The air is like a butterfly
With frail blue wings.
The happy earth looks
at the sky and sings.
~Joyce Kilmer
I will exalt you, my God the King; I will praise your name for ever and ever. Every day I will praise you and extol your name for ever and ever. Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; His greatness no one can fathom. ~Psalm 145:1-3 ✝
Though you lose all hope,
there is still hope,
and it loves to surprise.
~Robert Brault
Goodbye January and hello February! Whew, January is a long month, isn’t it?! So much so that it makes my hope very hungry indeed. Dada, dada da da da! I said hello, February…well hello February…It’s so nice you’ve finally come around again. You’re lookin’ swell, February…And time will tell February…That spring’s a comin’ February… Okay, to appreciate my attempt here at “cleverosity” with the previous lines, you have to try to remember a song from a musical by the same name called HELLO DOLLY. Okay, so maybe it was a lame attempt, but today is just that kind of day, one that puts a song in my heart. Why? Why you ask? Well…
About the time the barrenness of winter starts putting asunder all hope of anything different, February saves the day by bringing forth visible signs of the new spring. And so it did this year on its very first day. After I’d watered and waited and watched the bulbs I’d started weeks ago in the greenhouse, I was rewarded today with several emerging buds. The result: squeals of joy peeled forth inside its walls along with hallelujahs and praise for such glorious surprises amid winter’s gloomy, brown and beige drabness. But they’re just flowers some might say, but pshaw! They are pieces in the puzzle of Creation itself, blessed and holy and full of purpose. They’ve been touched by the very hand of God and then ordained as part of the faithful and reoccurring provision not only for man’s needs but for his pleasure as well. And if flowers are inconsequential why are so many poems and pieces of literature devoted to them, and why are they considered by many as desirable gifts, and why are their scents revered for use in perfumes, and why have they been worth at times more than gold?
“Come, therefore, let us enjoy the good things that exist, and make use of the creation to the full as in youth. Let us take our fill of costly wine and perfumes, and let no flower of spring pass us by. Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they wither…” ~Wisdom 2:6-8 ✝
I write because there is nothing larger in life than
To be read, maybe even reread by another–
To be examined and then verified of being
Understood, or trusted like a saint–
I don’t imagine being immortalized
Or stacked in a library for hands with a million
Oppositions to wander through for
Poetic justice either–
Perhaps purpose is purchased or earned or even
Inherited by some mystic right–
But it is my reasoning I hearken to,
All that I am resonates with inscribing, putting down
My Self on the papyrus of today,
Like a manuscript never quite decrypt but
Interesting to the soul’s eye
For perpetual encounter.
~Deborah Jeanne Avila
All the kings of the earth shall praise you, O Lord for they have heard the words of your mouth. Psalm 138:4 ✝
January is the quietest month in the garden.
. . .But just because is looks quiet
doesn’t mean that nothing is happening.
The soil, open to the sky, absorbs the pure rainfall
while microorganisms convert tilled-under fodder
into usable nutrients for the next crop of plants.
The feasting earthworms tunnel along,
aerating the soil and preparing it to welcome
the seeds and bare roots to come.
~Rosalie Muller Wright
I’ve heard it said that “the color of springtime is in the flowers” whereas “the color of winter is in the imagination.” Thankfully I’ve got a good imagination, and when that fails, I have a large collection of photos to look back on because by the end of January my spirit is in dire need of a boost. A place I like to frequent also helps to keep my imagination alive and well. It’s a nursery, and this particular Dallas nursery not only has a great selection of flowers during the growing seasons, but year round it has all sorts of indoor plants too. In addition to the plants it has an oak cabinet with drawers full of fascinating seeds, racks of seed packets, shelves filled with gardening books, and an array of tools. So between the plant and seed catalogs that start arriving in the mail after Christmas and my visits to Nicholson-Hardie’s nursery, the “dream” is kept alive even when the under-the-surface busy but ravaged-atop January garden appears to be completely shut down. And it is this “stuff” of which gardener’s dreams are made that keeps my imagination churning and my head full of schemes, schemes that are the spice of a gardener’s life. What a blessing is our memory, our imagination, and our ability to dream; God is so good.
I will praise the name of God with a song; I will magnify Him with thanksgiving. ~Psalm 69:30 ✝
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
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.”
“…the immense, tender, terrible, heart-breaking beauty and solemnity of Eggs.”
“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.”
“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.”
“And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles.”
“However many years she lived, Mary always felt that ‘she should never forget that first morning when her garden began to grow.”
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 ✝
Every morning is a fresh beginning.
Every day is the world made new.
Today is a new day.
Today is my world made new.
I have lived all my life up to this moment,
to come to this day.
This moment–this day–is as good as any moment in all eternity.
I shall make of this day–a heaven on earth.
This is my day of opportunity.
~Dan Custer
Welcome the new day; it is a new creation. Greet it with gratitude. It is a nonrepeatable gift; it is a promise of resurrection. Miss not the day’s beauty. Miss not the joy. Miss not the wonder. Miss not chances to make the world a better place. Miss not opportunities to praise God!
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ~Lamentations 3:22-23 ✝
To look backward for a while
is to refresh the eye,
to restore it, and to render it
the more fit for its prime function
of looking forward.
~Margaret Fairless Barber
Events come and go weaving the threads of life and love into the fabric our beings. A heartbreak here, a miracle there–layer upon layer of growing that alters the fibers of our realities and renders us, slightly or appreciably, different than before. Even though swallowed up “patterns” of the past continue to be seen in the weave as we move into each new arena, memories of them tend to ebb and flow in mists of forgetfulness.
Bless the Lord, winter cold and summer heat; sing praise to Him and highly exalt Him forever. ~Prayer of Azariah 1:45 ✝
It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? for the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop. Growth is exciting; growth is dynamic and alarming. Growth of the soul, growth of the mind. ~Vita Sackville-West
Ah blessed sight, a function that is considered to be the most complex of the five senses. From the moment we wake until we close our eyes to sleep, our eyes act like a camera recording in memory what is seen. For many, there is a compulsion to replicate what the eye sees. Some use an actual camera to capture memorable images, some a paint brush, others the written word, and then there are those who are want to use more than one medium. So it seems that something more than the optical nerve is touched by sight, does it not? Perhaps the eye touches the soul as well.
He is your praise; he is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things that your own eyes have seen. ~Deuteronomy 10:21 ✝
Thanksgiving is the holiday of peace,
the celebration of work and the simple life. . .
a true folk-festival that speaks
the poetry of the turn of the seasons,
the beauty of seedtime and harvest,
the ripe product of the year –
and the deep, deep connection
of all these things to God.
~Ray Stannard Baker (David Grayson)
At the beginning of time the Lord set the wheels in motion for the making of continual banquets for man and creature alike. And so in light of His abundant provisions and as the Canticle of Creation plays on, it is time to pause and give thanks to our gracious Benefactor. The year is drawing to its appointed end and before it sinks into winter, the Sabbath of the year, we must look around and take stock of the Lord’s never-ending activity in Creation and be thankful for the constancy of His love and beneficent involvement in each of our lives. W. J. Cameron said, “. . .a thankful heart hath a continual feast,” and so with beholden hearts, let us give praise and thanks for our Heavenly Father, His Grace, and His goodness. I pray that this be a blessed time of thanksgiving for all of you and those you love; may all the roads you travel be, now and forever, filled with grace and peace and love.
If I have enjoyed
the hospitality of the Host of the universe,
Who daily spreads a table in my sight,
surely I cannot do less
than acknowledge my dependence.
~G. A. Johnston Ross
Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name. ~Psalm 100:4 ✝
Sacred Touches 