567. Fragrance takes you on a journey of time. ~Daphne Guinness

December 3, 2014 by nataliescarberry

There’s not a wind
but whispers thy name;
not a scent that beneath the moon,
but tells a tale of thee…
~Edited and adapted excerpt
from Bryan Proctor

As I opened the door to go out and close up the greenhouse, I could smell the scent of a wood burning fire wafting through the garden. All around me the darkness was descending uncommonly quiet and still except for a slow trickle of water falling from one tier to another in the fountain. It had been a cloudy day, but now occasional breaks in the clouds were allowing glimpses of a waxing gibbous moon–the distinctive, ancient moon that was the only nocturnal companion for those who’d once lived a more solitary existence where I now stand. As I stopped to inhale the fragrance of autumn’s ripeness, the aroma of burning oak, and the scent of the damp soil, I was momentarily transfixed as images of pioneers moving west across the land passed before my mind’s eye. They were descendants of immigrants like my great-grandparents who came here in covered wagons from the east, and I reckon that maybe, just maybe, it’s echoes of their voices I yet hear whispering faintly in the winds that blow across the Texas prairies.

I love the aroma of wood smoke and the crunching sound of autumn leaves beneath my feet and the savory scents that fill the space between heaven and earth this time of year. When darkness lowers, the moon, if it’s up there, is a comforting presence in the night sky, and the long nights ahead become cozy times of nestling down in a comfy chair with a cup of hot chocolate or tea for warmth to dream, yes to dream, first that in some soon-to-come felicitous moment I’ll look out the window and witness the wondrous spectacle of snow and secondly that spring will come sooner than usual and be even more glorious than the last. Ah, but how the marvelous old moon makes dreamers out of us all!

But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of Him everywhere. ~2 Corinthians 2:14 ✝

** Image via Pinterest

509. How we treat the vulnerable is how we define ourselves as a species. ~Russell Brand

October 6, 2014 by nataliescarberry

What is it to grow old?
Is it to lose the glory of the form,
The lustre of the eye?
Is it for beauty to forego her wreath?
Yes, but not for this alone.

Is it to feel our strength –
Not our bloom only, but our strength -decay?
Is it to feel each limb
Grow stiffer, every function less exact,
Each nerve more weakly strung?

Yes, this, and more!

It is to spend long days
And not once feel that we were ever young.
It is to add, immured
In the hot prison of the present, month
To month with weary pain.

It is to suffer this,
And feel but half, and feebly, what we feel:
Deep in our hidden heart
Festers the dull remembrance of a change,
But no emotion -none.

It is -last stage of all –
When we are frozen up within, and quite
The phantom of ourselves…
~Excerpted lines from a poem by Matthew Arnold

Echoes, echoes of the past–voices, so many familiar voices gone, now silenced by the closing of their life’s doors–memories, memories mingling with the present, all bringing the dark clouds that move in across her brain where the fury of raging storms begin on unfamiliar shores. The echoes, the voices, and the memories become scrambled in her dementia so that things and people once cherished create anxiety, anguish, and at times torment. Her mind, once sharp and clear, is now befuddled as she becomes more and more lost inside herself and her fears. Her family raised, her labors done, there is nothing left now but the lonely silence of her worsening deafness and the rapid waning of her vision. Soon she will be ever so far away from me, the one in whose womb my life began. Will she then still know my face and the feel of my touch? Will the skies ever again clear in her head and cast her weary, but back on familiar shores? Or has she begun the final journey of her dreaded aloneness? Please Lord, be with my mother as she struggles to navigate these dark passages of uncharted waters. Bring her comfort and peace, and if not mine, then let her recognize Your touch and know Your face. Let the child she has again become blindly trust as she once did that all is well with her soul and that You will care for her always. And let Your sweet benedictions steal into her senescent heart and fragile mind that’s becoming so profoundly confused, wounded, and betrayed by her aged, earthly body.

