Tag Archives: God

1055. Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it. ~Confucius

by

17

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
-John Keats

Screen Shot 2016-02-02 at 8.03.02 PM.png

There’s not the tiniest fragment of Creation that doesn’t possess some kind of beauty and in so doing express the nature and image of God. Eriugena, a 9th century Irish poet, theologian, and philosopher, said “God is the beauty which is in everything that has been created and His beauty draws all things to Himself.” So it is that whatever form beauty takes it is never anything less than the holy work of Yahweh’s hands. Interestingly, over the years a number of people have commented on my ability to find beauty even in the most ordinary things. After thinking on that for some time, I decided that it may be because beauty has intentionally made itself manifest in all things in order to hold me in His keeping. It’s like He opened my eyes to see through a window unto heaven and His glory, and its splendors continually stream through it. Christopher Morley said that “in every man’s heart there’s a secret nerve that answers to the vibrations of beauty.” I believe those “vibrations” are the Lord’s way of speaking to us, and when we hear His call, acknowledge it, and draw near Him, He is able to instruct us in His ways. The learning of His “invisible qualities” teaches us, among other things, about His higher love, an encompassing, vast love which leads us to become more caring, kind, and compassionate. Perhaps then, if it’s true that I see beauty others miss, it’s because I look daily for God’s shadow over humanity and Creation so that I can get more and more glimpses into His mystery and His continuing activity here.

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. ~Romans 1:20  ✝

**All images via Pinterest

1053. Every gardener knows that under the cloak of winter lies a miracle….a seed waiting to sprout, a bulb opening to the light, a bud straining to unfurl. And the anticipation nurtures our dream. ~Barbara Winkler

by

16

The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream.
The oak sleeps in the acorn, the bird waits in the egg,
and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs.
Dreams are the seedlings of realities.
~James Allen

Screen Shot 2016-01-31 at 2.21.25 PM.png

Part of the genius of God’s grand design is that we awaken every day to a fresh flowing of His energy and vitality that has been stored in the seeds of our being, seeds that possess the same strength as that of the rising sun, earth’s swelling seas, and its fertile plains. An excellent time to look for the shining of His everlasting light in the “sanctuary of the soul” is in the first waking moments of each new day. That inward realm is where doors open to the germination of new life because inside each one of us the Lord has planted His “seeds of greatness.” There’s never a moment in life when either in and of ourselves or in the people around us that there are not yet unopened gifts of promise. Simply put, “heaven’s creativity on earth” is born in our bodies, and therein the Master’s “sacred hopes” are hidden. And His hopes come to fruition through the germination of our gifts and through the catalyst of prayer when we lift up “the agonies of life in the world” and ask for grace where “the human soul has grown hard” and lost sight of God’s light. May the “soil” of this week be such that the precious, holy seeds of the uniqueness that is you fully come to fruition.

Do you not know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? ~1 Corinthians 3:16  ✝

**Image found on Pinterest

1051. The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart in nature. To nurture a garden is to feed the soul. ~Edited quote by Alfred Austin

by

18

In my garden there is a large place for sentiment.
My garden of flowers is also my garden of
thoughts and dreams. The thoughts grow as freely
as the flowers and the dreams are as beautiful.
~Abram L. Urban

