But the sower going forth
to sow seeds sets foot in time to come,
the seeds, falling on his own place.
He has prepared a way for his life
to come to him, if it will.
~Wendell Berry

Like master gardener and writer, June Santon, “When I see that first, minuscule, curled, pale green wisp of a sprout poking up between a couple of grains of vermiculite, I hear God speaking.” But then again, it’s really more than just hearing Him speak. It is connecting with Him in a way unlike anything else because when sowing a seed, like Him, it is creating life. After all we are made in the image of our Creator God, and so we too have the ability to create. My particular palette is made up of photographs and words and seeds and plants whereas someone else’s may be notes of music, globs of paint, utensils in a kitchen, pieces of metal, blocks of wood. The possibilities go on and on because we are not only capable of creating with objects but also with the very essence of who and what we are, as with teachers and ministers and parents.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. ~Psalm 139:13-15 ✝

1100. Creativity is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in. ~Amy Lowell

March 22, 2016 by nataliescarberry

Imagination is more important than knowledge.
For knowledge is limited to all we know and understand,
while imagination embraces the entire world, and
all there ever will be to know and understand.
Creativity is seeing what everyone else has seen,
and thinking what no one else has thought.
~Albert Einstein

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Why should you think that beauty,
which is the most precious thing in the world,
lies like a stone on the beach
for the careless passer-by to pick up idly?
Beauty is something wonderful and strange
that the artist or writer or musician
photographer or dancer fashions out of
the  chaos of the world in the torment of his soul.
~Edited and adapted excerpt from
W. Somerset Maugham

Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. ~Ephesians 3: 20-21 ✝

1038. We are here and now. Further than that, all knowledge is moonshine(foolish talk). ~H.L. Mencken

January 15, 2016 by nataliescarberry

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What is there beyond knowing that keeps
calling to me? I can’t

turn in any direction
but it’s there. I don’t mean

the leaves’ grip and shine or even the thrush’s
silk song, but the far-off

fires, for example,
of the stars, heaven’s slowly turning

theater of light, or the wind
playful with its breath;

or time that’s always rushing forward,
or standing still

in the same–what shall I say–
moment.

What I know
I could put into a pack

as if it were bread and cheese, and carry it on
one shoulder,

important and honorable, but so small!
While everything else continues, unexplained

and unexplainable. How wonderful it is
to follow a thought quietly

to its logical end.
I have done this a few times.

But mostly I just stand in the dark field,
in the middle of the world, breathing

in and out. Life so far doesn’t have any other name
but breath and light, wind and rain.
~Excerpted verses from a poem by Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver is my go to poet when life has been too big for too long, and though she, like me, has no concrete answers, I find her ability to make the unexplainable palatable comforting. Her words touch me in ways that are unexplainable as well, but then that makes two of us standing side by side “in the middle of the world, breathing” instead of me having to do it all by myself.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. ~Psalm139:5-7 ✝

**Image found on Pinterest

955. My sun sets to rise again. ~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

November 18, 2015 by nataliescarberry

The sun does not shine for a few trees and
flowers, but for the wide world’s joy.
~Henry Ward Beecher

Have you ever seen anything
in your life more wonderful
than the way the sun,
every evening, relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon
and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea, and is gone–
and how it slides again
out of the blackness, every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower streaming upward
on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early light,
at its perfect imperial distance–
and have you ever felt
for anything such wild love–
do you think there is anywhere,
in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure that fills you,
as the sun reaches out,
as it warms you as you stand there,
empty-handed–or have you too
turned from this world–
or have you too gone crazy
for power, for things?
~Mary Oliver

And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars—all the heavenly array—do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshiping things the Lord your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven. ~Deuteronomy 4:19 ✝

**Images via Pinterest; collage by Natalie

743. Zero (0) is not nothing. It’s a circle, without beginning or end. Holy. Healed. ~Wallace Black Elk, Lakota

May 23, 2015 by nataliescarberry

A wheel was shown to me,
wonderful to behold.
Divinity . . . is like a wheel,
a circle, a whole,
that can neither be understood,
nor divided, nor begun nor ended . . .
no one has the power  to divide
this circle,  to surpass it, or to limit it.
~St. Hildegard of Bingen

beginnings, middles, endings,
so  go the circles of life  here
and over and over again
the sacred circles repeat themselves
with more beginnings,
more middles,
more endings,
and yet little seems the same from
day to day, month to month, year to year,
in these patterns of inconstancy
within the undeniable constancy
that create our “wow” now moments
as well as the not so “wow” ones
so what’s to be made of all the same
and not so same circular sameness
or the ups and downs and all around times
in the beginnings, middles, and endings
only the Ancient of Days knows why
these everlasting  holy rhythms
of the universe  move in such a way
~Natalie Scarberry

