Tag Archives: Song

1081. A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words. ~Unknown

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Friendship improves
happiness and abates misery,
by the doubling of our joy
and the dividing of our grief.
~Marcus Tullius Cicero

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But oh! the blessing it is to have a friend to whom one can speak fearlessly on any subject; with whom one’s deepest as well as one’s most foolish thoughts come out simply and safely. Oh, the comfort—the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person—having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away. ~Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

The name of the Lord is a fortified tower; the righteous run to it and are safe. ~ Proverbs 18:10  ✝

1077. Listening is an art that requires attention over talent, spirit over ego, things other than self. ~Edited quote by Dean Jackson

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Listening is a great way of receiving gifts
of wisdom, intelligence and inspiration,
but we only hear.
~Anonymous

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Only the briefest of moments
When everything is still
When the world is silent
A magical moment
When there’s just you
And everything God has
Created for you

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That moment
Is always there
But the noise of life
The mad rush
Of the day
Is too loud for us
To hear it to see it
To feel it

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Sit back
Let your worries
Drift away
Clear your mind
And just listen
Breathe in the breeze
As it splashes
Over you

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Listen
Not with your ears
But with your Soul
To the sounds of
The leaves rustling
In the trees and
The song of the birds
Rising like a wave

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Listen
Listen with your heart
Listen closely
For there’s only a moment
Only the briefest of moments
And then the magic’s gone
Lost in the chaos
Of the day.
~Edited poem
by Michael Traveler

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let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance– ~Proverbs 1:5

Images via Pinterest

1064. God is the experience of looking at a tree and saying, “Ah!” ~Joseph Campbell

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Sometimes thou may’st walk in groves,
which being full of majestie will
much advance the soul.
~Thomas Vaughn

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To rest, go to the woods
Where what is made is made
Without your thought or work.
Sit down; begin the wait
For small trees to grow big,
Feeding on earth and light.
Their good result is song
The winds must bring, the trees
Must wait to sing, and sing
Longer than you can wait.
Soon you must go. The trees,
Your seniors, standing thus
Acknowledged in your eyes,
Stand as your praise and prayer.
You rest in this praise
Of what you cannot be
And what you cannot do.
~Wendell Berry

Blessed is the one…whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on His law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season and whose leaf does not wither–whatever they do prospers. ~Excerpts from Psalm 1:1-3  ✝

**Image found on Pinterest

1063. Remembering Norman…

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I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places
That this heart of mine embraces all day through
I’ll be seeing you in every lovely summer’s day
In everything that’s light and gay
I’ll always think of you that way
I’ll find you in the mornin’ sun
And when the night is new
I’ll be looking at the moon
But I’ll be seeing you
~Excerpted lyrics by Irving Kahal and Sammy Fain

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It’s funny how an old song just pops into your head for no apparent reason. Maybe it was something in the morning light like it said in this old song, a song that was much loved during WWII when it became an anthem for those serving overseas. I remember listening to it on the radio as a child, and then later on I heard it again and again in movies about the war. From the get go it was a favorite of mine, and it has stuck with me over the years. Thus for whatever reason, it came to me again in the day’s first light. Since the song always reminds me of my dad, I was thinking about Norman as I started looking at posts on Facebook. The first one I saw was the one in the collage about the impact losing your dad has on your life, and that’s when the tears started running down my face even though it has been over 50 years since he died. It was 1961. I had just turned 18, I was a freshman in college, and yet at times the hurt still feels like it happened only yesterday. I’ve read that “our lives are defined by moments, especially the ones we never see coming.” And this one certainly defined mine. Though we weren’t exactly blindsided by it, it was quick enough that it hit us all like we’d never seen it coming. Dad had a massive heart attack on a Friday night and by Saturday night he was gone. No last smile, no last hug, no last kiss, no last goodbye! And I remember in the aftermath, people trying to comfort me with words, but like the quote in the collage says, “Somethings cannot be fixed.” Ever! “They can only be carried.” So here’s to my sweet daddy, Norman. I’ve been remembering you today, and I do carry you still wherever I go. I found you again today in the morning sun, and I’ll be seeing you again because you truly are never far from my thoughts. Love, Natalie

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. ~1 Corinthians 13:1-3  ✝

1008. Wise men are not always silent, but they know when to be. ~Unknown

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The kings they came from out the south,
All dressed in ermine fine;
They bore Him gold and chrysoprase,
And gifts of precious wine.