Screen Shot 2016-01-29 at 7.26.04 PM.png

Once upon a time there was a tiny seed, a sacred and anointed seed, deposited deep down in a woman’s soul, though she wasn’t aware of its presence. The Creator of the seed had sowed it there long ago, but it wasn’t until she’d become despairingly broken and cynical about life that He set off a spark to split the seed’s casing. Thus an unexpected and silent impetus began within in her dark world where hope for happily ever after or even anything better had all but been extinguished. Her first awareness of the changing tide was vocalized one spring by the melodies coming from a songbird. It had been an especially painful night when she found herself lying there at dawn listening to the bird’s sweet song and feeling a vestige of joy beginning to whisper in her heart. Wanting to know what kind of bird, where it was, and why it was so cheerful, she arose before long and went outside. She found the winged minstrel perched in her neighbor’s tree, a dogwood that was filled with hundreds and hundreds of stunning pink blossoms. Thrilled by the sight of it her brain was flooded with memories of flowery images from her now distant childhood. And in that magical moment, though she’d always thought herself to be lacking a “green thumb,” she knew, knew that somehow she had to create that kind of natural beauty in her world again. Wanting to start prudently at first, however, she bought only a few pots, filled them with soil, pushed them together on a corner of her patio, and then sowed in them an assortment of inexpensive seeds. Soon afterwards came a most wondrous day, one in which she saw “that first, minuscule, curled, pale green wisp of a sprout poking up.” In an instant her heart felt unsurpassed gladness and her ears heard God’s voice speaking, for the seed in her had germinated as well. So it was that the credence of fairytales, in part, was restored, a devout gardener was birthed, and a faith journey was restarted.

For we are glad whenever we are weak and you are strong. Your restoration is what we pray for. ~2 Corinthians 13:9  ✝

1050. Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks. ~Plutarch

by

37

I would define, in brief,
the poetry of words as
the rhythmical creation of beauty.
~Edgar Allan Poe

Screen Shot 2016-01-28 at 5.46.21 PM.png

Musical Notation: 1 The physicality of the religious poets should not be taken idly. 
He or she, who loves God, will look most deeply into His works. Clouds are not only vapor, but shape, mobility, silky sacks of nourishing rain. The pear orchard is not only profit, but a paradise of light. The luna moth, who lives but a few days, sometimes only a few hours, has a pale green wing whose rim is like a musical notation. Have you noticed?

Screen Shot 2016-01-28 at 5.33.06 PM.png

We had a dog once that adored flowers; no matter how briskly she went through the fields, she must stop and consider the lilies, tiger lilies, and other blossoming things along her way. Another dog of our household loved sunsets and would run off in the evenings to the most western part of the shore and sit down on his haunches for the whole show, that pink and peach colored swollenness. Then home he would come trotting in the alpenglow, that happy dog. ~Mary Oliver

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. ~Psalm 19:1-4  ✝

**All images via Pinterest; collages by Natalie

1048. God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well. ~Voltaire

by

25

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird —
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Screen Shot 2016-01-26 at 7.35.09 PM.png

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

Screen Shot 2016-01-26 at 7.42.44 PM.png

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all ingredients are here,

Screen Shot 2016-01-26 at 7.55.45 PM.png

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes, a mouth
with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam…
~Excerpted lines from the poem, The Messenger by Mary Oliver

I am 73 years old and nearly six feet tall, and yet there are things in life that still make me dance a jig and squeal with joy like a child. And I’m not one bit sheepish about doing it either. As many of you know I absolutely adore Mary Oliver’s poetry. It’s as if she somehow managed to crawl around in my soul and heart and then spilled out what she found therein into her poetry. So I bought 4 new books of her poetry at Amazon last week and when they came today, they were greeted with none other than the same unabashed, joyful squeals. Afterwards there was a round of eeny, meeny, miny, mo before picking one of the four to open first. Then I turned to the first poem in it, read the one above, and guess what? I joyfully squealed some more. Damn, but I love that woman’s thoughts and poetry!!!

When I was in college, there were occasions when my friends and I tried to come up with the names of five people throughout history that we’d most like to meet and spend time with. I’m not sure who I would have picked or did pick back then, but at 73 I know for sure who the top 3 on my list would be now–Jesus(God), Claude Monet, and Mary Oliver. The remaining two are still up for grabs, but that’s not to say that they aren’t lots of splendid candidates to choose from. I pray that each and everyone one of you who’ve read this also have something or someone that thrills you to the point of at least wanting to squeal with animated pleasure!

