Tag Archives: Voice

172. 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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O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stain’d
With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit
Beneath my shady roof; there thou may’st rest,
And tune they jolly voice to my fresh pipe,
And all the daughters of the year shall dance!
Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers.
~William Blake, English poet

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*Photo courtesy Mike Bizeau

Lusty indeed is the dance of the year’s 4th child!  Escalating as she goes, she regales herself in glorious colors, and whilst strutting her hour upon earth’s stage, she reigns in majesty.  As she prepares the land for its Sabbath, her chariot enters the eastern sky at dawn with pink and purple banners flying high or she comes veiled in gray from a fog or torrents of rain.  Then after day is done she exits on the western horizon in mellow twilight, or in a blaze of red and gold, or swallowed up in the wetness of massive clouds.  When not thundering “mournful melodies” for all to hear, she’s belting out songs of joyfulness until she perishes in deep December softly playing “the harps of leafless trees.”

There is pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is rapture in the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar;
I love not man less, but Nature more,
~Lord Byron, English poet

It wasn’t until Mike Bizeau posted this photo of fall-colored succulents along a beach north of Mendocino, California, that I realized lusty autumn not only sings in forests and gardens but also in places on the “lonely shore.”  What a splendid artist is the holy Yahweh!

Sing to Him, sing praise to Him; tell all of His wonderful acts.  ~1 Chronicles 16:9  ✝

140. All nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres. ~Maltbie D. Babcock

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This is my Father’s world
He shines in all that’s fair,
In the rustling grass I hear Him pass,
He speaks to me everywhere.
~Lyrics from This is My Father’s World by Maltbie D. Babcock

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What a glorious morning!  When I raised the shade, my eyes were met with a delicious light pouring down on a corner of the garden.  And it was light not born of the intense heat of past months but instead of the crisp coolness of a 59 degree autumnal equinox morn.  Zephyrs were ruffling leaves, and they were shouting hallelujahs in praise of the Lord’s Sabbath and yesterday’s rain.  Ancient Eden’s unmistakable holy voice reverberated in the air, and all of us, creature and man alike, recognized it and rejoiced.  The “special air of melancholy and magic” typical of September’s opus rose louder and louder as the light moved southward across the yard frosting everything in its wake.  Yahweh’s glory breathed new life into wilted leaves, faded blossoms, and weary bones as the light moved as sweetly as a bow across the strings of a Stradivarius in slanted increments across the yard.

“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.”  ~Isaiah 60:1  ✝

*Thanks to Annette Lepple for the great description of September that I quoted above. 

137. Silence is the universal refuge…a balm to our every chagrin. ~Henry David Thoreau

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Soon silence will have passed into legend.
Man has turned his back on silence.
Day after day he invents machines and devices
that increase noise and distract humanity
from the essence of life. . .
~Jean Arp, French sculptor, painter, and poet

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We see patterns of stillness and silence in the natural world.  Day gives way to night, fruitfulness gives way to fallowness, bodies give way to fatigue.  However, in today’s noisy culture, there exists an almost obsessive tendency toward unending busyness.  Rest and yielding to silence has for many become a forgotten art or at best difficult.  But on days like today, in the midst of the noise a profound silence can be found in rain, and in that silence some seem still to be able to hear the slowing voice of quietude.  And I find that if one takes time to sit, listen, and watch the rain, an ancient holy voice has a way of pulling him/her into a deep peacefulness.  What’s more if the listener seeks a way to come back again and again to that quiet place, an intimate relationship begins to form.  Mother Teresa once said, “We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness.  God is the friend of silence.  See how nature – trees, flowers, grass – grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence. . .We need silence to be able to touch souls.”

“Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”  -Psalm 46:10    ✝

132. For summer here, bear in mind, is a loitering gossip, that only begins to talk of leaving when September rises to go. ~George W. Cable

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Take thy spade,
It is thy pencil;
Take thy seeds, thy plants,
They are your colours.
~William Mason, English poet, editor, and cleric

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The level of sand in summer’s hour glass may be low, but, and in spite of August’s  lingering heat, there is yet to come a fair measure of glory in the garden.  The cycle of earth’s fruiting isn’t completely over here in north central Texas until Jack Frost’s frigid touch rings the death knell in mid-November or early December.  So the remaining modicum of flowers will be joined in the coming days and weeks with substantially more blossoms.  Moreover, squirrels aren’t finished gathering nuts, birds have songs yet unsung, pollinators have more rounds to make, and roses have a second flush of blooms to proffer.  But most of all autumn is the time for we who “dwell in gardens” to plant, sow seeds, and raise our voices in gratitude for what the Lord has already graciously given us.

