Tag Archives: Love

284. Seek the wonder of life and love, for it lasts but a short time…believe that the Creator will guide you, for there are grand rewards within mystery. ~Black Hawk

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the loveliness is everywhere
even
in the ugliest
and most hostile environment
the loveliness is everywhere
at the turning of a corner
in the eyes
and on the lips
of a stranger
in the emptiest areas
where is no place for lope
and only death
invites the heart
the loveliness is there
it emerges
incomprehensible
inexplicable
it rises in its own reality
and what we must learn is
how to receive it
into ours
~Kenneth White

The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a well watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.  ~Isaiah 58:11   ✝

280. Spring, you put a spell on me and you make me feel like dancing… ~Edited and adapted excerpt of lyrics by Vincent, Poncia Jr./Leo Sayer

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Happy days are here again!
The skies above are clear again!
So let’s sing a song of cheer again!
Happy days are here again!
~Excerpted lyrics by Milton Ager/Jack Yellen

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Okay, so it’s not really spring yet, at least not according the the calendar, but springy things sprang up in my greenhouse yesterday.  As a result melodies, not just from the birds, filled the air, and indeed it was an occasion for dancing.  I didn’t care what the neighbors might think about an old lady jumpin’ around like a madwoman, it was definitely time for some singin’ and a little jig.  Why?  Well after weeks of waiting tulips were blooming, a daffodil had opened up, and the first bee of the season had found its way inside to sup on the nectar in my little grape hyacinths.  I don’t know about you, but that’s a formula for springtime in my book.  And every time beauty and miracles like that emerge from seemingly nothingness, I fall in love all over again with the Creator of the Universe.  What amazing things He has made and given to us, we creatures who are often so undeserving of His gifts and His grace!  Now that’s love, is it not?!

He said, “O Lord, God of Israel, there is no God like you, in heaven or on earth, keeping covenant in steadfast love with your servants who walk before you with all their heart.  ~2 Chronicles 6:14  ✝

279. Love cures people–both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it. ~Karl Menninger

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A bell is no bell ‘til you ring it,
A song is no song ‘til you sing it,
And love in your heart
Wasn’t put there to stay –
Love isn’t love
‘Til you give it away.
~Oscar Hammerstein, SOUND OF MUSIC

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Let us remember all those we love today, the ones close, the ones far, the ones gone.   Happy Valentines day to all of you.  Jesus loves you and so do I.  Natalie

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.  ~1 Corinthians 13  ✝

276. There is no greater sorrow in the world, than eyes unseeing, color everywhere, or ears unhearing, softly wafted notes from nature’s great cathedral of the air. ~Mabel G. Austin

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What is pink? a rose is pink
By a fountain’s brink.
What is red? a poppy’s red
In its barley bed.
What is blue? the sky is blue
Where the clouds float thro’.
~Christina Rossetti

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Well, it’s another gloomy winter’s day hereabouts, but I’m a singin’ away, a singin’ in the rain as a matter of fact.  “I’m laughing at the clouds so dark up above, what a glorious feelin’ I’m happy again…”  Okay, so it isn’t much rain, but it has rained a bit nevertheless.  And what am I a singing?  I’m a singin’ the blues.  No, no, no, not the sad blues–the happy blues because some of my little, blue grape hyacinths are blooming in the greenhouse, and they like “girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes” are “a few of my favorites things.”  I love the color blue and I love some of the expressions using the color blue, expressions like:  true blue, out of the blue, bluer than blue, blue on blue, once in a blue moon, something borrowed, something blue, and on and on it goes.  I also love some of the ways people describe what the color blue means to them.  For example I’ve heard things like: blue is the wonder in my mind; blue is the sound a sunny day makes; blue is the smell of blueberries ripening in the sun; blue is the wind over water; blue is the color of the never-ending sky; blue is the place where song birds fly; blue is a world of sweet mellow joy; blue is the sky that God holds close to His presence; blue was meant for us to see and believe.

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Blue is the color of God’s Glory according to some rabbinic sages, and it is a constant in our lives.  Not only is it the color of the clear sky and the deep sea, but it’s the color of our planet, Mother Earth, our precious blue pearl in the heavens.  God does indeed hold the sky close to His presence, and we were meant to see evidence of Him, our Creator, in its orbs and in “my blue, blue, blue heaven.”