The shepherds came from out the north,
Their coats were brown and old;
They brought Him little new-born lambs–
They had not any gold.

The wise men came from out the east,
And they were wrapped in white;
The star that led them all the way
Did glorify the night.

The angels came from heaven high,
And they were clad with wings;
And lo, they brought a joyful song
The host of heaven sings.

The kings they knocked upon the door,
The wise men entered in,
The shepherds followed after them
To hear the song begin.

The angels sang through all the night
Until the rising sun,
But little Jesus fell asleep
Before the song was done.
~Sara Teasdale

For we have seen His star in the east, and are come to worship Him. ~Matthew 2:2  ✝

**Image via Pinterest

1005. Over everything connected with autumn there lingers some golden spell—some unseen influence that penetrates the soul with its mysterious power. ~Northern Advocate

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In the garden, Autumn is, indeed the crowning glory of the year,
bringing us the fruition of months of thought and care and toil.
~Rose G. Kingsley

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Leaf by leaf and petal by petal, the garden unravels more and more each day. And with every wind that blows, be it from the north, the south, the east, or the west, little eddies of leaf litter now blow about dancing like bits of confetti. Too can be seen the first skeletons of trees and shrubs laid bare by the blustery winds and recent downpours. Yet the temperatures have remained mildish and so amid the decay are, even as the sands in late autumn’s hourglass run out, “honey’d leavings” and faint renditions of fall’s “lusty song.” However, soon and like all things, the last season of the year will come to its Sabbath and therefore have to rest until its next appointed hours.

What prodigious phenomenons are the seasons of the year! How carefully planned! What attention to detail they are given! Even in places where there are no robust seasonal changes, one is able to discern the Divine’s purpose. No matter when or where one is, there is a discernible rhythm to the seasonal harmonies in the cosmic book of days. And in the rhythms are a sacred and perceptible heartbeat, a heartbeat that if sought and listened to is as recognizable as that of a mother’s to her infant. For it is the beating heart of God, and His comforting eternal echo of the spheres can be heard in every corner of the universe. Like gravity the sound of it holds hearers in its grasp, and in the hearing comes the longing to see the face of the Holy One whose heart holds us, His children, with a love bigger than the universe itself.

Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons and the dove, the swift and the thrush observe the time of their migration. ~Except from Jeremiah 8:7  ✝

**I love this capture I got of the red oak leaf that became wedged in the latch on my greenhouse door during yesterday’s high winds.

1004. Prayer is exhaling the spirit of man and inhaling the spirit of God. ~Edwin Keith

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I believe in God, and that there are pieces of him, called love and goodness, in everyone. I also believe in prayer, not the memorized type mumbled in church but the spontaneous kind spoken, ironically, in the last breath of the day, when the lamp has been dimmed and the bedspread drawn down, and it’s just you and those pieces of God in you, alone…. I suspect that when a man grows too big to kneel, then he is destined to fall. ~Joe Kita

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  ✝

**The image is of monarda that grew in garden last summer.

1001. For man, as for flower and beast and bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly, most perfectly alive. ~D. H. Lawrence

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I don’t ask for the meaning of the song of a bird,
or the rising of the sun on a misty morning.
There they are, and they are beautiful.
~Pete Hamill

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As a bird soars high
In the free holding of the wind,
Clear of the certainty of the ground,
Opening the imagination of wings
Into the grace of emptiness
To fulfill new voyagings,
May your life awaken
To the call of its freedom.
~John O’Donohue

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

**Image via Pinterest

949. You can fall in love at first sight with a place as with a person. ~Alec Waug

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Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of
a bridge and lean over to watch the
river slipping slowly away beneath you,
you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.
~From WINNIE THE POOH by A.A. Milne