One of my followers commented yesterday on my memory post about the sadness of dealing with an aging parent who has Alzheimer’s, and I know that others of you are caring for elderly parents whose memories are failing. In those situations there are two or more people affected by the circumstances; both the aged and their caregiver(s) are profoundly impacted by this passage. So I decided to share the above with all of you. It is something I wrote in my journal during a long, hard night when I was caring for my 92-year-old mother before she passed away.

Even to your old age and gray hairs I am He, I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you. ~Isaiah 46:4 ✝

**Image via Pinterest

Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you. ~Isaiah 46:4 ✝

508. All our lives we are engaged in preserving our experiences and keeping them fresh by artificially sprinkling the water of memory over them. ~Vimala Thakar

October 5, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Memory is a child walking the seashore.
You never can tell what small pebble it will pick up
and store away among its treasured things.
~Pierce Harris

Events-a heartbreak here, a miracle there-come and go weaving the experiences of our seasons solidly into the fabric of our lives and who we are. Layer upon layer of growing moves us through doors that forever alter our reality and render us somewhat different than we were prior to each particular journey. And as we leave behind places and people, time attempts to swallow them up. But we carry the treasured “pebbles” we pick up with us into every new arena because they’ve etched indelible marks in us which continue to reverberate deep within our hearts. And these memories of past events that we’ve “stored away” never cease to ebb and flow even from behind foggy mists of forgetfulness. With me they are often remembered in moonlight reveries when seeking the feel of God’s presence or when lingering in places of beauty with no other agenda but to relish the glory of all that He made.

In the secret,
in the quiet place,
in the stillness
You(God) are there.
~Excerpt from the lyrics of a song
by Chris Tomlin

I will perpetuate your memory through all generations; therefore the nations will praise you for ever and ever. ~Psalm 45:17 ✝

** Image via Pinterest

420. At bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time. ~Friedrich Nietzsche

July 8, 2014 by nataliescarberry

“You’re lovely, but you’re empty,” he went on.
“One couldn’t die for you.
Of course an ordinary passerby would think
my rose looked just like you.
But my rose…is more important… since she’s the one I’ve watered.
Since she’s the one I put under glass.
Since she’s the one I sheltered behind a screen.
Since she’s the one for whom I killed the caterpillars.
Since she’s the one I listened to when she complained,
or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all.
Since she’s my rose.”

“People where you live,” the little prince said,
“grow five thousand roses in one garden. . .
yet they don’t find what they’re looking for. . .”
“And yet what they’re looking for could be found
in a single rose. . .”

And the little prince added,
“But eyes are blind. You have to look with the heart.”
“One sees clearly only with the heart.
Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.”

~Excerpts from THE LITTLE PRINCE by Antoine de Saint Exupéry

What the little prince said about the essential being invisible to the eyes is profoundly true. Scripture tells us we are made in the image of God, and that truth puts into perspective the vast and diverse abilities of our Maker. Simply put, it tells me that the Lord is bigger and more powerful that we could ever imagine. It also tells me there is a distinct reason for the uniqueness of every created entity. It tells me that how we feel about what our eyes see should be filtered first through that knowledge and our heart of hearts. It tells me that what we are matters only in the light of how we treat everyone and everything that crosses our path on this journey, be they flowers, be they animals, or be they people.

As water reflects a face, so a man’s heart reflects the man. ~Proverbs 27:19 ✝

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.

