Early Summer Blue Sunrise

 

~ End of the school year sunrise photo by Linda – thanks Linda!

 

 

Ruth Krauss Quote #1

“Yesterday shows that another day is here.”

~ Ruth Krauss

Open House for Butterflies

In Time I Will Fear Not the Day

“You find me where I can’t be seen…

(my Granny)

 

before you I’m fallin’,

if it weren’t for your wings I’d be gone…

to grow my own wings I have tried….

 

 

in time I will not fear the day…take me to where I can go.” ~ Kate Rusby, Falling

Patty Griffin: When it Don’t Come Easy

Patty Griffin:

” I don’t know nothin’ except change will come…..time keeps moving….

I don’t know if I’ll ever get home….sometimes you don’t know if you’re walking in the wrong direction.

If you break down, I’ll drive out and find you, if you forget my love, I’m going to try and remind you….

when it Don’t Come Easy.“

Advent: Open

On that day they will sing this song in the land of Judah:

“A strong city have we;
he sets up walls and ramparts to protect us.
Open up the gates
to let in a nation that is just,
one that keeps faith.
A nation of firm purpose you keep in peace;
in peace, for its trust in you.”

Isaiah 26:1

 

“…speak my name to

the open skies

share your secret with me

so I can see…” ~ Casey Breves, Speak My Name

Advent: Journey

“The Sun will rise and set regardless.

What we choose to do with the light while it’s here is up to us.

Journey wisely.”
― Alexandra Elle

5:5 Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the height; look toward the east, and see your children gathered from west and east at the word of the Holy One, rejoicing that God has remembered them.

5:6 For they went out from you on foot, led away by their enemies; but God will bring them back to you, carried in glory, as on a royal throne.

Baruch 5:5-6

 

Advent: Wait

If this photo by my friend Linda had sound you wouldn’t hear much other than the trains going by on Kentucky rails. You could wait all day, and listen to the birds if your hearing works that well for you, but trains on the far shore and birds by your side are probably all you would hear.

 

I believe in silence.

Growing up in Wellesley, Massachusetts, my playground was the small stone church where my father was minister. I remember riding my big wheel tricycle silently down the blue-carpeted center aisle and that the perfect refuge for hide-and-go-seek was under the altar cloth. Because no one thought I would actually hide there. But it’s the cool silence of that stone church that I remember the most. It was heady and gave me life. It was there that I could escape the scrutiny and expectations of being a child of color and the son of a preacher….

In the silence of my father’s church, beneath the sun-illumed stained glass, I could hear my own voice—it told me I was smart and helped me dream a life worth living. Outside the church, the deafening discord of society told me I was a subordinated person, and someone to be feared…

Our cacophonous world not only drowned out my inner voice, it told other people how they should feel about me and those who look like me. I’m sorry they saw me as a monster…

When I was twenty-five, I found the strength to rediscover my inner voice. It happened at the bedside of my dying father.He encouraged me to see my weaknesses and illuminate my strengths. For the first time since I was a child, I was able to hear the voice of my spirit. It told me what I value and how I ought to live my own life.

He helped me to recognize the noise of the world so I could learn to stop listening to it…

I believe in a silence that allows me to stop paying attention to the world around me and start listening to my own heart.

Most days I find it as I walk with my daughters in the woods behind our home. It’s the church of my adult life.

I tell them I believe there is a voice inside all of us that needs to be heard.

~ I’ve only given you parts of this essay named A Grace of Silence by Andrew Flewelling and can be heard in the authors voice or read in full at this link on the website This I Believe.

Advent: Prepare

Trying to prepare these little nativity peg people was my favorite part of Advent last year.

Luke 3: 6

as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah:
A voice of one crying out in the desert:
“Prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight his paths.
Every valley shall be filled
and every mountain and hill shall be made low.
The winding roads shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth,
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

 

Amen.

The above highlighted word prepare has a link to music by George Skaroulis.

Advent: Hope

Photo about

HOPE

taken and shared by my friend Linda.

 

First Sunday of Advent

Reading 1 Jer 33:14-16

The days are coming, says the LORD,
when I will fulfill the promise
I made to the house of Israel and Judah.
In those days, in that time,
I will raise up for David a just shoot ;
he shall do what is right and just in the land.
In those days Judah shall be safe
and Jerusalem shall dwell secure;
this is what they shall call her:
“The LORD our justice.”

Amen.

( the video that is connected to the word hope above contains photography from Jim Crotty and music from Alison Krauss and Yo-Yo Ma)

Advent: A Call to Renew Lost Sabbaths

“Emily’s Reel” by Yo-Yo Ma and friends are my companions this morning.

Many of us suffer from a wide range of blues at the holiday season – anything from grumpiness to a bit blue to downright depressed. One of the kind of nice things about being older is being able to predict these things. Pretty much as soon as the turkey is in the frig and hopefully starting to thaw, I know. It’s not the flu. These waves of strange emotion have a pattern and a reason. Same patterns, many reasons.

This year I am anticipating an easier season though.

Easier not in the sense that I can predict how sad I’ll be. The news is horribly grim near and far. But, I’ve let myself trust some friends of late in a Deaf bible study and it is having a grounding effect on me. I’m more willing to try my wings and more aware that being open to a shift in my relationship in God is the most wise path among various choices on my horizon.

Easier because I’m determined to not lose my sabbaths.

My “can do” attitude has been renewed of late.

~ photo by Elgardo Ramerez

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All this was to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah:
“Until the land has retrieved its lost sabbaths,
during all the time it lies waste it shall have rest
while seventy years are fulfilled.”

2 Chronicles: Chapter 36

Here’s hoping….