Speak to the Israelites, and tell them to make fringes on the corners of their garments throughout the generations to put a blue cord on the fringe at each corner.  ~Numbers 15:38  ✝

267. God waits to win back His own flowers as gifts from man’s hands. ~Rabindranath Tagore

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Flowers don’t worry about how they are going to bloom.
They just open up and turn toward the light
and that makes them beautiful.
~Jim Carrey

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Small children pick flowers for their mamas, men bring flowers to women they love, flowers are thrown on a stage after a stellar performance, a bride carries flowers down the aisle at her wedding, returning warriors were once showered with flower petals, a coffin may be surrounded by flowers at a funeral, and on and on go the roles that flowers play in our lives.  We adore them and deem them worthy tokens of admiration, love, respect, and honor.

I’ve tended the soil and planted flowers for my own enjoyment and because I feel close to God in my garden, but until I read what Tagore said, I’d never thought about it as being a way to give gifts to God.  I’ve known that how we live and what we do with our lives is to be an offering to the Lord and done for His glory, and now the thought of presenting Him with my posies as gifts adds an even greater level of joy to my labors in the garden.  Although the time has not yet come for a miraculous flower like the one in the photo to bloom, I offer up this one from last year’s bounty as a thank offering to the Holy One for the coming of another spring and for His continual presence in my life and for all the ways He blesses me.  I chose this Star Magnolia because it lights up whatever darkness surrounds it in the same way the stars light the heavens and Jesus lights the darkness around us.

And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body.  And be thankful.  ~Colossians 3:15  ✝

**Over the past 10 years, a plethora of research has shown that flowers increase the levels of positive energy and moods, reduce the likelihood of stress-related depression, and help people feel secure, relaxed, optimistic, and happy.

264. Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. ~Erich Fromm

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Sometimes we write love in small letters-
Spreading the butter on his toast or
Wiping down the kitchen counter dabbed with
Peanut butter and jelly…

Love is often dangling on a clothesline
And snatching a peek at a sleeping face;
It is the giving up and giving in
To another’s want with joy…

Blowing, kissing and holding tight is
Love’s voice upon a sore finger, a wrinkled
Cheek, a weary shoulder than saunters at
Days end hopelessly…

Minutes are just as vital in love’s scaling
Upward climb to perfection, the afternoons
Picking strawberries and the morning
Prayer that’s an alloy…

Write love, in capital or small, it doesn’t matter–
Pen it with every touch; add it to tuna casseroles
And let it water down every heartache at
Your midnight soliloquies

But compose it…
Jot it down
and engrave it without restraint!
Dirty your hands in it
and clean a soul with
It…
Like the only work you’ve employed.
~Deborah Jeanne Avila

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love,  I am a noisy gong or clanging symbol.   And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing…  ~1 Corinthians 13  ✝

261. Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see. ~C. S. Lewis

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Every gardener knows
that under the cloak of winter
lies a miracle–a seed waiting to sprout,
a bulb opening to the light,
a bud straining to unfurl.
And the anticipation nurtures our dream.
~Barbara Winkler

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Miracles!  Where would any of us be without the existence of miracles?  Bad things happen on planet earth, but miraculous things occur on a daily basis too.  And many times out of the dust and devastation of catastrophic disasters arise changes for the betterment of life and living conditions as well as the inevitable uplifting examples of an amazing goodness that exist in the human soul.  I garden not just because of a love for flowers but more importantly because I find day to day evidence of the mystery and miracles of God and His goodness in the garden’s confines.  Spending even the smallest amount of time in my garden brings repeated awarenesses of the Lord’s abiding presence, and that keeps me focused on Him and not on my own smallness or limitations.  In spite of Creation’s brokenness and my own heart’s sufferings, I am guided to wellsprings of life and hope amid earth’s unmistakable hallowed workings.  Both contentment and enlightenment can be found in the orbs of the heavens, in the green of the earth, in the flowing of its waters, in the warmth of the sun, and in the wind, that like Yahweh, can be felt but not seen.  That in turn teaches me how to respond to life and its sometimes terrifying circumstances with a spirit of peace and love instead of anger, confusion, and frustration.  Understanding is not promised unto us, but peace that transcends understanding is granted to those who seek the Prince of Peace and search for the true heart of life.

The Mighty One, God, the LORD, speaks and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to the place where it sets.  ~Psalm 50:1   ✝

255. Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm and our intelligence aglow. ~Helen Keller, American author and educator

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Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others,
and in their pleasure takes joy, even as though t’were his own.
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German writer and Politician

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One of my fellow bloggers commented today about the beauty in one of my posts and said she needed the joy.  It was such a blessing to know that I had spread some joy in the life of another.  So tonight I thought I would share some thoughts about joy.  And since this week is A.A. Milne’s birthday I decided to use some illustrations from his book to help do that.  Milne was the English author who brought so much joy not only to children but also to those of us fortunate enough to have read the Winnie the Pooh stories to our children.

