The Friend of Silence

 "We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness.  God is the friend of Silence...We need silence to be able to touch souls."

~Mother Teresa

God's Handwriting

 

"Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything Beautiful, for Beauty is God's Handwriting."

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Whom Shall I Fear?

Psalm 27  "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?"

Seek and You Will Find

Luke 11:10  "For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened."

Knock and It Will be Opened

Luke 11:9  "And I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you."

The Work of Your Hands



Hebrews 1:10  "You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth,

And the heavens are the work of your hands...

Rivers Will Not Overflow You

"Fear Not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name;  Your are Mine.  When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the river, they shall not overflow you.  When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scotch you.  For I am the Lord your God. "  Isaiah 43:1-2

Deep Waters

"When you go through Deep Waters, I will be with you."  Isaiah 43:2

God Has Not Given Us a Spirit of Fear

"For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."
2 Timothy 1:7
God has given us a spirit of power; we have all his power backing us.  We are safe in his hands.  God has given us a spirit of love to serve others and he has given us a sound mind to be calm and self-controlled and not give into panic and confusion that people are experiencing in today's world with the coronavirus lock downs; fear created by news media, even by our church leaders, and so called science professionals.  God has not given us a spirit of fear, and we need to humbly receive and walk in what He has given us (a spirit ... of power and of love and of a sound mind).

Flowers Grow Out of Darkness

We live our lives in moments, hours, days.  During profound grief, healing can come when we pick a wonderful moment from time to cherish.  A healing process is to take a good moment from our lives:  a trail walk, a beach sunrise, misty mountain morning, a walk in the moonlight.

"Flowers grow out of dark moments"
Artist Corita Kent

Love the Moment

"Love the moment, and the energy of that moment will spread beyond all boundaries."

Aristist Corita Kent (1918-1986)

Shadow and Sunlight

"Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows."
William Shakespeare

The beach and the river reminds me of Crystal's spirit.  The reminder is also a shadow.  Reminders are everywhere of the loss of our beautiful daughter.  It is also sunlight--wonderful, life giving sunlight.  There is no shadow without sunlight behind it.  It's like a bridge that connects the two worlds:  Shadow and sunlight.

Above the Earth Way

"Her love is everywhere.  It follows me as I go about the house, meets me in the garden, sends swans into my dreams.  In a strange, underwater or above earth way, I am very nearly happy."

Author Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893-1978)

Crossing the River When My Time Comes

"I miss seeing her face and hearing her voice and knowing she was always there close to me.   She has crossed a river from me that I must wait to cross before I see her again.  When I see a river, I will think of her."


Author Terry Kay

Feeling without Thinking - Mack Lake

 



"A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feeling through words.  This may sound easy.  It isn't.  A lot of people think or believe or know they feel-but that's thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling.  And poetry is feeling-not knowing or believing or thinking."
-E.E. Cummings

"That Place between Sleep and Awake"

“You know that place between sleep and awake, that place where you still remember dreaming? That’s where I’ll always love you. That’s where I’ll be waiting.”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan 

"Straining to Win the Sky"

" The tree is more than first a seed, then a stem, then a living trunk, and then dead timber. The tree is a slow, enduring force straining to win the sky. "
~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Wisdom of the Sands, translated from French by Stuart Gilbert

Clouds over Canterbury Plains

“So fine was the morning except for a streak of wind here and there that the sea and sky looked all one fabric, as if sails were stuck high up in the sky, or the clouds had dropped down into the sea.”

― Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse    



Deep Rivers and Trackless Forests

"Her mighty lakes, like oceans of liquid silver; her mountains, with bright aerial tints; her valleys, teeming with wild fertility; her tremendous cataracts, thundering in their solitudes; her boundless plains, waving with spontaneous verdure; her broad, deep rivers, rolling in solemn silence to the ocean; her trackless forests, where vegetation puts forth all its magnificence; her skies, kindling with the magic of summer clouds and glorious sunshine - no, never need an American look beyond his own country for the sublime and beautiful of natural scenery.”

 
― Washington Irving, The Sketch Book    

Tangled Woods

 

“Oh, but you must travel through those woods again and again... said a shadow at the window... and you must be lucky to avoid the wolf every time...

But the wolf... the wolf only needs enough luck to find you once.”
― Emily Carroll, Through the Woods