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   ✝

1047. Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all. ~Dale Carnegie

by

23

Screen Shot 2016-01-25 at 2.15.26 PM.png

Living with chronic pain is not a choice. No one in their right mind would choose to live with pain day after day as well as have to give up things they love to do because of it. And just because others can’t see it or feel it, doesn’t make it any less real or painful for its victims. Pain changes people; nevertheless these people get up everyday and push themselves to do their best, and all they ask for and need is understanding and compassion and not to be treated as if the pain in not real. The only lie they tell is when someone asks how they are and they say, “I’m fine.” Chronic pain sufferers are not striving to get sympathy and/or attention; they are just trying to get by the best way they can. Everyone fights some kind of battle in this life, but because chronic pain is not visible, chronic sufferers can only pretend to be happy and well which is an example of how truly strong they are and how extremely good God is to give them the strength and fortitude they need to carry on.

“Yet if I speak, my pain is not relieved; and if I refrain, it does not go away.” ~Job 16:6  ✝

It is God who arms me with strength and keeps my way secure. ~2 Samuel 22:33  ✝

Look to the Lord and His strength; seek His face always. ~1 Chronicles 16:11  ✝

The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts Him, and He helps me. ~Excerpt from Psalm 28:7  ✝

**Image found on Facebook

1043. Some mothers are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same… ~Pearl S. Buck

by

33

The moment a child is born, the mother is also born.
She never existed before.
The woman existed, but
 the mother, never.
A mother is something absolutely new.
~Rajneesh

Screen Shot 2016-01-21 at 3.14.31 PM.png

If in the passage through the final doors of life gallop dark storms of senile dementia, we who are its witnesses and victims must view the damage as a sickness in and of the flesh and not a failing of the heart nor its love. For it is not what is in the mind or flesh of those who have to endure uncontrollable, internal storms which ultimately rage, worsen, and extinguish their lives that matters; the important thing is the inextricable cords of love that once connected us to them. Mother and child bonds are as strong as our connection to the Maker of all life, and so maybe that’s why on this rainy, winter’s day, my mom has visited my thoughts again. Or it could be the recent passage of her birthday or the gloom of the day that triggered memories of the disquieting breach of peace that caring for her became during the last 7 months of her life. When I invited my mom to come live in our home, I knew it wouldn’t be easy. But what I didn’t realize was that our merged footsteps would upon occasion painfully lead us, partially because of her worsening dementia, to moments which were not our finest hours. Nor did I envision the treachery of steep climbs when we had to cross over slippery, rocky ground into new and challenging territories. However, even though there were terrible moments when we would go up and down as well as in and out of hellish, emotional roller coasters, we coped better at times than we had in the past and with more tolerance of our individual differences. My mother loved her children, but in her newness to motherhood I don’t think she ever really did know how to accept or handle me, her strong-willed, out-spoken, and highly sensitive first born child. Nevertheless, by the Grace of God, we made it through those trying days, and there were even a few of them along the way when we traversed some unexpected, joyful paths. So it is in the quiet grayness of this day that I give thanks for her and for God’s mercy. Mary Catherine and I had long been and would probably always have been enigmas unto one another, but despite our dissimilar traits an abiding love was strong in the sharing of our intertwined lives. Thus I try now to focus not on our differences, inabilities, and disagreements but continue to seek and remember the inherent goodness in the child of God that was my mother. And I pray almost every day for acceptance and forgiveness of her limitations which remain an unsurrendered source of occasionally festering, life-long scars. Forgiveness is, at least in my way of thinking, the miracle of all miracles, and I’ve long believed in miracles.

