Tag Archives: Water

362. But the true lover of rain…. has a deep inner enjoyment of the rain, as rain, and his sense of its beauty drinks it in as thirstily as does the drinking earth. ~John Richard Vernon

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http://www.encyclo.co.uk/define/pluviophile

pluviophile (s) (noun), pluviophiles (pl)
1. Anyone or anything that has a fondness for or a desire for rain: “There are many plants that are pluviophiles because they need an abundance of rain in order to survive and to reproduce.
2. Etymology: literally, “a love or fondness for rain” from pluvio-, “rain” + phile, “fondness, love.”

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Okay, I admit it. I am one, a pluviophile, that is! I’ve always loved the rain and now that I’ve spent a half a century in a place that experiences long periods of drought, I value rain even more. It is one of those miracles of life that the Lord built into the fabric of Creation. So today, when we were blessed with a lovely bit of rain I found myself joyfully doing this…

I’m singin’ in the rain
Just singin’ in the rain,
What a glorious feeling,
And I’m happy again.
Let the stormy clouds chase.
Everyone from the place,
Come on with the rain
I have a smile on my face.
I’ll walk down the lane
With a happy refrain
Just singin’, singin’ in the rain.
~Excerpts of lyrics by Arthur Freed

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The richness of the rain made me feel safe and protected; I have always considered the rain to be healing—a blanket—the comfort of a friend. Without at least some rain in any given day, or at least a cloud or two on the horizon, I feel overwhelmed by the information of sunlight and yearn for the vital, muffling gift of falling water. ~Douglas Coupland

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Have you ever just stopped and listened to rain slap the ground? I think it sounds like thousands of people applauding sometimes, but I like to think it’s God’s creation, applauding and thanking Him for a much needed drink of water.  ~John Stepan

I will proclaim the name of the Lord. Oh, praise the greatness of our God! ~Deuteronomy 32:3  ✝

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!

360. …Monet portrayed the changeability and flux of every moment. “The Water Lilies” give you a jittery, amorphous sense of a world seen at the speed of light. ~Jerry Saltz

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I gathered them–the lilies pure and pale,
The golden-hearted lilies, virgin fair,
And in a vase of crystal, placed them where
Their perfumes might unceasingly exhale.
High in my lonely tent above the swale,
Above the shimmering mere and blossoms there,
I solaced with their sweetness my despair,
And fed with dews their beauteous petals frail.
~Florence Earle Coates

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Wow! Don’t ya just love to be wowed?! According to the dictionary “wow” as an expression of excitement was first recorded in Scots in the early 16th century. But the dictionary doesn’t tell us what it was that generated enough excitement to inspire the “wow” in Scots, and I for one would really like to know. I love to be wowed; Creation and the Lord wow me over and over again in ways like no other. Okay, okay, I know; so what is the connection between water lilies and a word that expresses astonishment or admiration. Well…yesterday, we drove through our local Botanical Gardens and I noticed they had put some water lilies in one of their ponds and was thrilled to find something new to “feed” my camera and thus my soul, but wait, that is not what created the “wow” factor although water lilies are “wowish” enough in their own right. It was something I read about them when I got home that prompted the really animated “wows.” According to an encyclopedia, “the Fragrant Water Lily has a unique pollination strategy. On the first day that the flower blooms, its pollen is not yet released. Instead, a fluid fills the centre of the flower covering the female parts. Should an insect visit the flower, the design of the petals causes it to fall into the fluid. If the insect is covered in pollen, the pollen dissolves in the fluid and fertilizes the flower. The next day, no fluid is produced, and pollen is released instead. The insect that falls into the fluid usually emerges unharmed; although a few unlucky ones may be trapped and drown.” Is that amazing or what?! This is exactly why I garden and love gardens and God as much as I do. He is in the goodness and “wow” business, and He does both like nothing else! The world may be in flux at every moment, but the Lord is true and faithful to all His promises and His inherent goodness.

I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine; he browses among the lilies. ~Song of Songs 6:3 ✝

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!

350. But I always think the best way to know God is to love many things. ~Vincent Van Gogh

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All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.

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Each little flower that opens,
Each little bird that sings,
He made their glowing colours,
He made their tiny wings.

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The rich man in his castle,
The poor man at his gate,
God made them, high or lowly,
And ordered their estate.

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The purple-headed mountain,
The river running by,
The sunset, and the morning,
That brightens up the sky;

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The cold wind in the winter,
The pleasant summer sun,
The ripe fruits in the garden,
He made them every one.

