Tag Archives: Key

1334. Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening. ~Mahatma Gandhi

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Willis Peterson said, “A click of the shutter, a crank of the film, and you’ve caught forever a significant bit of life,” and I could not agree more. But to each of us the “significant bit of life” we choose to capture photographically may be vastly different. For me it is the natural world in general, and my garden of flowers in particular. So when winter begins to weigh heavily on me, I turn to my archives to find “significant bits” from previous years to lift off the weight of lackluster winter. While I share Ehrmann’s prayer with you, I decided I’d share some of my treasured “bits.”

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Let me do my work each day;
and if the darkened hours
of despair overcome me, may
I not forget the strength
that comforted me in the
desolation of other times.

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May I still remember the bright
hours that found me walking
over the silent hills of my
childhood, or dreaming on
the margin of a quiet river,
when a light glowed within me,
and I promised my early God
to have courage amid the
tempests of the changing years.

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Spare me from bitterness
and from the sharp passions of
unguarded moments. May
I not forget that poverty and
riches are of the spirit.
Though the world knows me not,
may my thoughts and actions
be such as shall keep me
friendly with myself.

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Lift up my eyes
from the earth, and let me not
forget the uses of the stars.
Forbid that I should judge others
lest I condemn myself.
Let me not follow the clamor of
the world, but walk calmly
in my path.

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Give me a few friends
who will love me for what
I am; and keep ever burning
before my vagrant steps
the kindly light of hope.

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And though age and infirmity
overtake me, and I come not within
sight of the castle of my dreams,
teach me still to be thankful
for life, and for time’s olden
memories that are good and
sweet; and may the evening’s
twilight find me gentle still.
~Max Ehrmann

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Let us not depreciate Earth. The sun was like a great visiting presence that stimulated and took its due from all animal energy. When it flung wide its cloak and stepped down over the edge of the fields at evening, it left behind it a spent and exhausted world. ~Willa Cather

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By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me— a prayer to the God of my life. ~Psalm 42:8  ✝

810. Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn’t know you left open. ~John Barrymore

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In oneself lies the whole world
and if you know how to look and learn,
the door is there and the key is in your hand.
Nobody on earth can give you either
the key or the door to open, except yourself.
~Krishnamurti

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I truly believe that everything we do
and everyone we meet is
put in our path for a purpose.
There are no accidents;
we’re all teachers – if we’re willing
to pay attention to the lessons we learn,
trust our positive instincts and not be
afraid to take risks or wait for
some miracle to come knocking at the door.
~Maria Gibbs

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Doors are always intriguing, don’t you think?!  Our hotel in Paris was at 8 Avenue Rapp in the 7th arrondissement, and we frequently walked past the Art Nouveau Door above at 29 Avenue Rapp, on the way to the Eiffel Tower or to find some place to eat dinner. The beautiful door was built in 1901 by Jules Lavirotte, and I believe it to be the entrance to apartments or town homes. And oh, mais oui, oui, oui, how I would love to live in those surroundings and behind that beautiful door.

“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” ~Spoken by Jesus Christ in Luke 11: 9  ✝

591. The great majority of men are bundles of beginnings. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Don’t be discouraged.
It’s often the last key in bunch
that opens the lock.
~Author Unknown

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Refuse to fall down
If you cannot refuse to fall down,
refuse to stay down.
If you cannot refuse to stay down,
lift your heart toward heaven,
and like a hungry beggar,
ask that it be filled.
You may be pushed down.
You may be kept from rising.
But no one can keep you from lifting your heart
toward heaven
only you.
It is in the middle of misery
that so much becomes clear.
The one who says nothing good
came of this,
is not yet listening.
~Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.  ~James 1:4   ✝

** Images via Pinterest

259. If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden. ~From THE SECRET GARDEN by Frances Hodgson Burnett

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At that moment a very good thing was happening to her. Four good things had happened to her, in fact, since she came to Misselthwaite Manor. She had felt as if she had understood a robin and that he had understood her; she had run in the wind until her blood had grown warm; she had been healthily hungry for the first time in her life; and she had found out what it was to be sorry for someone.  ~Excerpted from THE SECRET GARDEN by Frances Hodgson Burnett

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My first move of the day is from the bed to my recliner so I can sit a while and enjoy whatever is going on out in the yard.  I’ve still not seen any robins, but as I kept watching the Cardinals come today to my feeders, their flashes of red were enough to bring thoughts of Burnett’s novel, The SECRET GARDEN. Her inspirational tale of transformation and empowerment for two children with very dim outlooks and prospects touches my heart on several different levels.  When Mary finds the key to the secret garden, the “magical” powers of transformation come within her reach, and eventually she and Colin are “saved” and offered the prospects of present and future goodness and happiness.  I didn’t begin gardening until much later in life than they, but my discovery of the healing power inherent in all living things and God’s abiding presence in Creation was a pivotal moment of transformation in my life as well.  So I decided to post some lines from the novel tonight along with photographs (via Pinterest) in hopes of relaying the Divine’s “magic” that captured Mary, Colin, and me.

“Nothing in the world is quite as adorably lovely as a robin when he shows off and they are nearly always doing it.”

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“…the immense, tender, terrible, heart-breaking beauty and solemnity of Eggs.”

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“Never thee stop believin’ in th’ Big Good Thing an’ knowin’ th’ world’s full of it – and call it what tha’ likes. Tha’ wert singin’ to it when I come into t’ garden.”

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“There’s naught as nice as th’ smell o’ good clean earth, except th’ smell o’ fresh growin’ things when th’ rain falls on ’em.”

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“And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles.”

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“However many years she lived, Mary always felt that ‘she should never forget that first morning when her garden began to grow.”

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The Lord is my strength and my might, and He has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise Him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.  ~Exodus 15:2  ✝