I never really thought about it before, but: Where else in the world can you watch football surrounded by views like this?! You can check out game day pics and stats here from Montana Grizzly fans, who must be among the most grateful sport enthusiasts...
Beautiful Easter Day to be out under God’s great heaven...and tomorrow’s forecast on my phone app shows a little snowflake with 70% chance of snow - I kid you not! We’ll wait and see....
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.”
—from Praying by Mary Oliver (1935-2019)
“Art is how we decorate space, music is how we decorate time.” -Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988)
May your “decorating” on this second spring day be inspired by the Grand Creator of all things bright and beautiful, brave and small.
“Rivers have what man most respects and longs for in his own life—a capacity for renewal and replenishment, continual energy, creativity, cleansing.” — John Kauffman (1923-3014), A Look At Our North Atlantic Rivers
“Supposed to be no snow for two days. Hah. This country, it sat out there, breathing, waiting for the winter, like a big white cat and you the mouse.”
-from Coyote Wind, A Gabriel Du Pré Mystery by Peter Bowen (1945-2020), page 124
“He closed the missal, looked out the window at what was left of the day. Not too far back, it was the shortest day of the year. He was some farther north here, the shadows seemed longer, the blue in them colder.”
-from Coyote Wind, A Gabriel Du Pré Mystery by Peter Bowen (1945-2020), page 135
Spotted this neighbourly advice during a pre-church ramble out in East Missoula, Montana. An inspiring example of imagination finding limitless ways to express kindness! (And we’ll just float free of the light/moth analogy before any frying occurs...)
“Indeed the river is a perpetual gala,
and boasts each month a new ornament.“ -Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), Nature
(Many thanks to the folks at the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System for repurposing and corralling a broadly inspiring selection of quotes ...and more!)
A brisk 2 degrees F driving to work this morning, and even colder with windchill...some southern somebody pretty please enjoy some sunshine for me!
“Anyone who thinks that gardening begins in the Spring and ends in the Fall is missing the best part of the whole year; for gardening begins in January with the dream.”
“Old habit of mind is one of the toughest things to get away from in the world.”
-Mark Twain (aka Samuel Clemens (1835-1910), in A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court, Ch. 22: The Holy Fountain
#17: "Keep your desk and workspace bare. Treat every object as an imposition upon your attention, because it is. A workspace is not a place for storing things. It is a place for accomplishing things."
“I'm learning to surrender both to the grueling work and to the isolation. When I need centering, I sing a favourite hymn, "Spirit of God descend upon my heart," which also allows me to eavesdrop on my spirit and pick up on its mumblings.”
-Joan Anderson, in A Year By The Sea, p.131
“Our time is our life, and our attention is the doorway to our hearts.”
-John Mark Comer in The Ruthless Elimination Of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the Modern World
“My mind wanders to a friend who trained monks in ritualization. “When they started Communion,” she explained, “they would pick up the chalice without giving it any thought, purely an object to be used, not treated as holy. What they needed to learn was the importance of developing a relationship with liturgical things and become involved with them. Only then would the ceremony have meaning.”
Listening to her, I couldn't help but imagine what my world might be like if I looked at the human beings I was closest to as holy and treated them with that same sense of respect.”
-Joan Anderson, in A Year By The Sea, p. 73-74
A perspective pointer toward gratitude for added benefits of getting out of bed on chilly winter mornings to go to work (besides the glorious sunrise bonus!):
“My grandmother used to say, “As the hands toil, so the spirit is raised above the troubled motions of the mind.”
-Joan Anderson, in A Year By The Sea, p. 69
“Each first of January that we arrive at is an imaginary milestone — at once a resting place for thought and meditation, and a starting place for fresh exertion in the performance of our journey. The man who does not at least propose to himself to be better this year than he was last must be either very good or very bad indeed.”
- Charles Lamb (1775-1834), as quoted by Joan Anderson, in A Year By The Sea, p.82
