Tag Archives: Tapestry

1325. Time is the fire in which we burn. ~Delmore Schwartz

by

7

Days are stringed instruments and
every one strikes a different note.
~Kenneth Alexander

Screen Shot 2016-12-31 at 7.21.54 PM.png

[W]hen you are nine years old, what you remember seems forever; for you remember everything and everything is important and stands big and full and fills up Time and is so solid that you can walk around and around it like a tree and look at it. You are aware that time passes, that there is a movement in time, but that is not what Time is. Time is not a movement, a flowing, a wind then, but it is, rather, a kind of climate in which things are, and when a thing happens it begins to live and keeps on living and stands solid in Time like the tree that you can walk around. And if there is a movement, the movement is not Time itself, any more than a breeze is climate, and all the breeze does is to shake a little the leaves on the tree which is alive and solid. ~Robert Penn Warren

It is an old story, this irresistible and
ceaseless onflow of life and time…
~Hamilton Wright Mabie

Screen Shot 2016-12-31 at 7.05.01 PM.png

Each thread of the tapestry woven by time is precious, since all the faces that have disappeared from the earth are projected on it by our memory. But even without any face projected there, and without any of my dead reappearing there, it still keeps in my eyes the splendor of being a season of time, mankind’s time, the time in which our destiny will have been experienced and inscribed, among millions of others. ~François Mauriac

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build,   a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. ~Ecclesiastes 3:1-8  ✝

**Image via Pinterest; collage at top by Natalie

809. Seasons change with the scenery; weaving time in a tapestry. ~Paul Simon

by

18

**Important information below haikus and photos…

I saw at first a
bit of her coronal
frilly filaments

DSC_0010

In luminous veils,
a hazy shade of summer
and soft purpleness

DSC_0004

At the bottom of
the garden where it’s said
fairies often play

DSC_0006

Sadly, I am the bearer of worrisome tidings this afternoon. My daughter’s mother-in-law had surgery on Monday, and it seems that her lungs have partially collapsed. Therefore she is still in ICU and struggling to breathe. Thus my post today is brief, and they will remain that way until Alice is “out of the woods” so to speak. It also regrettably means I’ll have little time, if any, to read of your posts for a few days. So excuse my absence and pray for healing and comfort for Alice as she is in great need of the Lord’s mercy and grace during this ordeal.

The Lord sustains him/her on his/her sickbed; in his/her illness He restores him/her to full health. ~Adapted passage from Psalm 41:3  ✝

571. There are dark shadows on the earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast. ~Charles Dickens

by

14

We look at life from the back side of the tapestry.
And most of the time, what we see are
loose threads, tangled knots and the like.
But occasionally, God’s light shines through, and
we get a glimpse of the larger design with God
weaving together the darks and lights of existence.
~John Piper

DSC_0056

No moon, no stars, no sun, no blue of sky… No bees, no butterflies, no adoring, garden paramours… Only a foggy Sabbath steeped in silent, grey stillness as bit by bit by bit color empties out of the landscape leaving in its wake pallid, watercolored remains to blanket the lawn… Autumn has but a fortnight left before she relinquishes her throne to winter’s chilling reign. So I wonder if she’s weeping, if the falling mists are her crestfallen tears. It would certainly seem so as gloomy and grey as her recent days have been. Her palette, once streaked with chestnut and chocolate, maroon and mahogany, mauve and mulberry, orange and ochre, red and russet, is soon to be washed of all but grey and beige and evergreen. Thankfully, however, there are the brightly colored lights of Christmas to brighten the dying year’s ever-increasing, muted days.

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. ~James 1:17  ✝

306. What is there beyond knowing that keeps calling to me? ~Mary Oliver

by

1

Go to your bosom:
Knock there,
and ask your heart
what it doth know?
~William Shakespeare

Image

We run; we stumble; we fall; we get up; and somehow we find the stamina to move on again.  That same scenario plays over and over again in our lives; so what is it that get us back up on our feet willing to do it all over again?

Is it the hope of wealth or at least sufficiently comfortable numbers in our checkbooks and bank accounts to buy whatever we need and/or want?

Is it the hope of owning a nice car, having a roof over our head, finding food in the pantry, or clothes to put on our backs?

Is it being able to travel wherever and whenever we want?

Is it the hope that scientific theories will one day answer the questions that disturb us?

Or it is instead because we seem to know somehow that a divine power much bigger and smarter has set all this in motion for a reason and that He cheers us on in the face of troubling realities and difficulties?

And isn’t it also because His imploring little voice within us encourages us to finish the race set before us because that is what we are really here for?

At some point in time, do we not begin to perceive divine threads in the fabric of life?

Do not these threads in the tapestry gather together enough gladness and joy so we that can find the strength and courage to face trials, disappointments, and defeats?

