Tag Archives: joy
A sentinel all around
“…if we starve ourselves of mental junk and replace it with what is true, admirable, right, pure, beautiful, and attractive, peace will stand as a sentinel all around our feelings and thoughts, creating an impregnable fortress of calm and tranquility.” — David Murray Could you use some calm and tranquility right now? I know I …
Like enthusiasm
“Color in a picture is like enthusiasm in life.” – Vincent Van Gogh January paints nature with a muted palette, but that doesn’t mean our days have to be dull during the winter months. Add some color to your life, literally or figuratively, and get a jump on springtime by animating your mood with some sparkle. When …
Making life more bearable
“The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow…” — Kurt Vonnegut “What is the purpose of your blog?” That’s a question others have asked occasionally …
Gifts of time and love
“Gifts of time and love are surely the basic ingredients of a truly merry Christmas.”— Peg Bracken I love Christmas! But it can be exhausting and stressful, particularly when invitations, intentions and demands are far greater than the time (and maybe also the money) to fulfill them. In recent years I have reminded myself to focus …
Love at the board
For hearts that are kindly, with virtue and peace, and not seeking blindly a hoard to increase; for those who are grieving o’er life’s sordid plan; for souls still believing in heaven and man; for homes that are lowly with love at the board; for things that are holy, I thank thee, O Lord! — Walt …
Poetic memory
“The brain appears to possess a special area which we might call poetic memory and which records everything that charms or touches us, that makes our lives beautiful.” — Milan Kundera Memory, we are told, is highly selective and not always accurate. We may remember a time or a place as being so full of …
The transporting wonder
“Those of us who know the transporting wonder of a reading life know that…when we read, we are always inside, sheltered in that interior room, that clean, well-lighted, timeless place that is the written word.” – Alice McDermott All of my life, reading has been a shelter for me, and never more so than in …
Be one of the rare few
“Never despise the mundane. Embrace it. Unwrap it like a gift. And be one of the rare few who looks deeper than just the surface. See something more in the everyday. It’s there.” – Lysa TerKeurst I’m a practical person in most respects, so I tend to give gifts that are useful or inexpensive modestly …
Power to gather
…he is happiest who hath power To gather wisdom from a flower… — Mary Howitt What is your favorite flower? That’s a tough question to answer; I tend to be fondest of whatever I happen to be seeing at the moment. But if I had to choose, the delightful …
To be wronged
“To be wronged is nothing, unless you continue to remember it.”― Confucius Gardening teaches me many lessons. I love the way nurturing the flowers and pulling the weeds can make such a difference in how beautiful a small spot of ground may be. Left alone, the weeds can choke out the flowers in no time. But …
Just too used to it
“I think life is staggering and we’re just too used to it. We are all like spoiled children no longer impressed with the gifts we’re given – it’s just another sunset, just another rainstorm moving in over the mountain, just another child being born, just another funeral.” — Donald Miller Do you ever read the …
So glad
“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” — L. M. Montgomery As I write this, I’m feeling sad and very tired. I’ve not been sleeping well lately, and it feels as if everything in my life is currently a source of some sort of worry. This evening, despite having many …
Important decision
“The most important decision you make is to be in a good mood.”― Voltaire In the grand scheme of things, it might seem that Voltaire is exaggerating to describe a mere mood as being so important. After all, there are plenty of huge and life-changing decisions that are far less transient than how we feel on …
A logic all their own
“Summers had a logic all their own and they always brought something out in me…they made me want to believe.” — Benjamin Alire Sáenz As incredible as it seems to me, the summer is already beginning to wind down. The days are getting shorter and there have been a few touches of cool weather here …
Created for the transcendent
“We were made to enjoy music, to enjoy beautiful sunsets, to enjoy looking at the billows of the sea and to be thrilled with a rose that is bedecked with dew…Human beings are actually created for the transcendent, for the sublime, for the beautiful, for the truthful…and all of us are given the task of …
On noticing
“An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it makes a better soup.” ― H.L. Mencken Have you ever noticed that we have a tendency to idealize that which charms us? Because we like the appearance of a product, we might conclude that it’s more functional. If we fall …
In the tiny corners
“What God does in the tiny corners of our day-to-day lives is stunning and gorgeous and headline-making, but we have a bad habit of saving the headlines for the grotesque and scary.” ― Shauna Niequist Today, let’s shine the light on the headline-making happenings in the tiny corners. I’ll start with a few of my …
By the window
What life can compare to this? Sitting quietly by the window, I watch the leaves fall and the flowers bloom, As the seasons come and go. — Hsueh-Tou Don’t you love sitting quietly by a window? I don’t make enough time for it. I always find it calming; the combination of sunlight (or moonlight) and …
Blooming most recklessly
“Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.” — Rainer Maria Rilke I probably say this every year, but I can’t remember when I was more eager for spring. Because I was expecting visitors in late March and early April, …
Questions of faith and love
“…although the historical arguments for Jesus’s bodily resurrection are truly strong, we must never suppose that they will do more than bring people to the questions faced by Thomas and Peter, the questions of faith and love. We cannot use a supposedly objective historical epistemology as the ultimate ground for the truth of Easter. To …
Silent devoted companionship
“I have found that when you are deeply troubled, there are things you get from the silent devoted companionship of a dog that you can get from no other source.” — Doris Day If you’ve ever had a canine friend, you know what Day meant. There is something about the friendship between humans and dogs that defies …
An echo from the past
Nothing is Lost by Noel Coward Deep in our sub-conscious, we are told Lie all our memories, lie all the notes Of all the music we have ever heard And all the phrases those we loved have spoken, Sorrows and losses time has since consoled, Family jokes, out-moded anecdotes Each sentimental souvenir and token Everything …
Complicated
“Everything is complicated; if that were not so, life and poetry and everything else would be a bore.” — Wallace Stevens I’ve noticed that advertising and publishing increasingly use variations on the word “simple” to promote their content. Everyone, it seems, yearns for simplicity amid the overwhelming density of challenges our brains must deal with …
Defeat Despair 