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The tall trees in the greenwood,
The meadows where we play,
The rushes by the water,
We gather every day;–

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He gave us eyes to see them,
And lips that we might tell,
How great is God Almighty,
Who has made all things well.
~Cecil Frances Alexander

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Your righteousness, God, reaches to the heavens, you who have done great things. Who is like you, God? ~Psalm 71:19 ✝

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

303. The garden is a love song, a duet between a human being and Mother Nature. ~Jeff Cox

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In the corner of his garden, there’s a patch he used to keep
All to himself, to allow nature to creep
There are no trimmed edges
or prim, proper hedges
He left his earth still and alone
Allowed the forces of nature to roam
He said that you don’t always have to be tidy and neat
Just watch the beauty of opportunity grow at your feet
He said just watch the earth produce its own glory
And I watched…and held on to his story
My granddad was right
Add water and light
Behold the sight
There are poppies and flowering weeds
Buttercups and oat coloured reeds
Daisies gingerly lift their heads
Dandelions roar from muddy beds
Purple thistles and strange grasses
Colours that alight and ignite masses
Dark ferns and heathers
Dandelion clock feathers
Birds foot trefoil, a four leafed clover
My granddad’s story is not over
He may have gone, I may have cried
But the beauty he predicted never died
~Melanie Waters

Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth.  ~Psalm 57:5  ✝

**photos via Pinterest

295. Of all God’s gifts to the sighted man, color is the holiest, the most divine… ~John Ruskin

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In the house of words was a table of colors.
They offered themselves in great fountains,
and each poet took the color he needed:
lemon yellow or sun yellow,
ocean blue or smoke blue,
crimson red, blood red, wine red.
~Eduardo Galeano

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What a glorious tangerine and white dream is the daffodil in the photograph, and holiness indeed is written all over it!  As God speaks to mankind through the Bible and Creation, we can see that He values color, the intent of which seems, like all else, to be that its hallowed voice draw His children closer to Him.  Color appears first in holy writ in the opening pages of Genesis when God fathered the whiteness of light on day 1 of the Creation story.  Then on the second day the Lord created expanses to separate water from water, and both the sky and the reflection of the heavens in it are shades of blue.  On day 3 He created earth’s green vegetation.  Day 4 brought the placement of lights that governed the heavens, and day’s greater light, the sun, is yellow; up close pictures of the sun also show reds and oranges in its make up.  Fish and great sea monsters swam the seas and birds took flight on the fifth day, and whales and sharks have been seen as hallmarks of an ancient pagan idol symbolized by the color orange.  The sixth day brought the creation of man and animals; the name Adam means red and the blood that courses through the veins of man and beast alike is red.  Day 7, the Sabbath, was sanctified by God whose robes and glory are perennially symbolized by white, and later when atoning for man’s sins His son, Jesus, wore a purple robe.

“And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.  God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.  Genesis 1:30-31  ✝

281. There are defeats more triumphant than victories. ~Michel de Montaigne

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I found this image on the internet, and I’m not sure why I’m so fascinated with it, but I am.  Perhaps it’s because the rose, though now damaged, remains exquisite in color and form or because the spraying bits of freeze-dried petals create a stunning scene.  Or maybe I’m intrigued by the photo because it somehow reassures me that human brokenness touched by God’s grace can produce valuable and worthwhile fruit.  Whatever the case may be, all this pondering about the fragmented rose triggered the memory of the profound story below the photo.

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A water bearer in India had two large pots, each hung on each end of a pole which he carried across his neck.  One of the pots had a crack in it, and while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to the master’s house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.  For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water in his master’s house.  Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments.  But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfections, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do. After two years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream.  “I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you.”  “Why?” asked the bearer.  “What are you ashamed of?”  I have been able, for these past two years, to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your master’s house.  Because of my flaws, you have to do all of this work and you don’t get full value for your efforts,” the pot said. The water bearer felt sorry for the old cracked pot and in his compassion he said, “As we return to the master’s house I want you to notice the beautiful flowers along the path.” Indeed, as they went up the hill, the old cracked pot took notice of the sun warming the beautiful wild flowers on the side of the path, and this cheered it some.  But at the end of the trail, it still felt bad because it had leaked out half its load, and so again it apologized to the bearer for its failure. The bearer said to the pot, “Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path but not on the other pot’s side?  That’s because I have always known about your flaw, and I took advantage of it.  I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back from the stream, you’ve watered them.  For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate my master’s table.  Without you being just the way you are, he would not have this beauty to grace his house.”  ~Author Unknown

Every human “pot” becomes “cracked” in some way, but that does not render the flawed man or woman ugly or useless.  The Creation story in Genesis tells us that each day God looked back at what He had made and saw that it was good.  So, although we humans are imperfect, we started from a place of goodness that is still in us.

