Posts tagged ‘deer’
Wednesday of Hope . . . . in Stillness
In the stillness of the quiet, if we listen, we can hear the whisper of the heart giving strength to weakness, courage to fear, hope to despair.– Howard Thurman
Life Worth Living
Dive deeply into the miracle of life and let the tips of your wings be burnt by the flame, let your feet be lacerated by the thorns, let your heart be stirred by human emotion, and let your soul be lifted beyond the earth.
– Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan, Call of the Dervish
The Closeness of God
Will you ever understand how near God is to you?
Lalla, fourteenth century C.E.
How do you sense God’s closeness?
Weekly Photo Challenge: Family
Truly, Earth is our family, and we need to help her to flourish as much as diligently as we prepare our children for the future.
We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.
– Native American Proverb
And our earth family awaits our reply
To Pray
To pray is to take notice of the wonder, to regain a sense of the mystery that animates all beings, the divine margin in all attainments. Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living. It is all we can offer in return for the mystery by which we live….
Amidst the meditation of mountains, the humility of flowers wiser than all alphabets–clouds that die constantly for the sake of God’s glory–we are hating, hunting, hurting. Suddenly we feel ashamed of our clashes and complaints in the face of the tacit glory in nature.
– Abraham Joshua Heschel, from Quest for God
Taking notice of wonder
Weekly Photo Challenge: Love
We will hear the thoughts below later this week when 1 Corinthians 13 is quoted. Today we hear from Reinhold Niebuhr.
Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore, we must be saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Surprise
I love today’s Advent reading from The Song of Songs – Song of Songs 2:18-14. And certainly the sight of a young stag peering through the window would evoke delight and surprise.
May your Christmas days – all twelve of them – be filled with delightful surprise.
Hark! My lover – here he comes
springing across the mountains,
leaping across the hills.
My lover is like a gazelle
or a young stag.
Here he stands behind our wall,
gazing through the windows,
peering through the lattices.
My lover speaks: he says to me
“Arise, my beloved, my dove,
my beautiful one, and come!
For see, the winter is past,
the rains are over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth,
the time of pruning the vines has come,
and the song of the dove is heard in our land.
The fig tree puts forth its figs,
and the vines, in bloom, give forth fragrance.
Arise by beloved, by beautiful one,
and come!O my dove in the clefts of the rock,
in the secret recesses of the cliff,
Let me see you,
let me hear your voice,
For your voice is sweet,
and you are lovely.
