Saturday Mornings

I rest my chin on the farm gate, and exhale in one long breath while two baby calves with saucer-like eyes stare back at my daughter and me....

If there are weeds in your life, you just need to pull them. We can't just ignore them or yank their tops off at the surface. We can...

The greatest things ever done on Earth have been done little by little. -- William Jennings Bryan It might be easy to imagine this kind...

Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz

Peace is the centre of the atom, the core Of quiet within the storm. It is not A cessation, a nothingness; more The lightning in reverse...

Personally, I have found the holding of these contrasts (see yesterday's post and the link below) about marriage a challenge, a defeat,...

I don't know of anyone who hasn't struggled in their marriage, at one point or another, with what it 'should' be like...to t...

My friend, Jim, sent this to me and I noted the author, since these days I am slowly reading her book . This is one of the more welcome Sat...

Hurry always empties a soul. -- Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts ...making me unavailable .

Don’t underestimate the goodness of God. It would be a shame to do so and to your detriment.

Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do . -- John Wooden

Raising kids is like buying savings bonds...like making long-term deposits in the bank; the return is for value more fully realized in about...

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. -- Theodore Roosevelt

When I was a boy of 14 my father was so ignorant that I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astoni...

Pride is heavy. It weighs. It is a fatness of spirit, an overindulgence in self. This gluttony is earthbound Cannot be lifted up. Hel...

My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, 'You're tearing up the grass.' '...

There have been times, many actually, when beauty sears me so deeply I can hardly lift it to another person. There have been times when see...

Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old. -- Franz Kafka

All children are born artists. -- Picasso

Beauty cannot be possessed. It reaches out to us, into us, from within us, but it can be controlled and possessed.

Flowers...are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

For those who want more ...and more .

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul. -- John...

Is there anything more powerful, more compelling than beauty? The invigoration of a sunrise, the peace of a sunset, the delight of a happy...

Religion bears the burden of its own inconsistency.

To be human now (in our fallen-mess) is to be angry. We are so far from what we should be. Teach us, God, to bring our anger to you, as...

Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions. -- Albert Einstein

Those damp woods...so deafeningly silent, so passively active, so windily aimed at its destinations.   Its colors and moistened fragrances,...

"Ultimately, road movies offer us a brief glimpse of potential alternatives to the soul-sickening 'everydayness' of our lives. ...

Late-1850, Abraham Lincoln's step-brother, John D. Johnston, wrote to him and asked, yet again, for a loan with which to settle some deb...

All Satan can do (and he is pretty effective , in the short-run) is try to sabotage the goodness and harmonies God has created...which lead...

Every increased possession loads us with new weariness. -- John Ruskin

Nothing is...mine.

The busier I get, the less available I am to myself and to God within me. The less available I am to these things, the more critical I beco...

' Saturday Mornings ' is like a camera; it takes pictures of ideas.

It often escapes us (me included) that the greatest thing we need at times of fear and worry is our awareness that He is with us...and not ...

What is valued in one’s country is what will be cultivated. -- Plato What do we cultivate ?  ...especially in light of yesterday's ...

My kids rarely actually speak to someone in person. They use text messaging, Facebook, instant messaging, e-mail, and Twitter. -- Fred N....

Have you ever noticed yourself slightly less enchanted with something than someone else is. Or how easy it is for such a thing to grow into...

A (very) short poem: You first.

There can be no maturity in the spiritual life, no obedience in following Jesus, no wholenes s in the Christian life apart from an immersion...

The highest reward for man's toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes by it. -- John Ruskin Reminds me of this one .

Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you. -- Mother Teresa So lose yourse...

You can't help but wonder about some big stuff after looking at things like this.  Who thinks of stuff like this...

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. -- Gandhi

When a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package. -- John Ruskin Draw us, Father, to the bigger, in you. We are ma...

We are drawn to what makes us feel alive. Good things...and bad things...can make us feel  alive. Lord, cause me to be drawn to what tru...

For most of us, . . . entry into the Psalms requires a real change of pace. It asks us to depart from the closely managed world of public su...

Of all the pulpits from which human voice is ever sent forth, there is none from which it reaches so far as from the grave. -- John Ruskin...

Today is the first day of my 50th year of life and so I am returning to the topic on the last day of my 49th -- Why Am I ? Why am I... ....

... crashing  can lead to an important question: Why Am I?

