Tag Archives: Stars

1438. We look into the reverse end of the kaleidoscope of human events and see, mostly, confusion and discord; while God beholds harmony from the divine end. ~James Lendall Basford

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We hear the beating
of wings over Bethlehem
and a light that is not of the sun
or of the stars shines in the midnight sky.
The message of Christmas is that
the material world is bound to
the invisible spiritual world.
~Author Unknown

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The dictionary defines relationship as a connection to or an involvement with another, and what happened in a Bethlehem manger over 2,000 years ago was the Breath of Heaven reaching out to touch and begin a relationship with the material world. Christmas then is not an event; it is instead the beginning of a relationship. What God gave the world in the beginning was physical light, but it was His son, the Messiah, who brought salvation and the spiritual light that illuminates the face of God and opens the door to an intimate involvement with Him. To achieve that divine destiny Jesus came into our world, walked among us, and left a continuing legacy of ways to remain connected to and in relationship with the Creator. That relationship can only come into its fullness by walking with the Creator, talking with Him, and devoting time to the Lover of our souls. It’s like when a man or woman marry. They don’t just celebrate and spend time with each other on that one day of the year. It has to be a day to day, minute to minute commitment if the relationship is to grow and blossom into greater goodness.

When I saw others straining toward God,
I did not understand it, for though,
I may have had Him less than they did,
there was no one blocking the way
between Him and me,
and I could reach His heart easily.
It is up to Him, after all, to have us;
our part consists of almost solely
of letting Him grasp us.
~Ranier Maria Rilke

May the Lord our God be with us as he was with our ancestors; may he never leave us nor forsake us. ~1 Kings 8:57 ✝

**Inages found on the Internet; collage by Natalie

1434. On this cool, crisp morning, I arose before the sun and went out the front door to look for the newspaper…

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But that’s not what caused me
to stop in my driveway, paper forgotten.
Overhead, the “Big Dipper” (Ursa Major)
and other stars twinkled brightly,
framed by thin, wind-shaped clouds.
Screen Shot 2017-12-22 at 8.13.18 PM.pngIn that moment, I felt magical,
caught by the wonder of nature,
blessed with beauty.
In this time of year
when children take center stage,
The thought of happy children reminded me
of the wisdom of innocence in all of us.
For it was not my intellect that caused me to look up
but my own innocence untarnished by age.
Like a child , I had no doubt that each moment
holds limitless awe, magic, and wonder,
and I knew how truly blessed we all are.
~Edited thoughts by my sadly
deceased, dear friend, Emily Seate|
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Let us remember that He has given us
the sun and the moon and the stars,
and the earth with it forests and
mountains and oceans–
and all that lives and moves upon them.
He has given us all green things and
everything that blossoms and bears fruit–
and all that we quarrel about
and all that we have misused–
and to save us from our own foolishness,
from all our sins, He came
down to earth and gave us Himself.
~Sigrid Undset

Who is this that appears like the dawn, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, majestic as the stars in procession? -Song of Solomon 6:10 ✝ (The Song of Solomon is often interpreted as an allegorical representation of the relationship of God and Israel, or for Christians, God and the Church or Christ and the human soul, as husband and wife.)

**Images found on the internet; superimposed photograph of the Big Dipper on  newspaper image done by Natalie

1382. Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon…

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…A beauty bomb. And every time a crisis developed,
we would launch one. It would explode high in the air-
explode softly-and send thousands, millions,
of little parachutes into the air. Floating down to earth –
boxes of Crayolas. And we wouldn’t go cheap, either –
not little boxes of eight. Boxes of sixty-four,
with the sharpener built right in.
~Excerpted lines by Robert Fulghum

Today I ran across this photo that I took one afternoon last fall. I had been outside looking for signs of coming fall when I noticed a large patch of weeds in my front flowerbed. After I sat down to pull them, I heard a strange, fiery kind of noise overhead. It wasn’t a fire breathing dragon as I first feared it might be but instead this hot air balloon making its way right over the top of my house. The big bright balloon was a colorful, fanciful thing, and for some strange reason the first thing I thought of was Fulghum’s whimsical parody about a Crayola bomb. At least to me the balloon looked like something that might be on a mission to drop something fun on those of us below. In fact the balloon itself almost looks like a crayola drawing. Then as I pondered writing about the pretty thing, I remembered the old 5th Dimension’s song from the 70‘s wherein the listener is hears “Would you like to ride in my beautful balloon…

Up, up and away in my beautiful, my beautiful balloon.
The world’s a nicer place in my beautiful balloon;
It wears a nicer face in my beautiful balloon.
We can sing a song and sail along the silver sky.
Suspended under a twilight canopy
We’ll search the clouds for a star to guide us.
We can float among the stars together,
you and I, for we can fly.”
~Excerpted and edited lyrics
by the 5th Dimension

Something extraordinary had turned an ordinary day into one of delight especially for my inner child.

