The Gift
Be still, my soul, and steadfast.
Earth and heaven both are still watching
though time is draining from the clock
and your walk, that was confident and quick,
has become slow.
So, be slow if you must, but let
the heart still play its true part.
Love still as once you loved, deeply
and without patience. Let God and the world
know you are grateful.
That the gift has been given.
~Mary Oliver
Sing to the Lord with grateful praise; make music to our God on the harp. ~Psalm 147:7 ✝
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
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 ✝
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
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
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
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.
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
Clouds open up into rain,
You too should release your pain.
~Terri Guillemets
We are dealing with the probability of something very, very sad for James and I. Our daughter’s husband quit his job before Christmas, and he has applied and interviewed with a place in Colorado Springs, Colorado, a job that he really, really wants and for which he is well-qualified. After the interview last Friday, they told him there were 3, including him, that would be considered for the job and that they would let him know this week. Nikki is our only child and so this is an extremely difficult prospect for both James and I, but my husband is taking it harder than I am at least for now. We feel like we’re just waiting for an axe to fall that will cut us off from them and our grandchildren. At this point James can barely talk about it or consider their suggestion that we move there with them if Chris gets the job and they decide to go. What makes it traumatic in a way for James, is that he and his brother were abandoned by their mother after she and his dad divorced. She just didn’t come home one day nor did she leave a note of any kind. So the two of them were taken in by their grandparents where they lived until they finished school. Needless to say, what his mother did left a deep scar in James’ heart and psyche which keeps him from dealing well with any kind of separation, and I’m hurting as much for him in this as I am at the possible move of our daughter and her family to Colorado. Intellectually we know that they have a right to their own life wherever that might be, that we truly do want them to be happy, and that things will work out for the best, but right now our hurting hearts are overriding anything our mind has to say about it all. So if I seen distant or not too responsive this week, please forgive me, but aching hearts sometimes struggle just to breathe.
…“Why does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of heart.” ~Excerpt from Nehemiah 2:2 ✝
**Images via Pinterest; collage created by Natalie
Nature looks dead in winter because her life is gathered into her heart. She withers the plant down to the root that she may grow it up again fairer and stronger. She calls her family together within her inmost home to prepare them for being scattered abroad upon the face of the earth. ~Hugh Macmillan
When the ages of ice came
And sealed the Earth inside
An endless coma of cold,
The heart of the Earth held hope,
Storing fragments of memory,
Ready for the return of the sun.
Let us then salute the silence
And certainty of mountains:
Their sublime stillness,
Their dream-filled hearts.
The wonder of a garden
Trusting the first warmth of spring
Until its black infinity of cells
Becomes charged with dream;
Then the silent, slow nurture
Of the seed’s self, coaxing it
To trust the act of death.
The humility of the Earth
That transfigures all
That has fallen
Of outlived growth.
~Edited excerpt from In Praise of Earth
by John O’Donohue
“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” ~Genesis 8:22 ✝
**Image via Pinterest
Memory is a way of holding onto
the things we love,
the things we are,
the things we never want to lose.
~Kevin Arnold
The Coin
Into my heart’s treasury
I slipped a coin
That time cannot take
Nor a thief purloin, —
Oh better than the minting
Of a gold-crowned king
Is the safe-kept memory
Of a lovely thing.
~Sara Teasdale
A million feelings.
A thousand thoughts.
A hundred memories.
One person.
~Unknown
Memories are the timeless
treasures of our hearts.
~Unknown
I love those random memories
that make me smile no matter
what’s going on in my life.
~Unknown
I will perpetuate your memory through all generations; therefore nations will praise you (Lord) for ever and ever. ~Psalm 45:17 ✝
**Collages created from photos in my Scrapbooks
Winter is the slow-down
Winter is the search for self
Winter gives the silence you need to listen
Winter goes gray so you can see your own colors…
~Terri Guillemets
What is your color? Do you know? If you do, do you like what you see? If you don’t, maybe you should give some thought as to why. For what colors us, colors our world and the way in which we respond to those around us. Perhaps like me, the seasons determine your colors, which I’m given to believe is a good thing. I rather like the idea of being a whole spectrum of colors as opposed to being a monotonous stream of only one or two. Whether such things matter is not the true import of my discourse here however. As Guillemets suggests we truly do need time to slow down, time to rest, time to listen, time to reflect on things for soon we will forge full speed ahead into another year of life that we’ll never get back, that when it’s over will never afford us more chances to change, that when it’s spent will never allow us more time to become all that we are meant to be, that when it ends will never give us other opportunities to forgive, to love, to find and bring peace. So when I find myself grumbling about the grays of sunless, winter days, I tell myself that perhaps they happen because the color gray is a good back drop for discerning the true colors of life, the unmasked face of the world, and our authentic reflection upon its stage.