It is a land the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end. ~Deuteronomy 11:12 ✝

**Image via Pinterest

669. Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy… ~Line from a song written by Carole King and David Palmer

March 11, 2015 by nataliescarberry

If I had a tale that I could tell you
I’d tell a tale for sure to make you smile
If I had a wish that I could wish for you
I’d make a wish for sunshine all the while…
~Excerpted lyrics from the  above named song
that was  recorded by John Denver

It was such a lovely sunshine-day,
The house and the yard couldn’t hold me;
A meadow I found, so on my back I lay,
And sang what my spirit told me.

It was such a lovely sunshine-day,
The house and the yard couldn’t hold me;
I climbed up a tree, oh, what bliss to stay,
Where only could peace enfold me.
~Edited excerpted lines from poem
by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

Beautiful – beautiful morning outside,
Bright with the sunshine and glows in the sky.
Birdies are singing and dewdrops are falling:
It’s a beautiful morning outside.

Day after day in this wonderful way,
Nature is showing its wonderful face,
With sunshine at mornings, and cheers every where;
It is morning again in this world.
~Excerpted lines from poem
by Parmanand Mahabir

This is what the Lord says to me: “I will remain quiet and will look on from my dwelling place, like shimmering heat in the sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest. ~Isaiah 18:4 ✝

**Both image via Pinterest

663. Lord, you have set the powers of the four quarters of the earth to cross each other. You have made me cross the good road and road of difficulties, and where they cross, the place is holy. Day in, day out, forevermore, you are the life of things. ~Edited excerpt from Black Elk, Oglala Sioux

March 6, 2015 by nataliescarberry

To the four winds, that bring us the seasons of Life…

To the East
Where the Sun rises bringing to us a new day
A new meaning of life, a light in which to see
The path before us.

To the South
Where the warm air comes to us
Bringing heat and warmth, and
The seasons of spring and summer.

To the West
Where the Sun goes to bring to us darkness,
So as we may see the universe
And search for the answers
Of our life.

To the North
Where the cold winds come from
Bringing to us the seasons
Of fall and winter.
~Edited lines of Native American wisdom  by Larry Kibby

Lord, you are my God; I will exalt You and praise Your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done wonderful things, things planned long ago. ~Isaiah 25: 1 ✝

**All images via Pinterest

615. The sun came up like gold through the trees, and I felt like I was in heaven. ~Harriet Tubman

January 17, 2015 by nataliescarberry

The sun, with all those planets
revolving around it and dependent on it,
can still ripen a bunch of grapes
as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.
~Galileo Galilei

The Sun
Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful

than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon

and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone–
and how it slides again

out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower

streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance–
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love–
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure

that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you

as you stand there,
empty-handed–
or have you too
turned from this world–

or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?
~Mary Oliver

…May the Lord bless his land with the precious dew from heaven above and with the deep waters that lie below; with the best the sun brings forth and the finest the moon can yield; with the choicest gifts of the ancient mountains and the fruitfulness of the everlasting hills… ~Deuteronomy 33:13-15 ✝

** Image, “Sunlight” by Heather Reichard, via Pinterest

379. And the stately lilies stand, fair in the silvery light, like saintly vestals, pale in prayer; their pure breath sanctifies the air, as their fragrance fills the night. ~Julia C. R. Dorr

May 27, 2014 by nataliescarberry

God’s the lily of the valley
Praise Him from all fields to cope
Where all angels meet to rally
Insuring us with lasting hope.
~Excerpted lines from a poem by Mae Stein

I have been thinking
about living
like the lilies
that blow in the fields.

They rise and fall
in the edge of the wind,
and have no shelter
from the tongues of the cattle,

and have no closets or cupboards,
and have no legs.
Still I would like to be
as wonderful

as the old idea.
But if I were a lily
I think I would wait all day
for the green face

of the hummingbird
to touch me.
What I mean is,
could I forget myself

even in those feathery fields?
~Excerpted lines from Mary Oliver’s poem, Lilies

My beloved is mine and I am his; he browses among the lilies. ~Song of Songs 2:16 ✝

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

April 26, 2014 by nataliescarberry

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

Sacred Touches

Life is a time of purpose and anointed blossoming…

Tag Archives: Wonderful

129. To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand. ~José Ortega y Gasset