Tag Archives: Temple

836. May you awaken to the mystery of being here and enter the quiet immensity of your own being. ~John O’Donohue

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When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
And all the madness and stress of life fall in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight,
The light in the mind grows dimmer and dimmer
And weariness invades the body and spirit.

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It is time then for your soul to take you back
Into the “quiet immensity of your own being”
Where you can take refuge in your senses,
And notice all the small miracles you rushed through,
Miracles meant to clarify and soothe your soul.
It is time to watch the way of rain
When it falls through space, slow and free.
It is time to imitate the habit of twilight at day’s end
And in so doing open up the well of color
That fosters the brightness and beauty of the day.
It is time to be excessively generous with yourself
So that gradually, you can “awaken to the mystery of being here.”
And afterward having learned a new respect for your heart
It is time to seek the joy that dwells far within slow time.
Thus will you find peace in mind and body, temple of the Holy Spirit.
~Both passages are edited and adapted excerpts from John O’Donohue

We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. ~1 Corinthians 2:6-7 ✝

**Image via Pinterest and texts added by Natalie

622. The temple bell stops but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers. ~Matsuo Bashō

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If a poem is thin, it is likely so not because
the poet does not know enough words,
but because he or she has not stood long enough
among the flowers-has not seen them in any
fresh, exciting, and valid way.
~Mary Oliver

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I am a kind word uttered and repeated
By the voice of Nature;
I am a star fallen from the
Blue tent upon the green carpet.
I am the daughter of the elements
With whom Winter conceived;
To whom Spring gave birth;
I was Reared in the lap of Summer and I
Slept in the bed of Autumn.

At dawn I unite with the breeze
To announce the coming of light;
At eventide I join the birds
In bidding the light farewell.

The plains are decorated with
My beautiful colors, and the air
Is scented with my fragrance.

As I embrace Slumber the eyes of
Night watch over me, and as I
Awaken I stare at the sun,
which is The only eye of the day.

I drink dew for wine, and hearken to
The voices of the birds, and dance
To the rhythmic swaying of the grass.
~Excerpted verses from Song of the Flower

~by Khalil Gibran

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  ✝

606. God’s poet is silence!  His song is unspoken and yet so profound, and so loud, and so far, that it thrills you and fills you in measures unbroken—The unceasing song of the first morning star…. ~Joaquin Miller

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We listen too much to the television
and we listen too little to nature.
Everybody should have his personal sounds
to listen for—sounds that exhilarate,
make him feel alive, or quiet and calm…
As a matter of fact, one of the greatest sounds—
and to me it is a sound—is utter, complete silence.
~Edited lines by André Kostelanetz

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I have known the silence of the stars and of the sea,
And the silence of the city when it pauses,
And the silence of a man and a maid,
And the silence of the sick…
There is the silence of a great hatred,
And the silence of a great love,
And the silence of an embittered friendship.
There is the silence of a spiritual crisis,
Through which your soul, exquisitely tortured,
Comes with visions not to be uttered
Into a realm of higher life.
There is the silence that comes between husband and wife.
There is the silence of those who have failed;
And the vast silence that covers
Broken nations and vanquished leaders.
And there is the silence of age,
Too full of wisdom for the tongue to utter it
In words intelligible to those
who have not lived the great range of life.
~Excerpted lines from a poem
by Edgar Lee Masters

The Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth be silent before Him.  ~Habakkuk 2:20  ✝

490. Were there no God, we would be in this glorious world with grateful hearts and no one to thank. ~Christina Rossetti

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La plus grande des joies
C’est de croire en Toi
Et de se réfugier en Toi
Père des Mondes,
Et de l’Enfant en moi.
~Poème written by Frédéric at: http://poemsandpoemes.wordpress.com/about/
Translation:
The greatest joy
It is to believe in You
And take refuge in You
Father of the Worlds
And of the Child in me.

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Recently I was up early enough to witness dawn’s first golden glimmer of light pierce holes in the dense, leafy green darkness at the back fence. Then as the morning light lifted night’s dark shades higher and higher, the fragrance of Autumn Clematis floated along on the bright morn’s happy wings. Soon butterflies, creatures of the wind, danced and rejoiced while happy voices on the TV echoed in celebration within the walls of a sanctuary. Therein the sunlight fell in brilliant fragments through the stained glass windows, and all that those colorful bits of light touched seemed to be filled with the same kind of holiness that I had felt streak through our trees.

“To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature.  Most persons do not see the sun.  At least they have a very superficial seeing.  The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and heart of the child.  The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Lord I love the Temple where you live, where your glory is. ~Psalm 26:8   ✝

** Image via Pinteest

486. The windows of my soul I throw wide open to the sun. ~John Greenleaf Whittier

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Light gives of itself freely,
filling all available space.
It does not seek anything in return;
it asks not whether you are friend or foe.
It gives of itself and is not thereby diminished.
~Michael Strassfeld

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All things in the natural world drink in sunlight, and they are affected by it a number of ways. When the sun’s warmth touches the skin on coolish days like today, it creates a pleasant sensation, and that pleasurable feeling seems to me to sink down into the depths of my being. Flesh and spirit drink in other light too, for they take in “the light of God and energy itself.” That’s why in an often cold, lonely, and dark world the inner flame of humanity’s sacred origin warms us and keeps the glow of the eternal alive.

In the temple of my inner being,
in the temple of my body,
in the temple of earth, sea, and sky,
in the great temple of the universe
I look for the light that was in the beginning,
the mighty fire that blazes still from the heart of life,
glowing in the whiteness of the moon,
glistening in night stars,
hidden in the black earth,
concealed in unknown depths of my soul.
In the darkness of the night,
in the shadow of my being, O God,
let me glimpse the eternal.
In both the light and the shadows of my being
let me glimpse the glow of the eternal.

