contemplating my sorrow. I’ve mentioned in previous posts that it has been my lot in life to deal with lots of physical pain, and from time to time I have to endure periods when it’s more prolonged and intense than usual. Sadly I can make no more sense of pain and suffering now than I did that day in the photo. Though I am a strong person, as of late there have been lots of tears, lots of doubts, lots of questions, and lots of needs for comfort. So tonight, I’m taking Shakespeare’s advice from MACBETH to see if that helps, “Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break.”
My soul is weary with sorrow; strengthen me according to Your word. ~Psalm 199:28 ✝
Drops
1195. Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil. For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst? ~Kahlil Gibran
The whole course of human history
may depend on a change of heart
in one solitary and even humble individual –
for it is in the solitary mind and soul of
the individual that the battle between
good and evil is waged and
ultimately won or lost.
~M. Scott Peck
At the end of each day in the Creation story in Genesis it says: “God saw that it was good.” And then after the 6th day it says: “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” We are made in the image of God and so “at the heart of who we are is the love and wisdom of God.” “The divine likeness within us may be hidden or forgotten. It may be in terrible bondage by wrongdoing but the image of God remains at the heart of who we are, even though we may live at what seems an infinite distance from it.” (J. Philip Newell, THE BOOK OF CREATION) Why else would we blush or feel guilty about something we have done wrong? Unless of course something within us discloses its own goodness and disapproval of evil. We are witnessing on the world’s stage, horrific acts of evil that bombard us every day because of constant media coverage. Sadly many are fearful and losing heart. What we need to realize is that on any and all of those days, somewhere in the world man’s ability to be a mirror of God’s goodness is visible as well, but it’s is not researched or reported. Why? Money, money, money!
“The garden of God in which we have been created has not been destroyed. Nor has it been abandoned. We may live in a state of exile from in, but God forever dwells in that place and seeks our company. The Book of Genesis describes God as ‘walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze’ and calling out ‘Where are you?’ The garden says, Eriugena, is our ‘human nature that was made in the image of God.’ God, he says, still walks in the garden of our souls searching for us…’” (J. Philip Newell, THE BOOK OF CREATION)
And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil…” ~Excerpt from Genesis 3:22 ✝
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. ~Excerpt from 1 Timothy 7:10 ✝
**Image via Facebook
1194. We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it. ~George Eliot
There is a garden in every childhood,
an enchanted place where colors are
brighter, the air is softer, and the morning
more fragrant than ever again.
~Elizabeth Lawrence
If you love a flower, don’t pick it.
Because if you pick it, it dies and
ceases to be what you love.
So just let it be…
Love is not about possession.
Love is about appreciation.
~Osho
As a child and an adult, I’m overcome with wonder when I smell a flower, like this lily. They are so very beautiful and fragrant, and I’m also fascinated by their stamen and anthers. Just look at the amazing red anthers on this one. Is it any wonder pollinators are attracted to them? My youngest grandson is one of those beautifully innocent children who is filled with curiosity. And as we worked in the garden one day last summer, he was quite taken with these anthers and I explained that they were food for pollinators. Afterwards I turned to get a tool out of my bucket, and when I swiveled back around, he had red all over his little mouth. Stunned, I asked if he’d eaten some of the pollen, and he said yes. As I reeled from the possibility that I might have killed my grandson or at least let him become very sick, I asked him why in the world he would have eaten the pollen. He said, “Well Mompy, I figured if it doesn’t kill the bees and such, it won’t kill me.” Before I took him in to wipe off his mouth, I decided to phone my daughter who just laughed and said, “That’s my Joe.” As it turns out he was okay and did not get a bellyache, but we had a long talk about not putting things in our mouths without first being very sure that the substances are not toxic to humans.
The one who gets wisdom loves life; the one who cherishes understanding will soon prosper. ~Proverbs 19:8 ✝
**Image found on Pixabay
1193. Imprinted on our heart is the exact moment we fell in love with the beach. ~Judith Frenette
What we remember from
childhood we remember forever —
permanent images, stamped,
inked, imprinted, eternally seen.
~Edited excerpt
from Cynthia Ozick
Oh, the golden age of the barefoot time,
While life was a fairy tale sung in rhyme,
When phantoms grim of a future day
Were hid in the mists of the far away…
Off for a swim on an afternoon,—
The moments—why would they fly so soon!
The rosy skies of our barefoot days.
~Excerpted lines from a poem
by Adelbert Farrington Caldwell
On the far left in the collage above are my great uncle and I on the beach in Southern California. He was one of my most favorite people on the planet, and before my Daddy came home from the War, he frequently took me the half a block down to the shores of the beautiful blue Pacific. Even after daddy got home and until we moved to Texas, the beach remained a cherished part of my daily reality. Sadly the photo of uncle and me is so faded now that you can’t even make out the water anymore. So I added the other pictures in the collage that I found on Pinterest to show what my earliest memories of the beach look like. Although my photo has faded, the imprint of those images in my mind’s eye is still brilliantly vivid so much so that 7 decades later I’ve never forgotten the people and places of my childhood. They are treasures that I horde and keep safe in my heart because I know that childlike faith, along with childlike love, are an open road to God’s heart.
And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” ~Matthew 18:3 ✝
1192. Water lilies, Monet’s passion written in whispering tears as dragonflies press the air into a whir. ~Edited and adapted excerpts from poems by Beth St. Clair
Lilies perch upon their little islands
To flower on pads of green in the water
Amid the dance of dragonflies by day
And fireflies that grace the dark of night.
~Natalie Scarberry
If you have forgotten water lilies floating
On a dark lake among mountains in the afternoon shade,
If you have forgotten their wet, sleepy fragrance,
Then you can return and not be afraid.
But if you remember, then turn away forever
To the plains and the prairies where pools are far apart,
There you will not come at dusk on closing water lilies,
And the shadow of mountains will not fall on your heart.
~Sara Teasdale
Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. ~Psalm 126:5 ✝
**Image of one of Monet’s water lily paintings and his signature found on the Interent; collage by Natalie
Sacred Touches 