Then your light will break forth like the dawn and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. ~Isaiah 58:8  ✝

1042. Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. ~Berthold Auerbach

by

33

And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents
And as silently steal away.
~Edited lines by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Screen Shot 2016-01-20 at 9.54.27 PM.png

In January, as winter begins to deepen, the rhythms that “wash away from the soul the dust of everyday life” grow faint, as if whispered. However, when nature’s earthly notes are muffled by icy gales, heavy frosts, or falling snow, the “echo of the spheres” overheard remains audible. And on the less chilly days, the ones between cold fronts, bits and pieces of tender, albeit potent, harmonies often continue to rise. Today, for example, I spotted the tiny tips of hyacinth bulbs breaking the cold, hard ground, and as if escaping through the tiny fissures the bulbs had created, Eden’s heartbeat jumped up another fraction of a decibel. Even on the really, really forbiddingly cold days, within the sounds of silence, there are pauses, ripe and pregnant, that are as eloquent as notes and lyrics. For it is in those rests and pauses that can be heard dulcet sounds, soothing honeyed ones which are recognized not by the ears, but by the soul. And although it has been said that trees and flowers grow in utter silence while the sun, the moon, and the stars above our heads do the same, I’m not sure that’s true. I contend that on any  given day of the year if one listens with a hunger in the heart and a thirst in the soul, the footfalls of God can yet be ascertained upon the sacred soil of Creation and His voice which spoke everything into being can still be heard echoing amid the orbs of the firmament. That’s why if one stills him or herself and earnestly seeks Yahweh’s face, it can be made out even winter’s inhospitable bleakness. And after it’s glimpsed, one’s ears can also discern the sweet, sweet sounds of the Father’s loving utterances as He calls out to His beloved children.

The music is not in the notes,
but in the silence in between.
~Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as He was walking in the garden in the cool of the day… ~Excerpt from Genesis 3:8 ✝

**Images via Pinterest; collage created by Natalie

1041. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

by

32

In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter,
and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of
little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.
~Khalil Gibran

Screen Shot 2016-01-19 at 5.40.35 PM.png

According to Melinda T. Owens “the Egyptians believed that the heart was the source of the soul and of memory, emotions, and personality. That is why they preserved the heart during mummification but threw the brain away. Later on, Aristotle said that the heart was also the source of intelligence, motion, and sensation.” After having a child I too have come to believe such things about the human heart. Why so? For one thing, while a woman is carrying a child in utero, the unborn babe continuously hears the mother’s heartbeat. For that reason after being born an infant can often be silenced from crying by holding him/her up on the mother’s shoulder so that her heartbeat is discernible again. When the child hears her familiar heartbeat, which by the way is a one of a kind as no two heartbeats are exactly the same, the child is calmed and comforted. Thus early on I think we come to associate love with the heartbeat of the woman who first reveals that emotion to us even though it may not be on a conscious level that we come to that conclusion. Okay, okay so maybe that’s a crazy idea, but then it’s not the first time I’ve been told I was full of it.

Screen Shot 2016-01-19 at 5.42.02 PM.png

As I sat in the hospital today visiting my brother-in-law who has just had the heart transplant, I was shown the picture above of the human heart, and in a way one can make out the shape of the hearts we’ve come to associate with love. And that my friends is what generated by musings above plus giving me a segue into an update on his recovery. Soon after the surgery last Wednesday, Dick was taken to Cardiac Intensive Care. Then yesterday, after 4 days in ICU, they removed all the IV’s (and there were about 20 or more of them it looked like) and all but one drainage tube and subsequently moved him out of the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit and into a regular room. Since the second day they’ve told us over and over again that the markers on the functioning of his new heart are “perfect,” and he says that he has not been in any pain whatsoever up to this point. So as it stands now there is a chance that he will get to go home tomorrow, and if not tomorrow, then Thursday. How amazingly awesome is that and our God?! That’s why once more I want to praise God and thank all of you who have been praying and lighting candles for Dick. Other than the miracle of childbirth and my recovery from a stroke 3 years ago, I don’t know that I have ever witnessed anything any more miraculous than those 2 things and Dick’s recovery from this transplant. That’s not to say that there aren’t still some hurdles to overcome such as his body trying to reject the heart, the threat of diabetes as a result of the massive doses of steroids he’s having to take to try to prevent that rejection, the threat of skin cancer because he’s so fair skinned and has no immune system and so  on.  Nonetheless I for one can’t help but believe that the good Lord would not have brought him along this far and this successfully to let it all go downhill now. And that is my prayer.