You who dwell in the gardens with friends in attendance, let me hear your voice.  ~Song of Songs 8:13  ✝

122. Has the luster of the infinite holiness of God ever shone upon your heart and drawn your heart to him? ~Jeremiah Burroughs

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The world is holy.
We are holy.
All life is holy.
Daily prayers are delivered
on the lips of breaking waves,
the whisperings of grasses,
the shimmering of leaves.
~Terry Tempest Williams,
American author and naturalist

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I’ve even seen what seems like daily prayers being offered up from the nodding heads of birthing flowers in the garden.  It’s as if they know to reverence life and its Giver.  For we humans reverence for life sometimes comes through the senses for with them we are able to see, hear, smell, touch, and taste Creation’s pervasive holiness.  Moreover, from a power of perception seemingly independent of the five senses we are able to discern the holiness that exists within the human heart.  And why not?  The human heart is, after all, the Divine’s sanctuary, and as such it is the mystical core from which God operates in our lives. To come into that inner place of holiness is to come “home” in a way for therein croons the voice, soft and sweet, of a loving Father.  If we strive to listen to and obey His still, small Voice, a well within is filled with the mercy, forgiveness, and love needed for us to blossom into a purposeful anointing.  Surely even the angels stand in awe of such as this.

. . . by the power of God, who has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of His own purpose and grace.   ~2 Timothy 1:9   ✝

69. Only from the heart can you touch the sky. ~Rumi

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It is a glorious privilege
to live, to know, to act, to listen, to behold, to love.
To look up at the blue summer sky;
to see the sun sink slowly beyond the line of the horizon;
to watch the worlds come twinkling into view,
first one by one, and the myriads that no man can count,
and lo! the universe is white with them;
and you and I are here.
~Marco Morrow

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It is God’s privilege to conceal things and the king’s privilege to discover them.  ~Proverbs 25:2   ✝

23. Nature, like man, sometimes weeps for gladness. ~Anonymous

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Rain! whose soft architectural hands
have power to cut stones, and
chisel to shapes of grandeur the very mountains.
~Henry Ward Beecher

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Each drop of rain is a powerful miracle, a miracle that falls between heaven and earth as it travels vast distances around earth’s surface.  It speaks so loudly of holiness that whenever it appears here, it never fails to draw me to itself.   Perhaps because somewhere in my memory’s oldest and deepest recesses there’s a vague in-utero recollection of the soothing nature of a watery beginning, a remembrance of a sacred mothering source.  When the first drops of rain hit the ground, especially after a long absence, they fall on my ears not unlike the chords of a beloved’s voice.  And after the rain, when the smell of wet soil and damp grass greet my nose, I “weep for gladness.”  The deliciousness of its return prompts the same urges I experienced in childhood.  What fun it would have been to have played in the rain and danced with wanton delight in the sloshy puddles beneath my feet had mom not forbid it.

All the water earth will ever have was granted us at the beginning of time.  In whatever form it falls to earth, be it rain, fog, frost, snow, or sleet, water is part of a divinely designed cycle to insure Creation’s continuance.  The holy water-bearers bring the stuff without which there is no life for it is the substance in which life is formed and the substance of which life is sustained.  As a part of the grand and holy design, falling waters move in never-ending circles to kiss the earth and return to the clouds.  Given that I can’t help but wonder how far each drop of moisture has traveled throughout the eons of time.  One thing of which I’m always certain though is that rain’s “soft architectural hands” were made by the soft Hands of He who made the earth and us.

I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit.  Leviticus 26: 4   ✝

9. O Autumn…pass not, but sit…and tune thy jolly voice…and all the daughters of the year shall dance! ~William Blake

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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, British Gardener and Writer

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Now that the year has grown long in the tooth, the migratory birds have moved on to warmer lands.  But the birds who overwinter here are still very visible and busy.  However, on the chillier days they, like me, “remain perched” early in the morning and later when the sun is well over the rooftops.  Nevertheless, in spite of our periodic and combined lethargy, we still manage to be out and working during the warmer parts of the day.  The “common feast for all” the garden spreads may be nearly gone and the bird’s tired wings along with my tired feet may drag somewhat, but autumn’s remaining golden glory continues to quicken our spirits.  In fact even after winter ravages the land, we, man and beast alike, who live close to the soil will venture out on the occasional warm day to search with hungry eyes for any signs of what we know lies waiting to emerge from beneath the surface of things.

Autumn’s song is indeed “a rich and lusty melody.”  It induces a healthy renewal in bodies wilted by summer’s long siege of torrid heat, and it creates a restful peacefulness that washes away the “fret and fever of life.”  “It’s jolly voice” sings a comforting song of promise that speaks of God’s circadian rhythms of life–the rhythm of changing seasons, busyness followed by stillness, “youth’s energy followed by age’s measured pace.”

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens. . .  ~Ecclesiastes 3:1   ✝