417. The bee is more honored than other animals, not because she labors, but because she labors for others. St. John Chrysostom

July 5, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Today the summer has come at my window with its sighs and murmurs; and the bees are plying their minstrelsy at the court of the flowering grove. Now it is time to sit quite, face to face with thee, and to sing dedication of life in this silent and overflowing leisure. ~Rabindranath Tagore

Veiled in this fragile filigree of wax is the essence of sunshine, golden and limpid, tasting of grassy meadows, mountain wildflowers, lavishly blooming orange trees, or scrubby desert weeds. Honey, even more than wine, is a reflection of place. If the process of grape to glass is alchemy, then the trail from blossom to bottle is one of reflection. The nectar collected by the bee is the spirit and sap of the plant, its sweetest juice. Honey is the flower transmuted, its scent and beauty transformed into aroma and taste.   ~Stephanie Rosenbaum

The careful insect ‘midst his works I view,
Now from the flowers exhaust the fragrant dew,
With golden treasures load his little thighs,
And steer his distant journey through the skies.
~John Gay

His labor is a chant,
His idleness a tune;
Oh, for the bee’s experience
Of clovers, and of noon.
~Emily Dickinson

Eat honey, my child, for it is good; honey from the comb is sweet to your taste. ~Proverbs 24:13 ✝

**Images via Pinterest

392. Bring me the sunflower crazed with the love of light. ~Eugenio Montale

June 9, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Many flowers open to the sun but only one
follows him constantly. Heart, be thou the
sunflower, not only open to receive God’s blessing,
but constantly in looking for Him.
~Jean Paul Richter

I don’t think there’s anything on this planet
that more trumpets life than the sunflower.
For me, that’s the reason behind its name–
not because it looks like the sun–
but because it follows the sun.
During the course of the day the head
tracks the journey of the sun across the sky.
Wherever light is, no matter how weak,
these flowers will find it.
And that’s such an admirable thing.
And such a lesson in life.
~Words spoken by Helen Mirren  in the movie Calendar Girls

In the same way, let your light shine before others, they they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. ~Matthew 5:16 ✝

376. Each blade of grass has its spot on earth whence it draws its life, its strength, and so is man rooted to the land from which he draws his faith together with his life. ~Joseph Conrad

May 24, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Forests, lakes, and rivers,
clouds and winds,  stars and flowers,
stupendous glaciers,  and crystal snowflakes –
every form of animate  or inanimate existence,
leaves its impress on the soul of man.
~Orison Swett Marden

Eenie, meenie, miney, moe–it’s hard to decide what to sing the praises of in a garden this time of year. “Animate or inanimate” it’s all good. In mine Yahweh “leaves His impress” in my mind, heart, and soul for hour after hour, day after day He ushers in gifts that take my breath away. So it is that I’ve been able to witness for myself that His wells of mercy, grace, goodness, and forgiveness never run dry nor do His faithful provisions. My cup, like the beauty in these chalice-like blossoms, is continually filled to overflowing. And why not? Herein I’m awakened daily with birdsong, sunlight filling sapphire skies, days breaking in exhilaration, and zephyrs spreading sweetly scented aromas in places where holiness falls like misting rain. This place is where I felt the Lord’s presence again after a long lapse in my faith journey, and when I renewed my relationship with Him amidst its treasures, my roots sank deep in its soil and His being. Thus I remain deeply connected to my yard and Him through something not unlike the life-giving umbilical cord that nurtures a child in a mother’s womb. This place on earth’s sacred ground is my sanctuary, and its “walls” echo voices that not only mentor me but hopefully others with whom I share its ageless tales and “shy presences.”

I will proclaim the name of the Lord. Oh, praise the greatness of our God. ~Deuteronomy 32:3 ✝

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!

212. It is part of the cure to want to be cured. ~Seneca

December 10, 2013 by nataliescarberry

To feel keenly the poetry of a morning’s roses,
one has to just have escaped from the claws
of this vulture which we call sickness of body or heart.
~Adapted excerpt from Henri Frederic Amiel

In order to mend and bridge chasms of painful, isolating realities, I often douse the fires of what breaks my heart in cups of tea or tears that flow during quiet dawns or at night when the wee hours find me awake and alone. After the sipping or crying comes to an end, a numbed stillness often develops. When it does, I become aware in its clarity of the amazing nearness of God. Jesus, whom I’ve been calling, is offering to guide me through portals to places where pools of mercy await. Sometimes the healing waters lie deep within my own being where the Holy Spirit resides in His cloistered sanctuary. At other times they are found in the beautiful colors of autumn, or in the glistening dew on greening grass and flowers in springtime, or in the gentle gestures of another’s compassion, or in softly spoken prayers proffered by kind and endearing voices. Wherever the pool and whoever the beneficial bearer of blessing, one or both sustain me, if I yield, in the returning rhythm of fitness as the Lord’s grace works to render me wholly well.

