Tag Archives: Friendship

1302. If any thing is sacred, the human body is sacred. ~Walt Whitman

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In order to experience everyday spirituality,
we need to remember that we are spiritual beings
spending some time in a human body.
~Barbara De Angelis

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The human body is am amazing masterpiece. With the senses we see, taste, and touch the world, drawing its mystery inside us. With the mind we probe the eternal structures of things. With the face we present ourselves to the world and recognize one another. But it is the heart that makes us human. The heart is where the beauty of the human spirit comes alive. Without the heart, the human would be sinister. To be able to feel is a great gift. When you feel for someone, you become united with that person in an intimate way; your concern and compassion come alive, drawing some of the other’s persons world and spirit into yours. Feeling is the secret bridge that penetrates solitude and isolation. Without the ability to feel, friendship and love could never be born. All feeling is born in the heart. This makes the human heart the true jewel of the world. ~John O’Donohue

Have joy and peace in the
temple of your senses.
~John O’Donohue

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. ~Proverbs 4:23  ✝

**Drawing by Catrin Welz-Stein

1081. A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words. ~Unknown

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Friendship improves
happiness and abates misery,
by the doubling of our joy
and the dividing of our grief.
~Marcus Tullius Cicero

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But oh! the blessing it is to have a friend to whom one can speak fearlessly on any subject; with whom one’s deepest as well as one’s most foolish thoughts come out simply and safely. Oh, the comfort—the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person—having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away. ~Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

The name of the Lord is a fortified tower; the righteous run to it and are safe. ~ Proverbs 18:10  ✝

870. A hug makes you feel good all day. ~Kathleen Keating

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A hug delights and warms and charms;
that must be why God gave us arms.
~Author Unknown

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A hug is the perfect gift:
one size fits all, and
nobody minds if you exchange it.
~Irvin Ball

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Love is a circular emotion
that surrounds you, like a hug,
~Jarod Kintz

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One word can end a fight;
One hug can start a friendship;
One smile can being unity;
One person can change your entire life!
~Israelmore Ayivor

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Cherish her, and she will exalt you; embrace her, and she will honor you. ~Proverbs 4:8  ✝

**images via Pinterest; collages by Natalie

807. Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief. ~Marcus Tullius Cicero

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One day, love and friendship met.
Love asked, “Why do you exist
when I already exist?”
Friendship smiled and said,
“To put a smile where you leave tears.”
~Author Unknown

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There are those who pass like ships in the night
Who meet for a moment then sail out of sight
With never a backward glance of regret
Folks we know briefly then quickly forget
Then there are friends who sail together
Through quiet waters and stormy weather
Helping each other through joy and through strife
And they are the kind who give meaning to life
~Faith Offerman

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…Eat, friends, and drink your fill of love. ~Excerpt from Song of Songs 5:1  ✝

**All images via Pinterest

421. Fiction is like a spider’s web, attached ever so slightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners. Often the attachment is scarcely perceptible. ~Virginia Woolf

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The bird a nest,
the spider a web,
man friendship.
~William Blake

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A spider, industrious and tireless, has made its home the rose covered trellis over the small porch outside my studio. I saw him again late yesterday while I was rocking in my chair beneath the arch; it kept dropping down on slender, silky threads and dangling in mid-air about a foot below the zenith of the arch. Then as darkness descended it began in earnest weaving its treacherous web; back and forth, back and forth it moved under the partially obscured waxing moon. As it worked, it glided like a skater along its airy tightropes, and a rumbling noise off in the distance added a touch of the sinister to the scene. Watching the vagabond’s rhythmic dance in the weaving of its intricate labyrinth of stickiness started lulling me into an almost hypnotic stupor, so much so that sleepiness lay heavy on my eyelids. But that ended quickly as I opened one eye just in time to see the spider begin what looked like a free fall into a bottomless pit of oblivion. When it finally stopped, it was hanging about eye level and within a foot of my startled face. Which of us was the more frightened, I know not, but seconds later it had beat a rapid retreat up its silky rope, and I had bid it goodnight and retreated indoors. In my mind, both were healthy acts of cowardice.

My eyes are ever on the Lord for only He will release my feet from the snare. ~Psalm 25:15  ✝

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.

** Image via Pinterest

396. Old as she was, she still missed her daddy sometimes. ~Gloria Naylor

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No man can possibly
know what life means, what the
world means, until he has a child and loves it. And
then the whole universe changes
and nothing will ever again seem
exactly as it seemed before.
~Lafcadio Hearn

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In honor of my dad on Father’s Day:

This is the translation of a letter written in 1943 in French received by Mrs. Norman F. Holcomb (my mom) of Walnut Springs, Texas, and refers to her husband, Pvt. Holcomb (my dad), who was in the Medical Detachment of the Railway Operating Battalion stationed in the Italian area:

“Permit an Algerian who is unknown to you to thank you sincerely for what America and the Americans are doing for us. Since the arrival of the American troops at Boue, the whole Algerian population, especially the Jewish, has sought the friendship of your brave soldiers who come to free us from the fascist and racial yoke. My husband and I congratulate ourselves upon having been among the first. We do not know how to express our gratitude to you for the intelligent care and attention which your husband has been so good as to give my two children, two little girls aged nine and six. (Dad was a medic and when he was off duty he took medicine and bandages to treat these two girls for severe burns.) Your husband was so kind as to show us photographs of you and your little girl (the girl of whom Madame Atlau speaks is their first born, me, and I was only a few months old at that time.) How pretty she is! We look at it often and never cease to pray that God may protect her for you. The American Red Cross, outstanding philanthropic institution, has presented to infants born since March 1st of this year, these items (infant layette sets) not to be found in Algeria for the Nazis and Italians have denuded us of everything. My cousin who has profited by the gift of one of these outfits begs me to thank you in her name and in the name of all who have benefitted by these. It is a commission which I gladly perform. I have sent you by your husband a little bracelet of identification (which I still have) intended for your daughter. I beg you to accept it as a gesture of friendship. I close, dear Madame, in wishing good luck to you, your child and your husband, and hoping that total victory for the Allied Nations is near. Madame Albert Atlau, Boue, Algeria.”

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Children’s children are a crown to the aged, and parents are the pride of their children. ~Proverbs 17:6 ✝

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.