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What is it, I wonder, that makes one fall in love with a place without ever having been there? Was it because I was born before the world lost all its innocence, or because I was naïve from having lived a sheltered existence in my young, formative years, or because I’m a dreamer and a romantic who loves fairy tale stories with happy endings, or because at 13 I saw a movie with William Holden, Humphrey Bogart, and Audrey Hepburn and fell in love with the place of magical bridges, glorious sunsets, and a beautiful river? Or is it because I fell in love at 18 with a song bearing a French title and written by a French singer/songwriter? Or because I’ve always loved art and sculpture and beauty, and the place I fell for is a paragon of those things? Or because I studied the French language in school and fell in love with the sounds of the words and the pictures in my text books? Or because I read a novel by Earnest Hemingway and fell in love with him and the city he adored and wrote about? Or is it all those things, especially when seen through the eyes of a sentimental, perhaps even sappy, free-spirited, hopeful, love junkie? Mais bien sûr, oui, oui, et oui!!!

Paris, it is you of whom I speak, and I’m that girl/woman that for more than 50 years has had an ongoing love affair with you, an affair I might add that started half a century before I ever met you in person. And now that I have spent time on two different occasions in your confines, I’m more in love with you than ever. An ex-student and fellow blogger, Victo(Behind the White Coat) at https://doctorly.wordpress.com, partially described my feelings when he wrote that “Sometimes you go to a city and it becomes a part of you. Then you go back and you feel as if you are now, somehow, a part of it.” The only difference is that you became both a part of me and I a part of you at the same time, and I will forever hold you close and dear to my heart. I may shed tears now for your recent tragedy, but I will always celebrate with joy and a smile your grandeur that yet stands in place. And I shall lift you up daily in prayers for safety.

But let all who take refuge in you(Lord) be glad; let them ever sing for joy. Spread your protection over them, that those who love your name may rejoice in you. ~Psalm 5:11  ✝

**Images found on Facebook and Pinterest

http://https://youtu.be/83QJm3eh6hU

943. If you wish to know the Creator, come to know His creatures. ~Columbanus, Medieval Irish Monk

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Out of the waters of God’s life
come the creatures of earth, sea, and sky.
With the birth of the creatures on the fifth day
there is the emergence of seeing, hearing,
smelling, tasting, and touching.
~J. Philip Newell

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One of the keys to listening needs to be simply an appreciative attentiveness to God’s creatures. The Book of Job says, “Ask the animals, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you.” And to look to the animal world is not to look away from God; instead, it’s a way to look at a showing forth of the mystery of God. For it reveals something of the way of God’s seeing and sensing, and one can see as well that in Creation’s mysteries is part of the Christ mystery.

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I’ve seen animals, such as the bird in the photo above, who seem to be bowing before the Creator in gratitude for life, for the day, for His continuing Presence here. There is also the unbroken song of the creatures. And in Revelation John envisaged an unending song of praise being sung by all that swims and flies and has motion. He said every creature on earth here below and in the ocean beneath and in the air above was giving glory to God, singing Holy, Holy, Holy. ~Both paragraphs contain directly quoted, paraphrased, and/or adapted random excerpts from THE BOOK OF CREATION by J. Philip Newell

Consider first the Canada Goose,
brown body, whitish breast
black head, long black neck…
Then there’s the Barnacle Goose…
flight note
a rapidly repeated gnuk
gnuk gnuk gnuk gnuk gnuk gnuk gnuk
(like an ecstatic Eskimo)…
The snow goose
has a pure white plumage
with black-tipped wings…
In Europe you might take her for a swan
or maybe a gannet
till she lets you know abruptly
she’s all goose
so
there they go
through the wind, the rain, the snow
wild spirits knowing
what they know
~Kenneth White

“But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.” ~Job 12:7-10  ✝

**Mike Bizeau posted the great photo of a bull elk on his blog, and I found the image of the bird with its head bowed on Pinterest