Do not remember the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you, LORD, are good.  ~Psalm 25:7  ✝

276. There is no greater sorrow in the world, than eyes unseeing, color everywhere, or ears unhearing, softly wafted notes from nature’s great cathedral of the air. ~Mabel G. Austin

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What is pink? a rose is pink
By a fountain’s brink.
What is red? a poppy’s red
In its barley bed.
What is blue? the sky is blue
Where the clouds float thro’.
~Christina Rossetti

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Well, it’s another gloomy winter’s day hereabouts, but I’m a singin’ away, a singin’ in the rain as a matter of fact.  “I’m laughing at the clouds so dark up above, what a glorious feelin’ I’m happy again…”  Okay, so it isn’t much rain, but it has rained a bit nevertheless.  And what am I a singing?  I’m a singin’ the blues.  No, no, no, not the sad blues–the happy blues because some of my little, blue grape hyacinths are blooming in the greenhouse, and they like “girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes” are “a few of my favorites things.”  I love the color blue and I love some of the expressions using the color blue, expressions like:  true blue, out of the blue, bluer than blue, blue on blue, once in a blue moon, something borrowed, something blue, and on and on it goes.  I also love some of the ways people describe what the color blue means to them.  For example I’ve heard things like: blue is the wonder in my mind; blue is the sound a sunny day makes; blue is the smell of blueberries ripening in the sun; blue is the wind over water; blue is the color of the never-ending sky; blue is the place where song birds fly; blue is a world of sweet mellow joy; blue is the sky that God holds close to His presence; blue was meant for us to see and believe.

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Blue is the color of God’s Glory according to some rabbinic sages, and it is a constant in our lives.  Not only is it the color of the clear sky and the deep sea, but it’s the color of our planet, Mother Earth, our precious blue pearl in the heavens.  God does indeed hold the sky close to His presence, and we were meant to see evidence of Him, our Creator, in its orbs and in “my blue, blue, blue heaven.”

Speak to the Israelites, and tell them to make fringes on the corners of their garments throughout the generations to put a blue cord on the fringe at each corner.  ~Numbers 15:38  ✝

264. Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. ~Erich Fromm

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Sometimes we write love in small letters-
Spreading the butter on his toast or
Wiping down the kitchen counter dabbed with
Peanut butter and jelly…

Love is often dangling on a clothesline
And snatching a peek at a sleeping face;
It is the giving up and giving in
To another’s want with joy…

Blowing, kissing and holding tight is
Love’s voice upon a sore finger, a wrinkled
Cheek, a weary shoulder than saunters at
Days end hopelessly…

Minutes are just as vital in love’s scaling
Upward climb to perfection, the afternoons
Picking strawberries and the morning
Prayer that’s an alloy…

Write love, in capital or small, it doesn’t matter–
Pen it with every touch; add it to tuna casseroles
And let it water down every heartache at
Your midnight soliloquies

But compose it…
Jot it down
and engrave it without restraint!
Dirty your hands in it
and clean a soul with
It…
Like the only work you’ve employed.
~Deborah Jeanne Avila

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love,  I am a noisy gong or clanging symbol.   And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing…  ~1 Corinthians 13  ✝

258. If your heart is straight with God, then every creature will be to you a mirror of life and a book of holy doctrine. ~Thomas à Kempis

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If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures
from the shelter of compassion and pity,
you will have men who deal likewise with their fellow man.
~St. Francis of Assisi

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Between the houses on our street and the ones on the street behind us run power lines which also function as a sort of “interyard” highway for our sizable squirrel population.  During the course of a day’s time the squirrels run back and forth and back and forth along the elevated “freeway” that exits on various nearby “farm to market” tree branch roads.  From there they scamper down to the ground below or up to their hand built “high rise condos” or take “fence-line” lanes into adjoining yards.  When not engaged in foraging for food or water they playfully chase each other round and round.  Their spunky antics whilst doing so are often engagingly comical, and the agility with which they perform daring acrobatics with no fail-safe never ceases to amaze me.

The fluffy-tailed creatures seem to have little fear of me, but they become alarmed if and when a feral cat begins to stalk them.  To date, though they’ve barely escaped being pounced upon a time or two, they’ve perceived the threat in time and avoided being captured by scampering up, up, and away into places too lofty for most cats to follow.  Afterwards the escapee sometimes stays on high making chicken-like noises, until I, the games keeper, chase the predator away, or the cat grows weary of the clucking and leaves of its own accord, or the squirrel’s attention is diverted to or by something else.

The earth, its resources, and its creatures are a part of a holy, good deposit.  And because I’ve always felt a closeness to and reverence for Creation, I try to be a good steward of my deposit–my home, my family, and my little patch of Eden.  To that end through the National Wildlife Federation, my yard has been established as a wildlife habitat– a sacred sanctuary for me and all who dwell in or come here to visit.

Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you–guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.  2 Timothy 1:14  ✝