“I know a man who walked to the edge of a field on a snowy day…. stood in the pillowy silence and gazed out on the snow-muffled trees … The quiet was simply staggering. The man's heart was filled to bursting with the beauty of it, so he lifted his arms to God, closed his eyes, and worshipped.” - How to Worship A King by Zach Neese, Preface
Hurrah! A perfect new word for this recent snow walk photo:
(adjective; of a plant part) :
withering without falling off
(Big thanks to Sister #3 for the sweet word share , via Grant Snider’s charming illustration.
“It was not for her to criticize the ways of Almighty God;…. if He liked to go to all that trouble over the snowflakes, millions and millions of them, their intricate patterns too small to be seen by human eyes, and melting as soon as made, that was His affair and not hers. All she could do about it was to catch in her window, and save from entire waste, as much of the squandered beauty as she could.” - The Rosemary Tree by Elizabeth Goudge (1900-1984), p. 158
“Books are bridges, my father had said to me when I was a child. They show how we’re connected.”
-Jessie “Kit” Carson (1876-1959) in Miss Morgan's Book Brigade by Janet Skeslien Charles, p. 41 (LT edition)
“The sun filtered down through the canopy… Above its delicate, spreading branches was the sky, which went on forever, it seemed, into a thin, singing blue.”
-Mma Ramotswe in To the Land of Long Lost Friends, No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency Series, by Alexander McCall Smith, p. 90 (lg type)
May your new year be blessed with eyes to see through and beyond and more than just what seems in plain view, and to what the Holy Spirit is saying.
"Sometimes a man walks into the night and does not understand why he cannot see. He blames himself for the dark he is in.”
- Henry Meloux in Manitou Canyon, p.107, by William Kent Krueger
“He didn't hear anything except flakes settling on pine and hemlock needles, a sound that was almost, but not quite, silence.”
-from Through the Evil Days by Julia Spencer-Fleming
“For the world is--allow us the homely figure--the human being turned inside out. All that moves in the mind is symbolized in Nature.” - George MacDonald (1824–1905), in 1867 essay The Imagination: Its Function and its Culture
“I draw, not to annoy people, but to amuse them, or to make them see things that are worth observing and that not everybody knows."
-Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) to brother Theo (1857-1891) in 1882
(Thanks to Ingrid Schaffner for Iincluding this quote in her lovely & instructive book The Essential Vincent van Gogh.)
“The truth about strong emotion is that it's difficult to sustain. Despite how victimized we feel, it's hard work hanging on to anger, even when it's tinged with righteousness. Holding a grudge against someone is (sometimes) more trouble than it's worth.” - Kinsey Millhone in R Is For Ricochet by Sue Grafton (1940-2017), p. 231
"…the really precious things are thought and sight, not pace. It does … a man, if he be truly a man, no harm to go slow; for his glory is not at all in going, but in being." -John Ruskin (1819–1900), in Modern Painters, Vol. III 1856
“During those long afternoon walks in nature he came to believe that one must shut the mouth and open the eyes and ears, for nature only asked of him to look, listen, and attend.
After the walks: more reading.”
-Young C.S. “Jack” Lewis, in Once Upon. A Wardrobe, by Patti Callahan, LT p. 166
“…"You don't have to
prove anything," my mother said. "Just be ready
for what God sends." I listened and put my hand
out in the sun again. It was all easy…..”
- William Stafford (1914-1993) from his last poem "Are You Mr. William Stafford?"
(Thanks to Maria Popova/the marginalian for her ponder of this bright light.)
I was a bride married to amazement. …” - Mary Oliver (1935-2019) from her poem When Death Comes
“The day is gently sinking to a close,
Fainter and yet more faint the sunlight glows…
Where Thou art present, darkness cannot be,
Midnight is glorious noon, O Lord, with Thee.”
“We followed a trail into the hills on the eastern edge of the wide valley, our view dominated by the backdrop of mountains dark with the hazy purple-blue of distant conifers.“
-Thunder Voice, Sam Keaton Series by Sigmund Brouwer, p. 95
