Tag Archives: Joy

436. The spiritual quality of earth: eternally pregnant and containing in its fertility the unwritten cipher of cosmic lore. ~Frieda Harris

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Brown and furry
Caterpillar in a hurry,
Take your walk
To the shady leaf, or stalk,
Or what not,
Which may be the chosen spot.
No toad spy you,
Hovering bird of prey pass by you;
Spin and die,
To live again a butterfly.
~Christina Rossetti

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Photo by: http://littlepicsofhope.wordpress.com/

I know the thrill of the grasses
when the rain pours over them.
I know the trembling of the leaves
when the winds sweep through them.
I know what the white clover felt
as it held a drop of dew pressed close in its beauteousness.
I know the quivering of the fragrant petals
at the touch of the pollen-legged bees.
I know what the voracious caterpillars need
from the host plants on which they feed,
I know what the stream said to the dipping willows,
and what the moon said to the sweet lavender.
I know what the stars said when they came
stealthily down and crept fondly into the tops of the trees.
~Adapted excerpt from “Creation Songs”
by Muriel Strode

The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders; where morning dawns, where evening fades, you call forth songs of joy. ~Psalm 65:8   ✝

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.

435. Ignorance is God’s prison. Knowing is God’s palace. ~Rumi

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Just had to share this that I found at: http://luggagelady.net/2014/07/21/love-letters-to-malaysia-airlines/

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Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other. ~Psalm 85:10  ✝

I have
Dreamed into a universal sky
Rife with promise of a new day
I have
Dangled foot in waters connecting us
without borders
And I have
Realized
We experience this world
Together
Whether buoyed up by blissful joy
Or Bruised by unimaginable tragedy
Nothing separates
Hearts overlapping
We are one…
~Shauna Dickinson

424. Holy Spirit–You’re the Live in being alive, the Be in every creature’s being, the Breathe in every breath on earth. ~St. Hildegard von Bingen

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We praise You for these gifts,
Light-giver,
Sound of joy,
Wonder of being alive,
Hope of every person,
and our strongest Good.
~St. Hildegard von Bingen

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purpleliciousness
color of robe given Christ
in passion’s demand
~Natalie Scarberry

The flower in my photograph is a passion flower (passiflora incarnata.) Besides being breathtakingly beautiful there was a time long ago when Catholic missionaries connected certain aspects of the passion flower with Christian beliefs. To them the ten petals of the flower represented the ten apostles in Christianity excluding St. Peter and Judas. The vines of the plant symbolized the whips that were used during the flagellation of Christ. One of the major characteristics is the hundreds of filaments on the flower that symbolized the Crown of Thorns. The five anthers were associated with the five sacred wounds of Christ. The flower contains three stigmas that reflected the three nails that were used for Christ’s hands and feet during his Crucifixion. There is a floral component that resembles a chalice-like ovary that has been supposed to symbolize the Holy Grail. The religious symbolism and associations that had been brought to attention once gave the missionaries faith and comfort for their efforts in spreading Christianity to the indigenous cultures of South America. The Jesuit Missionaries transported color drawings and dried versions of the plant back to their country where a Spanish herbalist named Nicolas Monardes was the first to document the plant and write about the qualities of the flower, indicating that it was a powerful plant and that it carried a symbolic relationship with Christianity.

The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe. ~John 19:2   ✝

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.

 

423. Orange is the happiest color. ~Frank Sinatra

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Nowhere in nature
can you find purer color
than sunlight passing through
the petal of a flower.
~Larry K. Stephenson

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orange bliss petals
bring fiesta for eyes
and sweet citrus dreams
~Natalie Scarberry

The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes. Psalm 19:8   ✝

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.

419. Let your love be like the misty rains, coming softly, but flooding the river. ~Malagasy Proverb

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Love has no desire but to fulfill itself. To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving. ~Khalil Gibran

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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.


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,

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,


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…

~Mary Oliver

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

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.

416. God bless America, land that I love. Stand beside her, and guide her through the night with a light from above. ~Irving Berlin

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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

This, then, is the state of the union: free and restless, growing and full of hope.  So it was in the beginning.  So it shall always be, while God is willing, and we are strong enough to keep the faith.  ~Lyndon B. Johnson

There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.  ~William J. Clinton

O Lord, may we the people never take the gift of freedom for granted. May our hearts be filled with love, our souls with peace, and our lives with joy. May our prayers always be a chant of the humble and the grateful. May your hand of blessing always be over us, and may we praise and seek you in all things. In Jesus’ name!