We seldom notice how each day is a holy place
Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens,
Transforming our broken fragments
Into eternal continuity that keep us.
Somewhere in us a dignity presides
That is more gracious than the smallness
That fuels us with fear and force,
A dignity that trusts the form a day takes.
So at the end of this day, we give thanks
For being betrothed to the unknown
And for the secret work
Through which the mind of the day
And wisdom of the soul become one.
~Excerpt from TO BLESS THE SPACE BETWEEN US,
by John O’Donohue

Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. -Psalm 23:6 ✝

 

1372. The grass is vibrant. The rocks pulsate. All is in flux; turn but a stone and an angel moves. ~George MacLeod

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The garden of God in which we have been created has not be destroyed. Nor has it been abandoned. We may live in a state of exile from it, but God forever dwells in that place and seeks our company. ~Excerpt from THE BOOK OF CREATION by John Philip Newell

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The sun, moon and stars, in their harmonies of movement and light, are further theophanies or showing of God. Shining out of the darkness of space they express something of the inexpressible. “There is no speech, nor are there words,” says the Psalmist, “yet their voice goes out through all the earth.” The sun by day and the moon by night declare the mystery of God. What is it that they are saying? ~Excerpt from THE BOOK OF CREATION by John Philip Newell

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Nature best teaches how to pray, and how to reverence all the gifts the Almighty has given us. She is like a vast outspread handkerchief, embroidered with God’s eternal name, on which we may dry alike our tears of sorrow and of joy; she turns weeping into ecstasy, and fills our hearts with speechless, quiet reverence and resignation. ~Robert Schumann

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Humankind has not woven the web of life.
We are but one thread within it.
Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.
All things are bound together.
All things connect.
~Chief Seattle, 1855

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ~Genesis 1:1 ✝

**All flowery photos taken by Natalie in her yard.

1365. When purple colored curtains mark the end of day, and heavenly shades of night are falling, it’s twilight time. ~Excerpted lines from a song written by Buck Ram, Morty Nevins, and Al Nevins

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Shadows creep stealthily across the lawn
Whilst night, unruffled, defies the dawn,
And the moon released from day’s embrace,
Smiling wakes up and shows his face
To this mystic world of the twilight hours.
~Excerpted lines from a poem
by 
Ernestine Northover

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“Aaron must burn fragrant incense on the altar every morning when he tends the lamps. He must burn incense again when he lights the lamps at twilight so incense will burn regularly before the Lord for the generations to come…” ~Exodus 30:7-8  ✝

**Clematis photos taken by Natalie

***Image of poem by Mary Schofield found on the Internet

1297. There are no sounds that can stir the sublime emotions of men’s souls like the sighs and whispers of nature. ~James Lendall Basford

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Magic is really only the utilization
of the entire spectrum of the senses.
Humans have cut themselves off
from their senses. Now they see only
a tiny portion of the visible spectrum,
hear only the loudest of sounds;
their sense of smell is shockingly poor,
and they can only distinguish
the sweetest and sourest of tastes.
~Michael Scott

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I know the thrill of the grasses
when the rain pours over them.
I know the trembling of the leaves
when the winds sweep through them.
I know what the white clover
felt as it held a drop of dew
pressed close in its beauteousness.
I know the quivering of the fragrant petals
at the touch of the pollen-legged bees.
I know what the stream said
to the dipping willows, and what
the moon said to the sweet lavender.
I know what the stars said when
they came stealthily down and crept
fondly into the tops of the trees.
~Muriel Strode

…there will be heard once more the sounds of joy and gladness, the voices of bride and bridegroom, and the voices of those who bring thank offerings to the house of the Lord… ~Excerpt fro Jeremiah 33:10 and 11  ✝

1293. We strain to renew our capacity to wonder, to shock ourselves into astonishment once again. ~Shana Alexander

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Human life is as evanescent as the
morning dew or a flash of lightning.
~Samuel Butler