...and, therefore, we must crash into ourselves at one point or another.

I don't give people drugs because they need to find The Terrible within. -- a doctor

We are forces of ourselves. The good, the bad; and we can't get away from ourselves. ...whether we want to, or others want us to...

We all see the soul of God coming over different 'hills'.  But, my oh my, does it ever shout! ...here is more purple .

Where others see but the dawn coming over the hill, I see the soul of God shouting for joy. -- William Blake

I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; ...

The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it. -- Michelangelo

Someone may ask you a 'why would you...' type of question. Maybe they have already...or will some day. What kind of person, or th...

All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached ...

The following came to me one recent morning when I was running on an indoor track at a time too early to mention. The trailing slumber, and...

When is poverty not related to the mis-use of power?

What if I bring an empty cup An empty cup to You? What if I can pour nothing out That's good or loving true? What if all I really ha...

Like oil and water, we lean toward independence. Our learning forces us to wait for a blended fragrance to waft us back togethered, tru...

>Never a word, their silence sown, Flickers delicate upon my own. Light the touch -- no accident -- One silence with another blent, T...

Tough is hard, while strength doesn't have to be. Tough is outside; strong is from within .

Its lovliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams,...

There are deeper things you do not know; Mysteries that will remain so. Until your heart, its courage found, Looks to where your Fears ab...

You are young. So you know everything. You leap into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me. Without fanfare, without embarrassmen...

A man and a woman sit near each other, and they do not long at this moment to be older, or younger, or born in any other nation, or any ot...

Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become...habits. Watch y...

The question from a prior post was, "What do you think characterizes the 'poor in spirit'?" It strikes me that the NLT ...

You do not need to have a life full of passion. What is that life, anyway? -- Penelope Trunk My oh my, do I love this one !  Finally som...

We are merely moving shadows, and all our busy rushing ends in nothing. -- Psalm 39:6 Puts things a bit more in perspective , doesn'...

On this day of internal revenue        some of us are paid up,        some of us owe,        some of us await a refund,        some of u...

The new Leonard Cohen CD has a profoundness to it that is difficult to fully grasp or describe until we are face to face with our common end...

A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers . -- Ruth Bell Graham

At one point or another or until we learn not to, we want to dance with the Devil as much as we think we can get away with.  At these times,...

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. -- Matt 5:3 Makes you wonder about what it is that the ' poor ...

Another entry from Bob Goff ...from Donald Miller's blog: "I was in college and thought I wanted to be a forest ranger and later...

One of the blessings of poverty (being poor, not being ' rich ', etc.) is the built-in 'No' in life. Too bad we don't ...

Most good things don't come quickly. You've got to walk a ways before you can learn to really appreciate and enjoy the goodness i...

Click pic for more 'Awwww!'

Christ is risen! We give thanks for the gift of Easter        that runs beyond our explanations,               beyond our categories of r...

Paula said if you did this all the way, it may prove to be the very antidote you've been seeking. Conversion means being liberated by ...

It is another slanted morning.  And, when I saw it, my heart rose a bit in anticipation.  I have come to love sunlight from the side, as it ...

If you’ve lost the capacity to be outraged by what’s outrageous, you’re dead. Somebody ought to come and haul you off. -- Wendell Berry ...

The great secret of monastic life, which on the surface looks like total withdrawal from human society, is that years of solitude, silence ,...

 

If it were up to us to judge who deserved forgiveness and who did not, few of us would forgive at all. Instead, we'd cherish our self-ri...

O gather up the brokenness And bring it to me now The fragrance of those promises You never dared to vow The splinters that you carry ...

One of three places in the world with Dismalites ! It occurs to me now that going to the woods Without knowing ...

There is something deceptively awful about being anonymous.   It looks awesome from a distance.  It feels great, in terms of what it makes...

Earl could play 11 notes  in one second! Like the music or not (I kinda do!), you have to admire the perfection of such skill and the sto...

It is through giving that we receive, and it is through dying that we are born to eternal life. -- St. Francis of Assisi  Giving and dyin...

You'd be surprised how far the smallest steps can take you. I am.  ...in both directions, good and bad.

Solitude brings us face to face with a person who fills us with dismay: our naked and unadorned self. Instead of the self-sufficient, goal...

The Rule of St. Benedict enshrines hospitality as a primary Christian duty because the world is full of stranded people who ache for the sma...

When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may ...