Tag Archives: Calm

1359. Human beings need pleasure, as in to be thrilled, the way they need vitamins. ~Edited line by Lionel Tiger

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thrilled

1. a. A sudden feeling of pleasure or excitement
    b. A source or cause of pleasure or excitement
2. a. A quivering caused by sudden excitement or emotion
    b. A trembling caused by pleasurable excitement or emotion

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O, money can’t buy the delights of the garden,
Nor Poetry sing all its charms:
There’s a solace and calm ne’er described by the pen
When we’re folded within Nature’s arms!
~Edited and adapted poem
by James Rigg

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Surely you’ve been thrilled by something that truly speaks to you, and when it does, your heart bursts with an adrenaline rush? I hope so! For me, is has happened time and time again in my garden during every season. And there is something about all of them that thrills and excites me through and through. But in spring the excitement ratchets up even more so especially when finding those first little green shoots pushing up through the soil or better yet that first bloom that makes me tremble with delight all the way down to my very core. As it sends pure elation racing through my veins, that spicy taste of something thrilling ushers along a sweet taste of hope. For in witnessing another round of earth’s sweet beginning in God’s Eden, I experience the richness of nature’s holy, ancient, and forever faithful design. In knowing that I am so filled with gladness that tears well up in gratitude for the privilege of being alive as well as for being granted time to lead a quiet life and work the soil with my hands in my tiny piece of Eden. Above and below are the first fruits of my labor this year; I planted these tulips last December, and their exquisiteness is taking by breath away day by day by day!

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To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter…to be elated by the stars at night; to be thrilled by a bird’s nest or a flower in spring – these are some of the rewards of the simple life. ~Edited and adapted quote by John Burroughs

In trying to please God, we are asked in Scripture to: Make it our goal to live a quiet life, minding our own business and working with our hands… ~1 Thessalonians 4:11  ✝

1261. The color blue is everlastingly appointed by the Deity to be a source of delight. ~John Ruskin

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blue, the color of sea and sky
blue, a constant color in our lives
blue, the collective color of the spirit
blue, the only color which maintains
its own character in all of its tones
blue, the color of peace and calm

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indigo, the deeper blue of the
mystical borderland of wisdom
indigo, the color that turns blue
inward to increase personal
thought or profound insights
or instant understandings
white blue, the color of
communication with others
blue, blue green, and green
sacred colors for some peoples

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blue, dynamic and dramatic
blue, engaging and exhilarating
blue, that in some places is
a symbol of mourning or
sacrifice or warding off evil
blue, that in other places is
thought to correspond with
the 4 seasons, the 5 primary
elements, the directions,
blue, the color often associated
with feeling sad or unhappy
blue, a soothing element
in gardens everywhere

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And we even experience
the color blue in all our senses:
Blue is the look of a cool spring day.
Blue smells like a freshly bloomed flower.
Blue feels like a cool breeze on a hot day.
Blue tastes like tasty, sweet blueberries.
Blue sounds like gentle, falling rain.
Blue is the wonder in our minds.

…the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli, as bright blue as the sky. ~Excerpt from Exodus 24:9-10  ✝

**Blue, as in these wondrous, tie-dye morning glories in my yard

1145. Have patience with all things, but, first of all with yourself. ~Saint Francis de Sales

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 Patience is the
companion of wisdom.
~Augustine of Hippo

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Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. ~Colossians 3:12  ✝

**Image via Pinterest; text box added by Natalie

655. Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken. ~Albert Camus

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There is no love of life
without despair of life.
~Albert Camus

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In the midst of hate, I found there was, within me,
an invincible love.
In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me,
an invincible smile.
In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me,
an invincible calm.
I realized, through it all, that…
In the midst of winter, I found there was,
within me, an invincible summer.
And that makes me happy.
For it says that no matter how hard
the world pushes against me, within me,
there’s something stronger –
something better, pushing right back.
~Albert Camus

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I would rather live my life
as if there is a God and die to
find out there isn’t,
than live as if there isn’t a God and
to die to find out that there is.
~Albert Camus

No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. ~1 Corinthians 10:13   ✝

**Images via Pinterest

400. If you can’t take the heat, don’t tickle the dragon. ~Author Unknown

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Everywhere were peace and stillness,
as though all the elements were obeying
a sacred law of calm and silence
imposed by the blazing heat.
~Sadegh Hedayat

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Can you read between the lines in the photo?
The flower that mimics the sun declares
The summer solstice is soon to be here.
And as the sun ascends her ordained throne
She’ll open the door for the surly beast of heat
That metes out wretched misery till the north wind
Comes to blow the dragon back from whens’t he came.

Typically here in Texas it’s the arrival of the solstice that “tickles the dragon.” Then he begins day after sweltering day to show us little to no mercy; sometimes the fire breathing beast even stays well into September and October. And as “the sun, like a golden knife…steadily pares away at the edges of shade” and we feel the “ache of the street’s burn” we who live here flee “with a grimace of heat” upon our faces from one air conditioned space to another. And oh how I thank the Holy One for those air-conditioned spaces! Rachel Caine put it this way, “God, it was hot! Forget about frying an egg on the sidewalk; this kind of heat would fry an egg inside the chicken.”

Hear my cry for mercy as I call to You for help, as I lift up my hands toward your Most Holy Place. ~Psalm 28:2  ✝

Thank you, Lord 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.

378. The miracles of nature do not seem miracles because they are so common. If no one had ever seen a flower, even a dandelion would be the most startling event in the world. ~Author Unknown

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It gives one a sudden start
in going down a barren, stony street
to see upon a narrow strip of grass,
just within the iron fence, the radiant dandelion,
shining in the grass, like a spark dropped from the sun.
~Henry Ward Beecher

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The First Dandelion

Simple and fresh and fair from winter’s close emerging
As if no artifice of fashion, business, politics, has ever been,
Forth from its sunny nook o shelter’d grass–
Innocent, golden, calm as the dawn,
The spring’s first dandelion shows its trustful face.
~Walt Whitman

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A dandelion gone to seed, photographed with a macro lens. Photo by: Kristhian Castro (Cali, Colombia)

You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples. ~Psalm 77:14 ✝

Thank you, Lord 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!