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The disciples are drawn to the high altars
with magnetic certainty, knowing that a
great Presence hovers over the ranges …
in the primal patterns of nature,
a magical union with beauty.
~Ansel Adams

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Beauty is truth’s smile when she
beholds her own face in a perfect mirror.
~Rabindranath Tagore

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The beauty of the trees,
the softness of the air,
the fragrance of the grass,
speaks to me.
The summit of the mountain,
the thunder of the sky,
speaks to me.
The faintness of the stars,
the trail of the sun,
the strength of fire,
and the life that never goes away,
they speak to me.
And my heart soars.
~Chief Dan George

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He(God) performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted. ~Job 5:9 ✝

**Images via Pinterest

1260. The fairies break their dances and leave them printed on the lawn. ~A.E. Housman

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Fairies learn to dance
before they learn to walk.
and
Fairies learn to sing
before they learn to talk.
~From a poem
by Rose Fyleman

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Step lightly around the toadstools or tiptoe gingerly past them my friends, tis where the fairies gather to sing and dance beneath the wondrous moon.

The Fairy Dance
The soft stars are shining,
The moon is alight;
Blades of green grass
Are dancing tonight:
O swift and gay
Is the song that they sing;
They float and sway
As they dance in a ring.
O seek not to find them,
The wee folk so fair;
They’re shy as the swallow
And swift as the air:
If you come, they are gone
Like a snowflake in May;
Like a breath, like a sigh,
They vanish away.
~Edited and adapted poem
by Katherine Davis

Let them(the people) praise His(God’s) name with dancing and make music to Him(God’s) with timbrel and harp. ~Psalm 194:3 ✝

**Collage of toadstool photograghs I’ve been taking

1259. Ipomoea alba, a white blooming, fragile moon destined only to bloom for a single, lovely night. ~Natalie

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In whispered song of shadowed pearl,
her lumened face now opened
for night’s cool embrace.
~Edited excerpt
from a poem, by David Mohn

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From out of twining, emerald leaves
what was at first a tight, small
small bud of green, emerges
a twisted spiral of white and green.

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Then wider and wider it
spreads until like a lady’s
handkerchief it opens.

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As the stars pop out one by one
in the heavens above the satiny,
fragrant, night-blooming
morning glory begins its reign
as sovereign monarch throughout
the entirely of night’s realm.

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Round like the moon, it mimics 
 the orb in the utter splendor 
of its fullness before it begins
to crumple in the day’s first light,

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But that it might be
cool enough to embolden it
to linger a little longer.

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The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor. ~1 Corinthians 15:41  ✝

**In the last photograph you are looking at a moonflower fully opened after first light because it was cool enough that morning when I took the picture. And I’m looking at it from the back so that you can see one of the small green buds behind it that it was before it began to untwist and open.

1258. Patience is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping your gears. ~Barbara Johnson

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When expectations delay for too long,
doubt draws nearer in haste and
and patience grows far more tiresome .
~Edited quote by
Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

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Where, oh where, is autumn,
Beautiful, comely, colorful autumn
With its crisp, dewy mornings,
Its big, bright, orange pumpkins,
And leaves of prettily tinted hues
That blow around willy-nilly on
The urpsurges of its blustery days?
And when, oh when, will we see
That huge,  yellow harvest moon?
What could be the cause of such delays?
Could autumn be lost somewhere
Along the way, or could it just be
That ancient earth is slowing down?
Or, is it because the “heat beast”
Is disinclined to let loose its hold?
I’ve observed the sun and moon
And the stars changing places above
So I know autumn must be on its way.
But could someone please tell me
When this steamy heat will leave!
~Natalie Scarberry

How my impatience grows when I’m this heat-weary and uncomfortable! But since there are no real guarantees for more of life or anything else than what I already have, it is really foolish to be impatient. Happily-ever-after is elusive in all things, and a certain measure of joy can be found in and on all the roads we travel through this thing called life. And interestingly it is in our discomfort zones that we often increase our spiritual awarenesses. Genuine peace comes from accepting what is and in looking for the promised gifts within each of our days whether they are spent in comfort or just the opposite. And so I’m reminded as I write this that Scripture tells us this is the day the Lord has made and so rejoice in it not whine in it.

But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. ~Romans 8:25  ✝

**Photo by Mandy Disher