~From SOUNDS OF THE ETERNAL
by J. Philip Newell

For God who said, “ Let light shine out of the darkness,” made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. ~2 Corinthians 4:6    ✝

** Image via Pinterest

475. To one who has been long in city pent, ‘tis sweet to look into the fair and open face of heaven-to breathe a prayer full in the smile of the blue firmament. ~John Keats

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Nature is man’s teacher.
She unfolds her treasures to his search
unseals his eye, illumes his mind, purifies his heart;
an influence breathes from all the sights
and sounds of existence.
~Alfred Billings Street

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It is not so much being “city pent” that keeps me from looking long into the “fair and open face” of the heavens in summer. It’s from being “house pent.” However, to keep my heat-driven incarceration inside my air-conditioned home from totally stifling my spiritual breathing, I hungrily emerge out of doors for a while very early and/or very late in the day. Outside and under the heavens I am able at last to breathe long and deep in prayer. According to Howard Pyle, “The stories of childhood leave an indelible impression, and their author always has a niche in the temple of memory from which the image is never cast out to be thrown on the rubbish heap of things that are outgrown and outlived.” In my childhood nature and her sweet stories left a profound impression in my memory. Because as Pyle suggests that impression was not thrown on “the rubbish heap” and because late in life I reentered nature’s haunts by means of a garden, I was brought back to a reverent and devoted relationship with the Maker of my soul and Creation.

Last night when I was out, I noticed that a pure white Angel’s Trumpet had opened, and it was still there briefly this morning. The brilliance of its whiteness reminded me of the temporal dominion of any kind of darkness and the inevitable return of light. Then when I came inside, I read an email from a friend in which he quoted “Peace is seeing the sunrise and sunset and knowing who to thank.” Though neither he nor I knew whom to credit for the thought, we always know who to thank for everything. So thank you, Lord, for sunrises and sunsets as well as endings and beginnings. For you see the Angel in the Trumpet intimated that the heat beast is on its last legs.

The earth is filled with Your love, Lord; teach me Your decrees. ~Psalm 119:64   ✝

Lord God, Your breath is within me, and I will honor and praise you with every breath that I breathe.

398. I make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes. ~Sara Teasdale

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My riches consist not
in the extent of my possessions,
but in the fewness
of my wants.
~Joseph Brotherton

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May the God of your days and the dawn awaken you.
May the God of the rising sun stir you up.
May the God of the morning bless the work of your hands.
May the God of noontime renew your strength and energy.
May the God of the sunset bring you safely back home.
May the God of the dusk soothe your flesh and soul.
May the God of the night bring you peaceful rest.
~Edited adaptation of a blessing for the day
by Andrew Greeley

Blessed are those You choose and bring near to live in Your courts! We are filled with the good things of Your house, of Your holy temple. ~Psalm 65:4  ✝

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.

**Image via Pinterest

345. Pull up a chair. Take a taste. Come join us. Life is so endlessly delicious. ~Ruth Reichl

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Today and every day may you see the “endlessly delicious” beauty in earth, sky, and sea. May you hear it in the song of the birds, in the wildness of the wind, in the splendor of starry nights. May you smell it in the fruiting and flowering of the earth. May you touch it in earth’s textures and in your human interactions. May you taste it in the food that comes from the fertility of the earth and from Creation’s life giving waters. May all these senses keep your child-like wonder and sense of awe alive and well. And may they teach you something about God’s ways and inspire reverence and gratitude for His gifts and blessings.

One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple. ~Psalm 27:4 ✝

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!

339. …Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? ~Mary Oliver

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Blessed be the longing that brought you here
and that quickens your soul with wonder.
May you have joy and peace in the temple of your senses each day.
May your days bring you quiet miracles that seek no attention.
If difficulties arise, and they will, may you be consoled
in the secret sympathy of your soul.
May you experience all your days as a sacred gift
woven around the heart of God.
May you live always in the neighborhood of love
and in awe of the mystery of being here.
May the frames of your belonging
be large enough for the dreams of your soul.
May you arise each day with a voice of blessing
whispering in your heart that something good is going to happen.
May you know today and always that you are ever embraced
in the kind circle of God.
~Text is a borrowed, altered, and/or embellished anthology
from a collection of Celtic blessings.

You will eat the fruit of your labor; blessings and prosperity will be yours. Psalm 12:2  ✝

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!

318. Water is the driver of nature. ~Leonardo da Vinci

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Be praised, My Lord,
through Sister Water;
she is very useful,
and humble,
and precious,
and pure.
~St. Francis of Assisi

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The sight of water, be it in a pond, a river, the sea, a fountain, or even a drop from a spigot touches something deep in “the temple of my inner being.” I love to sit quietly and watch water fall or splash or ripple or break like the waves on a seashore. And if I peer down long enough into the mysterious depths of a body of water, my mind conjures up images of earth’s origins, and subsequently the Garden of Eden comes alive in my soul’s eye. Even gauzy reflections which quiver and quake in a puddle or body of water seem to possess a captivating life, a compelling story, a gripping sanctity of their own.

Although I know not where it rests in the human psyche, I believe somewhere therein mortals recognize familiar things not necessarily of this world, things they appear to know without human tutelage or logic’s reason. In the same way a child instinctively recognizes its biological mother even after the umbilical cord is severed, I believe we, who are temporarily separated from the Holy Source of our being, retain a sense of the Father’s parenting presence because we belong to the Lord and are inextricably a part of Him. It could be that’s why earth and its waters not only call to me but also comfort me.

…by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. ~2 Peter 3:5  ✝

Thank you, Jesus, that you save, you heal, you restore, and you reveal Your Father’s heart to us!

**Photo via Pinterest