1360. Hear blessings dropping their blossoms around you. ~Rumi

February 25, 2017 by nataliescarberry

The Wine and the Cup

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The wine of divine grace is limitless:
All limits come only from the faults of the cup.
Moonlight floods the whole sky from horizon to horizon;
How much it can fill your room depends on its windows.
Grant a great dignity, my friend, to the cup of your life;
Love has designed it to hold His eternal wine.

~Rumi

But even before I was born, God chose me and called me by his marvelous grace. ~Excerpt from Galatians 1:15 ✝

**Image found on Pinterest; specical effects done on iPiccy

1304. Come away, O human child: To the waters and the wild with a fairy, hand in hand, for the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand. ~William Butler Yeats

November 20, 2016 by nataliescarberry

At the age of five, of six, at the age of seven, I
used to begin weeping sometimes without warning,
simply for the sake of weeping, my eyes open wide
to the sun, to the flowers…I wanted to feel an
immense grief inside me, and it came.
~Violette Leduc

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Misty-eyed moments have been
coming in tear dropping waves for
days which seem to be pushed out
and about not unlike the gusty north
winds of this lackluster autumn.

Know not fully I the source nor
the origin of such sorrowfulness,
but the day’s cup has been so wholly
filled with their salty leavings that
it appears now to be weeping too.

And although I’ve tried to lift off
the heaviness I feel in my heart and
to look for reasons to break into a
smile of sincere gratitude for the day,
its weightiness yet holds me down.

Perhaps it’s just the price one has
to pay for loving deeply and for
living life in a world that’s fallen and
so bereft of peace that one has a dire
need to find rainbows in her soul.
~Natalie Scarberry

The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.
~John Vance Cheney

Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them. ~Psalm 126:6 ✝

**Image found on Pinterest

1251. We strain to renew our capacity to wonder, to shock ourselves into astonishment once again. ~Shana Alexander

September 8, 2016 by nataliescarberry

What
if you were
a beetle,
and a soft wind

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and a certain allowance of time
had summoned you
out of your wrappings,
and there you were,

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so many legs
hardening,
maybe even
more than one pair of eyes

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and the whole world
in front of you?
And what if you had wings
and flew

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into the garden,
then fell
into the up-tipped
face

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of a white flower,
and what if you had
a sort of mouth,
a lip

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to place close
to the skim
of honey
that kept offering itself –

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what would you think then
of the world
as, night and day,
you were kept there –

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oh happy prisoner –
sighing, humming,
roaming
that deep cup?
~How Everything Adores Being Alive,
by Mary Oliver

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. ~Isaiah 40:29 ✝

**Photos 1, 4, 6, 7, 8 by Mandy Disher; images 2, 3, 5 via Pinterest

1000. Poetry is when emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words. ~Robert Frost

December 8, 2015 by nataliescarberry

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Everything

I want to make poems that say right out, plainly,
what I mean, that don’t go looking for the
laces of elaboration, puffed sleeves. I want to
keep close and use often words like
heavy, heart, joy, soon, and to cherish
the question mark and her bold sister
the dash. I want to write with quiet hands. I
want to write while crossing the fields that are
fresh with daisies and everlasting and the
ordinary grass. I want to make poems while thinking of
the bread of heaven and the
cup of astonishment; let them be
songs in which nothing is neglected,
not a hope, not a promise. I want to make poems
that look into the earth and the heavens
and see the unseeable. I want them to honor
both the heart of faith, and the light of the world;
the gladness that says, without any words, everything.
~Mary Oliver

He (Jesus) will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of His birth. ~Luke 1:14 ✝

**Image via Pinterest

773. Oft when the still, white dawn lifted the clouds and pushed away the darkness, I felt it like a glory in my heart. ~adapted excerpt from “Joy of the Morning” by Edwin Markham

June 16, 2015 by nataliescarberry

When the first light of sun dawns, bless you.
When the long day is done, bless you.
In your smiles and your tears, bless you.
Through each day of your years, bless you.
~Irish Blessing

I saw the first light, fore-running the sun,
gather in a cup of the eastern cloud,
gather and grow and brim, till at last it spilled like milk
over the golden lip, to smear the dark face of heaven from end to end.
From east to north, and back to south again, the clouds slackened,
the stars, trembling on the verge of extinction, guttered in the dawn wind,
and the gates of day were ready to open at the trumpet…
~Mary Stewart

The flower in the photo is one of my Angel Trumpets. They only bloom at night, but sometimes I can still catch them fully open at dawn or shortly thereafter. When I’m lucky enough to find one at first light, I love the way it looks and feels like God’s glory is aglow in its heart.