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. ~2 Corinthians 3:17   ✝

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!

 

 

411. There is nothing more perplexing in life than to know at what point you should surrender your intellect to your faith. ~Margot Asquith

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Your heart is a sun–
Joy its stars,
Faith a moon, shining in your darkness.
~Terri Guillemets

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I want to write about faith
about the way the moon rises
over cold snow, night after night.

faithful even as it fades from fullness,
slowly becoming that last curving and impossible
sliver of light before the final darkness.

But I have no faith myself,
I refuse it the smallest entry.

Let this then, my small poem,
like a new moon, slender and barely open,
be the first prayer that opens me to faith.
~David Whyte

Some say the dandelion’s message is that every breath is a second chance. Let all those who know you not, O Lord, be open to the second chance faith offers them. Come fill their lungs anew with your holy breath of life and their veins with the blood you shed for them on Calvary’s cross.

Know that the Lord has set apart his faithful servant for himself; the Lord hears when I call to him. Psalm 4:3  ✝

** Image via Pinterest

397. Where we love is home, home that out feet may leave, but not our hearts. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

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Home is a name, a word;
it is a strong one,
stronger than magician ever spoke
or spirit ever answered to,
in the strongest conjuration.
~Charles Dickens

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May God bless the place where you dwell. May He bless every heart that beats beneath its roof. May every hand be blessed that toils to bring joy therein, and may every foot that walks its portals through be blessed. When you leave the shelter of its roof and walls, may sunshine brighten your path, rainbows follow the rain, and soft winds freshen your spirit. May the burdens of the day rest lightly upon you, and may God enfold you in the mantle of His love. ~An edited and adapted collection of Celtic blessings

Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may have her young—a place near your altar, Lord Almighty, my King and my God. ~Psalm 84:3 ✝

Thank you, 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.

389. Come let’s enjoy our winecup today… ~Wang Wei

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June is bustin’ out all over!
All over the meadow and the hill!
Buds’re bustin’ outa bushes…
~Rodgers and Hammerstein

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The garden during this first week of June has been a dazzling fiesta of color staged around lively splashes in the two courtyard fountains. Little yellow and white butterflies, though not nearly as many as usual, have been beautiful “señoritas” gaily fluttering, whirling, and dancing amid the intensely orange daylilies, the bright yellow coreopsis, the flashy pink petunias, the blazing red roses, and the rich pink, blue, and purple hues of salvia spires, lavender spikes, and althea blossoms. The new month has also brought more of the white as snow angel’s trumpets which appear to be the lead musicians in the roving Mariachi bands. Their “divine music” has been, as expected, lively Latin “salsa” rhythms as hot as the rising temperatures of an oncoming Texas summer.

He will yet fill your mouth with laughter and your lips with shouts of joy. ~Job 8:21 ✝

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.

384. June-O most noble Greenness…You are encircled by the very arms of Divine mysteries. ~Hildegard von Bingen, 12th century Benedictine Abbess

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I’m glad to be alive, to see and feel
The full deliciousness of this bright day,
That’s like a heart with nothing to conceal;
The young leaves scarcely trembling; the blue grey
Rimming the cloudless ether far away…
~William Allingham

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What Wordsworth called “the fairest daughter of the year” has dawned, and now that June, spring’s last born child who gives birth to summer, sits on the throne, she’ll afford us a last look at spring’s beauty before she steps down and yields to the burning flames of the summertime sun.

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Now summer is in flower and nature’s hum
Is never silent round her sultry bloom
Insects as small as dust are never done
Wi’ glittering dance and reeling in the sun
And green wood fly and blossom haunting bee
Are never weary of their melody
Round field hedge now flowers in full glory twine
Large bindweed bells wild hop and streaked woodbine
That lift athirst their slender throated flowers
Agape for dew falls and for honey showers
These round each bush in sweet disorder run
And spread their wild hues to the sultry sun.
~John Clare

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, the sheep of His pasture. Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name. For the Lord is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues through all generations. ~Psalm 100 ✝

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!