I’ve discovered that tears have amazing restorative powers for frequently it is when my eyes are blurred with wetness from them that a sense of God’s presence is strongest. For surely in the loss of His own son by the hands of creatures He breathed life into, He shed more tears than we’ll ever know. We all endure difficult and sorrowful moments in our lives. So excruciating is the pain on occasion that it nearly stifles our very breath, but one breath and one step at a time begins the journey out of the depths of despair.

“But I will restore your health and heal your wounds,” declares the Lord… ~Jeremiah 30:17a ✝

**Whittard’s is a tea, coffee, and cocoa shop that we found in London last summer.

203. Surely a man needs a closed place where in he may strike root and, like the seed become. ~Antoine de St. Exupéry

November 30, 2013 by nataliescarberry

But he also needs the Great Milky Way
above him and the vast sea spaces,
though neither stars nor ocean serve his daily needs.
~Antoine de St. Exupéry

For me, autumn, especially late autumn, is a time for reflection, contemplation, and soul searching–a time for ruminating on the things that move me and make me who and what I am. And so as I worked out in the yard on this sunny last day of November, the windmills in my mind started churning up memories of the events that led to its door. Rather than covering every step of the journey, I decided to start when I found my “closed place” in this house with its spacious yards where I began to “strike roots.” In the beginning, though the home and its conveniences served my physical needs and provided me with creature comforts, relief from old emotional wounds and peaceful contentment remained elusive long afterwards. Years passed with little change in the status quo until one summer while recalling the beautiful flowers surrounding my childhood home (above) in California, I decided it was time to try growing my own flowers right here in hot old Texas. Since I wasn’t sure I’d inherited the proverbial “green thumb” of my ancestors, I resolved to begin on a small scale. So I cleaned off a corner of the patio, bought some bags of potting soil and an assortment of pots and seeds, and thus commenced what I know now to have been a pivotal moment in my life. From the minute the first seeds germinated, a soul-saving passion for gardening was being birthed in me. Despite the summer’s miserable heat, I faithfully watered and fussed over my thriving “little flock,” and it was those familiar flowery scents that were the catalysts which sparked my spiritual reawakening. The next summer with the success of the previous year under my belt and a renewed recognition of Ruach Elohim (the Spirit of God), I decided to branch out and actually sow seeds in the ground and dig a few holes for bedding plants. Success came again and with it the quickening in my spirit intensified so much so that I decided to take my recently commissioned mentor’s advice to attend church once more. This was the first step in righting the derailment of my faith journey that had begun after the early death of my father.

Scripture tells us that Christ is the vine, and we are the branches. Until those first two growing summers the branch that was Natalie had been withering, not because the Lord had been doing less but because I had been turning a deaf ear and blaming Him for the loss of my father as well as for painful, emotional wounds and the awful, unrelenting migraines that had started in my mid-twenties. Since then I have spent season after glorious season planting, replanting, listening, seeking His presence, and marveling at the wonders of heaven and earth. This pilgrimage that was involved in becoming the Natalie I am today has taught me that He, His Church, and His Creation, which includes the Great Milky Way, the vast sea spaces, and a garden, are the “holy foods” I must have to survive and live in peace and harmony. Now minute by minute in this place where I have deeply “rooted” myself, the hungering need for “more” has been forever silenced by miracles great and small, blessing upon blessing, and the amazing grace He continues to bestow upon me.

I am the vine, and my Father is the gardener… Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:1 and 4-5

Sacred Touches

Life is a time of purpose and anointed blossoming…

Tag Archives: Journey