A year of beauty. A year of plenty.
A year of planting. A year of harvest.
A year of healing. A year of vision.
A year of passion. A year of rebirth.
A year of peace.
This year may we renew the earth.
Let it begin with each step we take.
And let it begin with each change we make.
And let it begin with each chain we break.
And let it begin every time we awake.
~Edited poem by Starhwak
Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. ~Psalm 90:12 ✝
**Image via Pinterest
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Everywhere you go;
There’s a tree in the Grand Hotel, one in the park as well,
The sturdy kind that doesn’t mind the snow.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas;
Soon the bells will start,
And the thing that will make them ring is the carol that you sing
Right within your heart!
The wartime Christmas years introduced classic Christmas songs to the culture. The song White Christmas first debuted in 1942 in the Movie Holiday Inn. Sung by Bing Crosby it became an instant hit as its peaceful feeling hit home with both those on the home front and those on the battle front. Another Christmas standard I’ll Be Home for Christmas made its debut in 1943. The words touched the hearts of separated loved ones as the song speaks of yearning to be home at Christmas even “if only in my dreams.”
My parents were married in 1942, and soon afterwards my dad was drafted into the Army. Following that he was coincidentally ordered to leave for basic training the day I was born, October 17, 1942. Because mom wanted dad to be able to spend a little time with me before he was sent over seas, she and I traveled by train from California to Florida when I was six weeks old. Then, when he was moved to Mississippi for his training as a medic, she and I followed him again and remained there until he departed for North Africa. After Dad shipped out, she and I left Mississippi, and as she was pregnant with my middle sister, she decided we would stay with family in Texas until Kathleen was born in December of 1943. Thinking about it now I believe Dad must have missed two Christmases with us before he was wounded and sent back home in 1945. As a young girl I remember hearing these two songs on the radio every Christmas and eventually came to know how much “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” meant to my parents. Perhaps that’s why I never hear it without tears of remembrance wetting my cheeks.
“Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them. He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David…” ~Luke 1:68-69 ✝
Wilt thou love God, as he thee? Then digest,
My Soul, this wholesome meditation,
How God the Spirit, by Angels waited on
In heaven, doth make His Temple in thy breast.
~Excerpt from the Holy Sonnet XV
by John Donne
Christianity is a love story. It is about love lost at Eden and love restored at Calvary. We alone out of all creation were made not mere to serve God but to love Him and be loved by Him. It was not the angels and archangels whom He made for love; He made them for ministry (Hebrews 1:14); He made us for intimacy (v. 13: Ephesians 2:6).
The heart of God, the desire of God, the greatest command of God, is not about obedience, not about worship, not about service, not about study, but about love–loving God with everything we have, even as He loves us with everything He has. But, sadly, we have often replaced love with law, intimacy with theology, delight in God with duty to God, being found with God with being sound about God. Our speech about God has the cold sterility of the scientist rather than the thrill of the poet. We have interpreted texts, but we have somehow failed to experience the reality behind them. The Holy Spirit today and always is calling His church back to intimacy with Jesus. ~These are passages from Chapter 2 of a Kindle Book, MORE, written by Rev. Simon Ponsonby, at St. Aldates in Oxford, UK.
Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ~Deuteronomy 6:5 ✝
Jesus replied,“Love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.” ~Matthew 22:37 ✝
He(Jesus) answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” ~Luke 10:27 ✝
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” The second is this: “Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.” ~Mark 12:30-31 ✝
**As we draw closer to Christmas and ready hearts to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, I thought this was a particularly good excerpt to read and “digest.” I pray that Rev. Ponsonby doesn’t mind my sharing this portion of his book.
**Image found on Pinterest
Sacred Touches 