Tag Archives: City

1248. I am forced to conclude that God made Texas on his day off, for pure entertainment, just to prove that all that diversity could be crammed into one section of earth… ~Author Mary Lasswell

by

10

The stars at night – are big and bright
Deep in the heart of Texas.
The prairie sky – is wide and high
Deep in the heart of Texas.
The sage in bloom – is like perfume
Deep in the heart of Texas…
~Excerpted lyrics from a song
by June Hershey

Screen Shot 2016-09-04 at 5.39.11 PM.png

Texas is a state of mind. Texas is an obsession.
Above all, Texas is a nation in every sense of the word.
Like most passionate nations, Texas has 
its own
history based on, but not limited by, facts.
~John Steinbeck

Screen Shot 2016-09-04 at 5.47.44 PM.png

I have said that Texas is a state of mind, but I think it is more than that. It is a mystique closely approximating a religion. And this is true to the extent that people either passionately love Texas or passionately hate it and, as in other religions, few people dare to inspect it for fear of losing their bearings in mystery or paradox. But I think there will be little quarrel with my feeling that Texas is one thing. For all its enormous range of space, climate, and physical appearance, and for all the internal squabbles, contentions, and strivings, Texas has a tight cohesiveness perhaps stronger than any other section of America. Rich, poor, Panhandle, Gulf, city, country, Texas is the obsession, the proper study and the passionate possession of all Texans. ~John Steinbeck, 1962

Screen Shot 2016-09-04 at 3.07.45 PM.png

And, “Texans for the most part have never learned to be dull,” accurately quipped Randolph Campbell.

Screen Shot 2016-09-04 at 3.05.43 PM.png

As I’ve said repeatedly the intense heat of the Texas summer has always been difficult for me to tolerate. It forces me to stay indoors much more than I like, and being separated from the earth and God’s voice in the natural world starves my spirit. However, I have come to love much of the unique Texas experience, and I am thankful that the Lord created the man or woman who invented air-conditioning. I’m grateful too that our house has lots of windows so I can at least see my yard during times when it’s just too miserably hot to be out in it.. Also after I bought a digital camera, I’m able to save the garden’s glory in photographs that help me make it through the times when the summer heat temporarily robs the landscape of much of its beauty. How blessed are we that the work of His hands is as apparent as ever in His world.

And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus. ~Philippians 4:19 ✝

**Images found on the Internet, Pinterest, and Pixabay; collages by Natalie

 

1110. Paris was a universe whole and entire unto herself, hollowed and fashioned by history… ~Anne Rice

by

10

Even the pigeons are dancing, kissing,
going in circles, mounting each other.
Paris is the city of love, even for the birds.
~Samantha Schutz

Screen Shot 2016-03-31 at 10.40.58 PM.png

Paris in Spring
The city’s all a-shining
Beneath a fickle sun,
A gay young wind’s a-blowing,
The little shower is done.
But the rain-drops still are clinging
And falling one by one—
Oh it’s Paris, it’s Paris,
And spring-time has begun.
I know the Bois is twinkling
In a sort of hazy sheen,
And down the Champs the gray old arch
Stands cold and still between.
But the walk is flecked with sunlight
Where the great acacias lean,
Oh it’s Paris, it’s Paris,
And the leaves are growing green.
The sun’s gone in, the sparkle’s dead,
There falls a dash of rain,
But who would care when such an air
Comes blowing up the Seine?
And still Ninette sits sewing
Beside her window-pane,
When it’s Paris, it’s Paris,
And spring-time’s come again.
~Sara Teasdale

https://youtu.be/9Od4TJYxjgk

Praise be to the Lord, for he showed me the wonders of his love when I was in a city under siege. ~Psalm 31:21  ✝

**Art.com image found on Pinterest

949. You can fall in love at first sight with a place as with a person. ~Alec Waug

by

25

Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of
a bridge and lean over to watch the
river slipping slowly away beneath you,
you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.
~From WINNIE THE POOH by A.A. Milne

Screen Shot 2015-11-15 at 5.29.42 PM

What is it, I wonder, that makes one fall in love with a place without ever having been there? Was it because I was born before the world lost all its innocence, or because I was naïve from having lived a sheltered existence in my young, formative years, or because I’m a dreamer and a romantic who loves fairy tale stories with happy endings, or because at 13 I saw a movie with William Holden, Humphrey Bogart, and Audrey Hepburn and fell in love with the place of magical bridges, glorious sunsets, and a beautiful river? Or is it because I fell in love at 18 with a song bearing a French title and written by a French singer/songwriter? Or because I’ve always loved art and sculpture and beauty, and the place I fell for is a paragon of those things? Or because I studied the French language in school and fell in love with the sounds of the words and the pictures in my text books? Or because I read a novel by Earnest Hemingway and fell in love with him and the city he adored and wrote about? Or is it all those things, especially when seen through the eyes of a sentimental, perhaps even sappy, free-spirited, hopeful, love junkie? Mais bien sûr, oui, oui, et oui!!!

Paris, it is you of whom I speak, and I’m that girl/woman that for more than 50 years has had an ongoing love affair with you, an affair I might add that started half a century before I ever met you in person. And now that I have spent time on two different occasions in your confines, I’m more in love with you than ever. An ex-student and fellow blogger, Victo(Behind the White Coat) at https://doctorly.wordpress.com, partially described my feelings when he wrote that “Sometimes you go to a city and it becomes a part of you. Then you go back and you feel as if you are now, somehow, a part of it.” The only difference is that you became both a part of me and I a part of you at the same time, and I will forever hold you close and dear to my heart. I may shed tears now for your recent tragedy, but I will always celebrate with joy and a smile your grandeur that yet stands in place. And I shall lift you up daily in prayers for safety.

But let all who take refuge in you(Lord) be glad; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may rejoice in you. ~Psalm 5:11  ✝

**Images found on Facebook and Pinterest

269. Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world and leave only a margin by which we see the blot. ~George Eliot

by

15

You shall see them
on a beautiful quarto page,
where a neat rivulet of text shall meander
through a meadow of margin.
~Excerpt from “School for Scandal” by
Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Image

Image

Margins–our lives are lived within all kinds of marginal edges.  In botany and entomology scientists talk of margins when they cite data about borders around leaves or the borders of insect wings.  The earth itself has what I think of as margins.  For example, phenomena like mountains, rivers, forests, or oceans hold things within or without; walled constructs built by the sea are held by nature and man.  Even our written documents and texts are kept inside a border of blank space called a margin.  In literary works poets and novelists speak of garden walls as the margins around growing spaces.  The margins around my backyard gardening spaces as well as the ones in public gardens I visit are fences.  Interestingly, at one time the margins around my yard were solely the fence lines, but now it is contained within its confines in places by an assortment of trees, some planted by human hands, others that sprang up by their own devices.

In the scriptural passage below God is telling the people of Jerusalem that although they are in a city without walls, He will protect them by being the barrier between them and their enemies.  The Lord does that for His children even when they misuse the reins of free will to wander poorly chosen worldly paths. Fortunately for us we never get so far down those potentially dangerous paths that we are out from under the spread of Yahweh’s mighty wings of grace.  When asked, He will pull us into a walled sanctuary where His forgiveness is an ever-standing offer for contrite hearts.  And as a fellow blogger noted, He walls our hearts with His love.

“And I myself will be a wall of fire around it,” declares the Lord, “and I will be its glory within.  ~Zechariah 2:5  ✝