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

**Images found on Pinterest

1039. Do not let Sunday be taken from you. If your soul has no Sunday, it becomes an orphan. ~Albert Schweitzer

by

29

Oh to relive
those Old Sundays,
those sacred things…
~S. Michaels at https://5wise.wordpress.com

Screen Shot 2016-01-16 at 5.02.48 PM.png

My faith journey began long ago at a time when I was young enough that all I knew was unmarred innocence, youthful unawareness, and blind acceptance of what I’d been told and taught. In handmade, starched and often white organdy dresses and on feet in meticulously polished white shoes I’d enter with my family, as I’d been taught, solemnly and quietly into church buildings with their tall steeples and large, sonorous bells that called the masses to worship. Inside there was the unmistakable aroma of old wooden pews, time-worn Bibles, and tattered hymnals that spoke of countless others who had come before us to worship. And because it was a time of greater formality, we were greeted at the doors by ushers in dark suits wearing white carnations in their lapels; these men and/or women would hand us freshly printed programs as they led us down the aisle to a pew with red velvet cushions, cushions that had seen many a day and been sat on by a multitude of churchgoers. Somewhere along the way to our seats, I would encounter an image of the Christ who was portrayed as a man with soft brown hair and a sweet face. When all who had heeded the call to worship were seated, the acolytes would march in under gothic arches carrying state and national flags in the glow of blue, red, green, and yellow light streaming through the stained-glass windows. On their heels came the choir and the robed pastoral staff. Once everyone was in place, choral voices led us in songs before we were implored to make affirmations of faith and recite the Lord’s prayer. Then came the giving of tithes in gold offertory plates, before we drank from silver chalices filled with the “Blood of Christ” and took from a silver plate the bread wafer that symbolized the “Body of Christ.” All the while these sacred things were taking place, a large pipe organ played softly in the background behind flickering candles and pretty flowers on altars covered in sacramental cloths. Finally by the time all was said and done within the hallowed gray, stone walls, we had sung a number of old familiar hymns, shouted amens, listened to a tutorial sermon, bowed our heads for the holy benedictions, read words of Scripture, raised our arms and voices in praise, and prayed for friends and neighbors as well as the hungry and the needy. And all of it was fervently carried out in hopes that God, was then and would always be with us, listen to our pleas, and answer our prayers.

Sadly at a church after we moved here I witnessed such widespread hypocrisy and intolerant prejudice by clergy and church members alike that I stopped going to church and turned away from Lord and His teachings at the age of 19.  However, the Good Shepherd would not let go of that which was rightfully His and so He pursued me for the next two decades as He does all of His wandering and lost “sheep” until one day I turned to listen to His voice again. Soon afterwards I chose to walk back into a church, and fortunately it was one where sincere sanctity appeared to be palpable and devout holiness seemed to permeate all that and who had gathered to honor and consecrate the Almighty, the Holy Spirit, and the Christ. It felt like home and I knew I was home. As sentient beings, everything we encounter evokes some kind of emotional response from us which affects both flesh and psyche. So powerful and evocative are such experiences sometimes that there have been people who are healed of life-threatening diseases by constantly picturing themselves in times and places of the past wherein they were happy and well and sensed the presence of the Almighty.

Experience life in all possible ways –
good-bad, bitter-sweet, dark-light, summer-winter.
Experience all the dualities.
Don’t be afraid of experience,
because the more experience you have,
the more mature you become.
~Osho

The sacred pathway is
not hard, children
know it…
~S. Michaels at https://5wise.wordpress.com

…if I(Paul) am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth. Beyond all question, the mystery from which true godliness springs is great:
He appeared in the flesh,
was vindicated by the Spirit,
was seen by angels,
was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world,
was taken up in glory. ~1 Timothy 3:15-16  ✝

**All but one image via Pinterest; collage by Natalie, and one photo of Natalie