Joy is not in things; it is in us.  ~Richard Wagner, German composer

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The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world’s joy.  ~Henry Ward Beecher, Congregational minister

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Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.  ~Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Monk and Writer

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He who has never looked on sorrow will never see joy.  ~Kahlil Gibran, Lebanese born American philosophical Essayist, Novelist, Poet

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Joy is the net of love by which you can catch souls.  ~Mother Teresa, Missionary

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Joy delights in joy.  ~William Shakespeare, English Dramatist, Playwright, Poet

But let all who take refuge in you(God) rejoice; let them ever sing for joy.  Spread your protection over them, so that those who love your name may exult you.  ~Psalm 5:10-12  ✝

246. The flower is the poetry of reproduction. It is an example of the eternal seductiveness of life. ~Jean Giraudoux

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I am a symbol of love and immortality.
I have been around since the time of Confucius.
My name came from a Persian word.
At one time I was more expensive than precious metals.
I can be used in the place of an onion in cooking.
I am in the same family as a lily.

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Do you know who I am?  I am a native of Central Asia, and I am the world’s most planted flower.  When I arrived from Turkey in the mid-16th century, I was a gift from the Ottoman Empire that took Western Europe by storm.  But I did not come to the United States until the 1800’s.  There are about 3,000 varieties of me grown around the world, some that originated in the seventeenth century.  My petals come in every shade of the rainbow as well as black, but my most popular color is red.  And I can be forced into blooming after I have been stored in a refrigerator for 12-16 weeks.

A tulip doesn’t strive to impress anyone.
It doesn’t struggle to be different than a rose.
It doesn’t have to.
It is different.
And there’s room in the garden for every flower.
~Marianne Williamson

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I’ve never had much luck with growing tulips in the ground.  So this year I decided to try forcing them in containers.  Two weeks ago after the bulbs had spent the required amount of time in my refrigerator, I planted some in soil and some in glass containers partially filled with pebbles and water.  As of today I’m proud to report that I have tulips sprouting in both types of containers.  Though it be only the 12th of January, springtime has sprung at least in my greenhouse.  One of the most seductive things in life I know is the thrill of the first spark of life in a garden.  Every time I experience it I feel as if a time machine has transported me back to Eden on the third day when creation was “born of the Spirit in the womb of the universe.”  On that day the first seeds were planted in the earth and their roots reached down for the waters that would sustain them.  Then and now such as this is clearly a manifestation of the goodness of God.

I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.  ~Psalm 27:13  ✝

242. For last year’s words belong to last year’s language. And next year’s words await another voice and to make an end is to make a new beginning. ~T. S. Eliot

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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 and the flowers,
and the dreams are as beautiful.
~Abram L. Urban

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One of the fascinating things about a garden is that it’s never quite the same from year to year even if nothing is lost or nothing new is planted.  Depending on the variable nature of the weather and the seasons, there is always a difference from one year to the next in the way things grow and perform.  Since a garden is a living, breathing entity, it is always in a state of flux, a continuous inconstancy of gain and loss, rise and fall.  For example one never knows how many seeds will germinate and flourish or when they or something established will perish for one inexplicable reason or another.  So, like people, a garden awaits another “voice” each year, and every ending in it and us yields a new and somewhat different beginning.  Whatever was said and done last year is just that for both nature and humanity, and I’ve found it best to leave what was said and done in the past where it belongs.  Neither do I spend time thinking about new year’s resolutions because I know that the seasons in my life are always different and therefore evoke different feelings within me and different responses from me.

Time and time again life rises from death, and when it does, one can feel the beating heart of heaven and hear the hushed voice of grace–that unchanging holy voice of grace, that sacred in-and-out breath of life, the Presence that captures me again and again and again.  For me that is the only constancy, and I simply cannot live without it or the Ancient of Days by whose grace I live.

“The sounds, the aromas, the speech of life that infiltrates and seduces in heard and unheard melodies echoing from every life form to cocoon, to feed us, to excite us, to give solace, to renew, to cry in joy and sorrow, to create, to birth, to laugh at the sheer exuberance of feeling, I love.”    ~Patricia at: http://theenglishprofessor.net/qualifications.php

Obey the Lord and serve Him faithfully with all your heart; consider all the great things He has done for you.  ~1 Samuel 12:24  ✝