He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn, your vindication like the noonday sun. ~Psalm 37:6 ✝

768. The fragrance of flowers spreads only in the direction of the wind. But the goodness of a person spreads in all directions. ~Chanakya

June 11, 2015 by nataliescarberry

We are each made for goodness,
love and compassion.
Our lives are transformed
as much as the world is when
we live with these truths.
~Desmond Tutu

The cup of this day
is waiting to be filled.
Let’s make it overflow with
the fragrance of
our inherent goodness,
our innate ability to love,
and our compassionate
yearnings for a
better us and the world.
~Natalie Scarberry

And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence… ~Exodus 33:19 ✝

715. God will not look you over for medals, degrees, or diplomas, but for scars. ~Elbert Hubbard

April 26, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Experience is not
what happens to a man.
It is what a man does
with what happens to him.
~Aldous Leonard Huxley

As I become more and more thankful for the constancy of God’s Presence through moments not only “where He maketh me lie down green pastures” or when “He leadeth me beside still waters and refreshes my soul” or during the times He walks with me “through the valley of the shadow of death,” the Lord lays more and more blessings on my table. So it is and has been that the cup of my soul is filled to overflowing and the contents therein have been steeped in a mellow and ripe richness. The fact that God is good and all that He created is good has grown increasingly more apparent even in moments of darkest despair. Such trials have stretched me upward to His saving light where I am able to see the “scarred” Christ who calls me, flawed and scarred, to be more than I dared dream was possible. Much like the embryonic infant who has to push its way agonizingly through the narrow straights of a mother’s womb to be born, gratitude tunnels a way bit by bit through dark and adverse portals where His fruits of the spirit are forged by fire into being. As well, as in the eye of a storm peace can exist in the midst of the turbulence and greater patience can be acquired by relinquishing control to a God who has always dwelt not only within and without Creation but also within and without each of His children.

Holy Spirit, You are welcome here
Come flood this place and fill the atmosphere
Your glory, God, is what our hearts long for
To be overcome by Your presence, Lord

I’ve tasted and seen, of the sweetest of loves
Where my heart becomes free, and my shame is undone
By Your presence, Lord

Let us become more aware of Your presence
Let us experience the glory of Your goodness…
~Excerpted lyrics by Bryan Torwalt
**To hear a recording of this song click on this link:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. ~Romans 5:1-4 ✝

649. This is My Wish For You. ~Charles Livingston Snell

February 19, 2015 by nataliescarberry

This is my wish for you…
That the spirit of beauty may continually hover about you
and fold you close within the tenderness of her wings.

That each beautiful and gracious thing in life
may be unto you as a symbol of good for your soul’s delight.

That sun glories and star glories
leaf glories and bark glories
flower glories and glories
that lurk in the grasses of the field
glories of mountains and oceans
of little streams of running waters
glories of songs of poesy of all the arts
may be to you as sweet, abiding
influences that will illumine
your life and make you glad.

That your soul may be as an alabaster cup,
filled to overflowing with the mystical wine of beauty and love.

That happiness may put her arms around you,
and wisdom make your soul serene.

This is my wish for you.
~Poem by Charles Livingston Snell

Dear friends, since God so loved us we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us. ~1 John 4:11-12 ✝

**Images via Pinterest

647. Awake! for morning in the bowl of night has flung the stone that puts the stars to flight…fill the cup before life’s liquor in its cup be dry. ~Lines from The Rubayyat of Omar Khayyam by Edward Fitzgerald

February 17, 2015 by nataliescarberry

Every morning is a fresh beginning.
Every day is the world made new.
Today is a new day.
Today is my world made new.
I have lived my life up to this moment,
to come to this day.
This moment–this day– is as good
as any moment in all eternity.
I shall make of this day–
a heaven on earth.
This is my day of opportunity.
~Dan Custer

Seize the morning, seize the moment, seize the day, and seize the blessings that come your way. Get rid of all hesitation, tell your loved ones how much you love them, express gratitude to the Lord above and let your spirit soar. Don’t let your history interfere with the clean slate of this new day. Be yourself, make the most of what you have, worry not about what you have not, and rejoice in the gift of life this day.

When I stand before thee at day’s end,
thou shalt see my scars and know
that I had my wounds and also my healing.
~Rabindranath Tagore

This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. ~Psalm 118:24 ✝

607. He who marvels at the beauty of the world in summer will find equal cause for wonder and admiration in winter… ~John Burroughs

January 9, 2015 by nataliescarberry

The simplicity of winter has a deep moral.
The return of Nature, after such a career of splendor
and prodigality, to habits so simple and austere,
is not lost either upon the head or the heart.
It is the philosopher coming back from the banquet
and the wine to a cup of water and a crust of bread.
~John Burroughs

At daybreak yesterday winter’s customary leaden skies spread out in brilliant, China blues, and the cold, cold January day issued forth golden streaks of sunlight that ran across the wheat-colored lawn. Blanketed in warmth inside, I sat for some time enjoying an untroubled spectacle and watching the birds fly back and forth from feeders to their sheltering places. But soon the serenity of the scene was threatened by four feral cats who moved in, crouched down, and inched along the ground in hopes of securing a tasty “catch” for the day. However, as luck would have it, one of the birds spied the predators, sounded the alarm, and off they all flew. When the cats tired of waiting, they wandered off, and the birds returned to their feeding frenzy. Eventually I spotted the one for whom I’d been waiting; he, a bright red cardinal, zoomed in and perched momentarily atop the feeder pole, a throne not wholly unbefitting his majesty. As I lingered watching his bright red flashes flit about here, there, and everywhere, I realized that last night’s blustery north wind had ceased, and now only sporadic zephyrs were ruffling the bamboo’s leaves. And so it was that a splendid morn had unfolded and everything within my frame of vision had been steeped in a heavenly quietude, a “chirpy” kind of beauty, and a soothing calmness. What a healing balm tis such for one, wearied, crestfallen, and grappling with pain! The Lord, in His loving and mysterious ways, had tipped over my cup of despair and once more filled it to overflowing with His loving grace. O Eden, how you yet issue benedictions that fill and thrill the children of your faithful, Master Gardener.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. ~Genesis 2:15 ✝