432. Colors are the smiles of nature. ~Leigh Hunt, British author

July 21, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Summer is the time when one sheds
one’s tensions with one’s clothes,
and the right kind of day is a jeweled balm
for the battered spirit.
A few of those days and you can become drunk
with the belief that all’s right with the world.
~Ada Louise Huxtable

What color do words like blush, coral, fuchsia, magenta, raspberry, rose, and salmon conjure up? Isn’t it pink, pink that tones down the physical passion of red, replacing it with a gentle, loving energy?

Pink that’s the sweet side of red, pink that’s playfulness and tenderness, pink that’s the color of bubble gum and cotton candy and babies, especially little girls.

Pink that’s charming, pink that soothes the heart and fills it with love, pink that’s feminine and romantic, affectionate and intimate, thoughtful and caring.

Pink that’s compassion and nurturing and unconditional love, pink that’s a sign of hope, pink that represents the sweetness and innocence of the child in all of us.

But pink is not just a color; it embodies a variety of attitudes, all of which are uplifting. There’s the cool and collected pinks, the bold and sassy hotter pinks, the soft and drowsy pinks, and the daring and dramatic deep pinks.

In the spring I think of pink as a somewhat shy presence but as summer’s fiery temperatures rise, pink is anything but timid. In Texas the scorching days of July and August punish the flesh and the spirit relentlessly, but even the smallest touch of pink pours over them like a soothing salve of goodness. The pinks of summer may not entirely keep one from walking “without flinching through the burning cathedral of the summer,” but they do keep the flames from licking up so high that they completely snuff out the breath. While locusts screech, pink flowers murmur softer melodies taking some of the edge off their discordant harmonies and human discomfort. I’ve even seen ribbons of pink in a majestic sunset at the end of a day when they seemed to cool down the heat from the intense, fiery glow of the summer sun.

Praise the Lord, my soul. Lord my God, you are very great; you are clothed with splendor and majesty. The Lord wraps Himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent and lays the beams of his upper chamber on their waters. ~Psalm 104:1-2 ✝

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.

425. When you celebrate, you are taking time to recognize, to open your eyes and behold in your life the quiet miracles and gifts that seek no attention; yet each day they nourish, shelter, and animate your life. ~John O’Donohue

July 13, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs;
ask yourself what makes you come alive.
And then go and do that.
Because what the world needs is
people who have come alive.
~Attributed to Howard Thurman,
American author, philosopher, theologian,
educator, and civil rights leader

The Lord demonstrates great passion in all that He does and in all that He creates, and so made in His image as we are, we are designed to be passionate. Our passions make us come alive, and it is in that awakening that we come into full bloom like the passion flower above. Passion unlocks our potential and helps us discover our divine purpose in this life; it creates “moments that blossom,” and that’s what makes the human heart want to celebrate. We are implored in Scripture to celebrate; celebration has been described as a delightful and intense form of human presence. It draws us together, and I believe our relationships with each other ultimately lead to a desire to be in relationship with the Lord.

This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. ~Psalm 118:24 ✝

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

July 12, 2014 by nataliescarberry

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

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 ✝

304. The sun has come out…and the air is vivid with the coming spring’s light. ~Adapted excerpt from Byron Caldwell Smith

March 12, 2014 by nataliescarberry

Let me arise and open the gate,
to breathe the wild warm air…
To let Life in, and to let out Death.
~Violet Fane

Blow, Breath of heaven, blow! Blow through the land and over the waters. Carry away death’s dark vapors and let life in. Let every mountain, plain, and valley break forth in gladness. Let the “wild warm air” of coming spring spark life in every nook and cranny. Let the ceaseless waves of the seas and the rushing currents of rivers roar with renewed passion for life. Let the clouds suckle earth’s waters and send rain from heaven to moisten the earth and let loose her flowering. Let life, whole and vibrant, dazzle us anew. Blow, sweet Breath of heaven, blow! Blow through Your children and take us down to the bottom of our souls where You, O God, the Breath of all things, are present “deep within all that has life.” We who have traversed icy winter’s dark domain yearn to feel your warmth and vitality course in us and all of life again. We long for earth and sky’s vast array of bright colors to take away winter’s preponderance of grays and browns. O Holy One, come; let us see You “in every emanation of Creation’s life.” We give you glory and thanks for all that You are, for Your ever-lasting goodness and never-ending love, “for creatures stirring forth,” “for plant forms stretching and unfolding,” “for the stable earth and its solid rocks.” O blessed Breath of heaven, arise and blow life afresh through Eden’s gates! (Quoted phrases from SOUNDS OF THE ETERNAL by J. Philip Newell)

By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of His mouth. ~Psalm 33:6 ✝

**photos via Pinterest

274. When bright flowers bloom parchment crumbles, my words fade, the pen has dropped… ~Morpheus

February 9, 2014 by nataliescarberry

He who is born with a silver spoon in his mouth
is generally considered a fortunate person,
but his good fortune is small
compared to that of the happy mortal
who enters the world
with a passion for flowers in his soul.
~Celia Thaxter

Ambrosia, food or drink of the gods in Greek mythology, brought to Olympus by doves and thought to be a kind of divine exhalation of the Earth–oh how tasty is ambrosia–mouthwatering, yummy ambrosia! Leastways that’s the first word that comes to my mind when I see flower and color combinations like these is my photo. But wait, some would say such things can’t be ambrosial because they aren’t food or drink. And I would have to argue that they are, at least metaphorically speaking, because they are part of earth’s “divine exhalation” that satiates thirst in the spirit and hunger in the soul. All of Creation shouts to the world that there is a Creator, and such is just one of its many compelling cries–sacred touches, as it were, of a loving God who wants to be found.

Ever since the creation of the world His eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things He has made. ~Romans 1:20 ✝

**Photo taken in my greenhouse today.

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: Passion