Isn’t it the perception of these divine threads that keeps us willing to run again, stumble again, to fall again, to get up again, and to move on again even when we are hurting or become disheartened or grow weary?

Do we not come to realize that life is not just an end in itself but instead a preparation for something more, even if the something more is not clearly defined?  And as strange as it may seem, after a while in our heart of hearts do we not become aware of a sense of awe of and growing gratitude for the very “race” that often torments us?

Life just has to be worth more than material gain, more than temporal pleasures, more than the noisy, senseless endurance of the perverse, violent, and/or mundane.  In moments of utter silence and stillness in an emptied mind we can, can’t we, hear that reassuring little voice that calls to us urging us on because all this isn’t some pointless game, a worthless hour upon a harsh stage, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”  And does not what our heart “doth know” tell us something of a loving Creator’s sacred purpose.  Don’t we do it because as Marianne Williamson says, “We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us.”

But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.  ~Exodus 9:16   ✝

**Images via Pinterest

166. Another fall, another turned page: there was something of jubilee in that annual autumnal beginning…. ~Wallace Stegner

by

11

The foliage had been losing its freshness through the month of August,
and here and there a yellow leaf showed itself like a first gray hair…
September dressed herself in showy dahlias and
splendid marigolds and starry zinnias.
October, the extravagant sister, ordered an immense amount of
the most gorgeous forest tapestry to make glorious her grand spectacle.
~Edited and adapted excerpt from Oliver Wendell Holmes

Image

The first leafy sign of autumn appeared on the Dogwood today, and it triggered a flood of “color” musings in my mind.  Chestnut and chocolate!  What’s not to love about a season that clears off summer’s calamities, piles delectable hues back on nature’s palette, and calls for a pot of hot chocolate?  Lemon and lime!  Grasses, flowers, fruits, berries, and even a beastie or two weave fabulous garlands in the sacred temple bound by earth and sky.  Maroon and mahogany!  Chilling winds induce chemical changes in leaves that conjure up magic shows on woody altars in earth’s forests.  Mauve and mulberry!  The leaves on maples, oaks, dogwoods, pears, persimmons, and other trees give birth to colorful, parchment-like jewels that will one day snap off, swirl in little eddies, and play like children upon the ground.  Orange and ochre!  Pumpkins made to squat on porches or bales of hay tickle the fancy of mortal tongues anxiously awaiting fall feasts and winter banquets.  Red and russet!  Roses, asters, and Maximilian sunflowers invoke a breath of spring not stifled by summer’s heat to keep the year’s last child in colorful array.  Sable and sapphire!  Skies often shrouded by gauzy, gray clouds are swept clear by northerly winds as cold fronts advance.  On such days a spectacular brilliance can be seen on the brows of morn followed by daylight hours drenched in deep, dreamy shades of blue.  Sterling and pewter!  Plumed grasses shift and sigh in authorship of haunting, autumnal hymns.  Ah, how lovely are the many colors of autumn and the Holy One who made them!

As long as earth endures, seedtime and harvest (spring and autumn), cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.  ~Genesis 8:22  ✝

19. Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius. ~Pietro Aretino

by

1

We need a renaissance of wonder.
We need to renew, in our hearts and in our souls,
the deathless dream, the eternal poetry, the perennial sense
that life is miracle and magic.
~E. Merrill Root

Image

Since it is year’s end, we have entered the season of somber gardens, short days, low temperatures, and more-gray-than-blue skies.  The reckless abandon of the growing seasons has yielded to deepening winter’s, unadventurous restraint.  But, while looking out a window brings into view only the barrenness of winter, an actual venture out into its domain can expose wondrous sights like the seed pod in the photograph.  What a treat to see wondrous silken filaments that look like angel hair releasing seeds that are proof of a continuously running thread in Creation’s tapestry.  Such finds are tangible fragments of God’s imagination buried deep in the mystery of nature, and the aura of holiness that surrounds them often leaves onlookers amazed and awestruck.  These miraculous strands are the same kind of threads that govern the ceaseless ebbing and flowing of oceanic waves, the waxing and waning of the moon, the rising and setting of the sun, the birth and death of life forms, and the endless repetition of the seasons.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and all science.
He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder
and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.
~Albert Einstein

Rediscovering awe helps us appreciate the vast wonders of what the Creator’s mind imagined, what His words spoke, and what His hands created.  It bring us closer to God and restores our childlike joy and zeal for life.  The unfathomable mysteries of life are sacred benedictions; their blessings encourage us to stay in the Lord’s keeping and continue searching for His intent for our lives.

Who among the gods is like you, LORD?  Who is like you—majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?  ~Exodus 15:11   ✝

**”if an object or expression can bring about, within us, a sense of serene melancholy and a spiritual longing, then that object could be said to be wabi-sabi.” “Wabi-sabi nurtures all that is authentic by acknowledging three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect.”  The photo of the seed pod is a excellent example of Wabi Sabi.