Tag Archives: Hearts

1254. The Holy Spirit in every single soul “prays in us with unspeakable groanings.” ~Excerpted from a quote by Edith Stein

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Holy Spirit, you are welcome here! Come flood this place and fill the atmosphere!
May you have a truly blessed Sabbath and feel the touch of Christ’s presence!

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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
There’s nothing worth more
That could ever come close
No thing can compare
You’re our living hope
Your presence, Lord
I’ve tasted and seen
Of the sweetest of loves
Where my heart becomes free
And my shame is undone
Your presence, Lord
CHORUS
Let us become more aware of Your presence
Let us experience the glory of Your goodness
~Excerpted lyrics written by
Cyril Garrett Neville, Gaynielle H. Neville,
Hack Bartholomew, Norman Caesar

But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. ~John 14:26  ✝

**Image via Pinterest

1227. You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty. ~Mahatma Gandhi

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When I despair, I remember that all through
history the ways of truth and love
have always won. There have been tyrants,
and murderers, and for a time they can
seem invincible, but in the end
they always fall. Think of it–always.
~Mahatma Gandhi

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I have heard from two friends today whose hearts have been hurt deeply. And as we all do, they are questioning why and how people can be so hateful and hurtful. Years ago when I was coping with a very hurtful situation, a friend of mine told me that only “hurting people hurt other people.” And over the years since I’ve come to see that Jack was exactly right. But then that doesn’t address another part of my friend’s questioning which was a.) do I think there are more hurting people these days and b.) if so, why? Before I answer that, let me say first that the fact that one of the Adam and Eve’s children killed his brother did not bode well for mankind’s ability to co-exist from the get go. We live in a fallen world in which good and evil do exist and have from the moment the choice was made to defy God’s will. And millennia after millennia has provided more than adequate evidence of a common inability as a whole to be loving and to get along peacefully. Now to address two of her queries; yes, I do think there are more hurting, hateful people, and the source is the media and the internet as you suggested. Just look at what we are being fed 24/7–It’s “cool” to be a bad-ass, it’s “cool” to be disrespectful, it’s “cool” to bully others, it’s “cool” get revenge and on and on it goes around the clock and ad nauseum. But like Gandhi I’ve not lost faith in mankind’s ability to self-correct. And it all starts with each and everyone one of us. The tools at our easy disposal are kind words, kind gestures, and lots of smiles especially to and with those who are hell-bent on behaving badly. We also have to choose to surround ourselves with people who support and affirm who and what we are; we have to choose to walk away from those who want to fight verbally or physically; we have to choose to forgive transgressions which in the end if not released only poison ourselves; we have to choose to be kind to ourselves as well by finding or creating some kind of sacred space where we can restore and re-energize our emotional well being; we have to choose to leave any and all past hurts behind us never to be brought into the present again; and we have to find places and ways to sit in silence in order to listen to the still, small voice inside who loves us and wants to heal our brokenness. And finally we have to greet each day and each breath with gratitude for the gifts that they are; we have to learn when enough is enough; we have to realize the finiteness of each breath, each step, each day; and for heaven’s sake we have to quit trying to seek a “version” of ourselves and find the real, authentic person inside. Is all of the above easy to do? No, but then what is in this life? Is it essential that we try? Yes, for the ones we leave behind when we are gone!

“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you… ~Luke 6:27  ✝

**Image via Pinterest

1220. For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy. ~Thérèse de Lisieux

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Prayer is not asking. Prayer is putting oneself
in the hands of God, at His disposition, and
listening to His voice in the depth of our hearts.
~Mother Teresa

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I don’t know where prayers go,
or what they do.
Do cats pray, while they sleep
half-asleep in the sun?
Does the opossum pray as it
crosses the street?
The sunflowers? The old black oak
growing older every year?
I know I can walk through the world,
along the shore or under the trees,
with my mind filled with things
of little importance, in full
self-attendance.  A condition I can’t really
call being alive.
Is a prayer a gift, or a petition,
or does it matter?
The sunflowers blaze, maybe that’s their way.
Maybe the cats are sound asleep.  Maybe not.
While I was thinking this I happened to be standing
just outside my door, with my notebook open,
which is the way I begin every morning.
Then a wren in the privet began to sing.
He was positively drenched in enthusiasm,
I don’t know why.  And yet, why not.
I wouldn’t persuade you from whatever you believe
or whatever you don’t.  That’s your business.
But I thought, of the wren’s singing, what could this be
if it isn’t a prayer?
So I just listened, my pen in the air.
~Mary Oliver

“Now, my God, may your eyes be open and your ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.” ~2 Chronicles 6:40  ✝

**Image found on the Internet

1212. Freedom is the oxygen of the soul. ~Moshe Dayan

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Freedom has its life in the hearts,
the actions, the spirit of men and
so it must be daily earned and refreshed —
else like a flower cut from its life-
giving roots, it will wither and die.
~Dwight D. Eisenhower

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For Freedom
As a bird soars high
In the free holding of the wind,
Clear of the certainty of ground,
Opening the imagination of wings
Into the grace of emptiness
To fulfill new voyagings,
May your life awaken
To the call of its freedom.
As the ocean absolves itself
Of the expectation of land,
Approaching only In the form of waves
That fill and pleat and fall
With such gradual elegance
As to make of the limit
A sonorous threshold
Whose music echoes back among
The give and strain of memory,
Thus may your heart know the patience
That can draw infinity from limitation.
~Excerpted lines
by 
John O’Donohue

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. ~Excerpt from Galatians 5:12  ✝

**Image found on Pinterest

1171. Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others. ~Marcus Tullius Cicero

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This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival…
Treat each guest honorably.
Be grateful for whoever comes.
~Rumi

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Even in seemingly dormant times, we are in transition. Losses and gains are in constant play. We are the change-agent, and we are changed. Even without toil, we transform. So, wisdom advises us to open our hearts to transition; to honor fully what is passing, to learn from all that unfolds, and to welcome what arrives at our door each day with courage and curiosity. ~A Network for Grateful Living

Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. ~Colossians 3:16  ✝

**Image of lily taken by me in my yard today. Outer edges deliberately blurred so that focus is on the amazing stamen and anthers.

1165. Did you hear it, fluting and whistling a shrill dark music – like the rain pelting the trees – like a waterfall knifing down the black ledges. ~Excerpt from the poem, The Swan, by Mary Oliver

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Did you too see it, drifting all night on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air –
a perfect commotion of silk and linen
as it leaned into the bondage of its wings…
~Another excerpt from the poem, The Swan,
by Mary Oliver

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Whistling Swans
Do you bow your head when you pray or
do you look up into that blue space?
Take your choice, prayers fly from all directions.
And don’t worry about what language you use,
God no doubt understands them all.
Even when the swans are flying north
and making such a ruckus of noise,
God is surely listening and understanding.
Rumi said, There is no proof of the soul.
But isn’t the return of spring and how
it springs up in our hearts a pretty good hint?
Yes, I know, God’s silence never breaks,
but is that really a problem?
There are thousands of voices, after all.
And furthermore, don’t you imagine
(I just suggest it) that the swans know about
as much as we do about the whole business?
So listen to them and watch them, singing as they fly.
Take from it what you can.
Last night the rain spoke to me slowly,
saying, what joy to come falling out of the brisk cloud,
to be happy again in a new way on the earth!
~Mary Oliver

Because You(God) are my help, I sing in the shadow of Your wings. ~Psalm 63:7 ✝

**Singing swan images via Pinterest; collage by Natalie

1018. Expectancy is the atmosphere for miracles. ~Edwin Louis Cole

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Even if I know I shall never change the masses,
never transform anything permanent,
all I ask is that the good things also have
their place, their refuge.
~Richard Wagner

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Scripture tells us that we are made in the image of God, and I expect that has nothing to do the with our faces and everything to do with our hearts. Therefore through us He can bring to fruition all that is within His limitless power to do. How?

Our hearts are able to feel another’s anguish, Our eyes can see the lacking needs of others, Our mouths can deliver His smile to light up darkness, Our voices can declare quiet, comforting words for ears to hear, Our hands can administer compassionate healing, And our legs can carry us wherever we need to go to accomplish such things.

How then can one who breathes the very breath of a Holy God, who bears His very image do anything less than deliver anything He asks of us. That is the purpose that should drive our lives. It has never been all about self, for truly what is love, and all humans yearn for and must have love, without a place to spend it, and where better to start spending than with someone in need. Honor the gifts you have been given, rejoice in them, and use them.

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them male and female he created them. ~Genesis 1:27  ✝

**Image via Pinterest

898. Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born. ~Anaïs Nin

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In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out.
It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being.
We should all be thankful for those people
who rekindle the inner spirit.
~Albert Schweitzer

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Each day holds a surprise. But only if we expect it can we see, hear, or feel it when it comes to us. Let’s not be afraid to receive each day’s surprise, whether it comes to us as sorrow or as joy It will open a new place in our hearts, a place where we can welcome new friends and celebrate more fully our shared humanity. ~Henri Nouwen

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. ~Psalm 34:18  ✝

**Rose image via Pinterest

http://https://youtu.be/FdPAjKkU8u0

841. On with the dance! Let joy be unconfined! ~Lord Byron

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     The music of the spheres has your name on its dance card.
So what are you waiting for?
Get on up and dance to the music!
~Natalie

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We ought to dance with rapture that we might be alive…
and part of the living, incarnate cosmos.
~D.H. Lawrence

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Everything in the universe has rhythm.
Everything dances.
~Maya Angelou

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Dancing in all its forms cannot be excluded
from the curriculum of all noble education;
dancing with the feet, with ideas, with words,
and, need I add that one must also
be able to dance with the pen?
~Friedrich Nietzsche

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Light quirks of music, broken and uneven,
Make the soul dance upon a jig to Heav’n.
~Alexander Pope

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To be creative means to be in love with life.
You can be creative only if you love life enough
that you want to enhance its beauty,
you want to bring a little more music to it,
a little more poetry to it,
a little more dance to it.
~Osho

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Dancing can reveal all the mystery
that music conceals.
~Charles Baudelaire

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To watch us dance is to 
hear our hearts speak.
~Hopi Indian Saying

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Dance, even if you have nowhere
to do it but your living room.
~Kurt Vonnegut

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Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world,
for I would ride with you upon the wind
and dance upon the mountains like a flame!
~William Butler Yeats

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I would believe only in a God
that knows how to dance.
~Friedrich Nietzsche

You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy. ~Psalm 30:11  ✝

**Images via pinterest; collages by Natalie

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4YSl2IUP-4

778. It is not the size of a man but the size of his heart that matters. ~Evander Holyfield

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The human heart feels things
the eyes cannot see
and knows what the mind
cannot understand.
~Robert Valett

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Hearts, hearts, hearts
What great miracles they are–
Intentions that beat, unexplained parts
Of deepest desires, holding dreams and scars.

Hearts they say, “the size of your palms”
And racing away, in unfamiliar tracks,
Searching and chasing they travel
Ticking away even when the mind is at rest.
~Edited and adapted excerpt from a poem
by an Unknown Author

Love the Lord you God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ~Deuteronomy 6:5  ✝

**Image via Pinterest