Jo's Journal

2010-02-14T20:32:00.000-08:00

All love that has not friendship for its base is like a mansion built upon the sand.

~Ella Wheeler Wilcox
(on a Celestial Seasonings tea bag)

2010-02-01T20:36:00.000-08:00

What is grace? It is the inspiration from on high: it is love; it is liberty. Grace is the spirit of law. This discovery of the spirit of law belongs to St. Paul; and what he calls "grace" from a heavenly point of view, we from an earthly point, call "righteousness."

~Victor Hugo,
author of Les Misérables

2010-01-15T20:34:00.000-08:00

You have a good many little gifts and virtues, but there is no need of parading them, for conceit spoils the finest genius. There is not much danger that real talent or goodness will be overlooked long, and the great charm of all power is modesty.

~Louisa May Alcott,
author of Little Women

2010-01-01T20:31:00.000-08:00

There are many fine ideals which ware not realisable, and yet we do not refrain from teaching them.

~Peretz Smolenskin

2009-12-26T20:29:00.000-08:00

It is simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences.

~Aristotle

2009-12-26T14:34:00.000-08:00

Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.

~Elie Wiesel,
author of Night

Hope

2009-12-24T20:11:00.000-08:00

When we understand that life is a series of passages and each has helped us to become more than we were before, then the changes we must endure and the mountains we must climb become easier to face. When we begin to define what is most precious to us, when we find the courage to follow our own path and make a conscious choice to see through the eyes of hope, this when our life's purpose is revealed.

~Flavia Weedn, 2002

2009-12-24T20:08:00.000-08:00

Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.

~Samuel Butler (1612-80),
English Poet & Author

2009-08-25T20:05:00.001-07:00

Truth hath a quiet breast.

~Shakespeare, King Richard II

2009-01-19T07:27:00.000-08:00

Griefs, at the moment when they change into ideas, lose some of their power to injure our heart.
~Marcel Proust

2008-10-15T19:52:00.001-07:00

The noblest mind the best contentment has.

~Edmund Spenser,
The Faerie Queene

2008-10-13T20:07:00.001-07:00

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

~C.S. Lewis,
The Problem of Pain

2008-10-11T05:39:00.000-07:00

...A woman ought to weave peace,
not snatch away life for imagined slights.

~Beowulf, translated by Alan Sullivan and Timothy Murphy (2002)
Masters of British Literature, Volume I, Longman

2008-08-27T13:55:00.000-07:00

You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what’s a life, anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die. A spider’s life can’t help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.

~E.B. White,

Charlotte's Web

2008-08-22T18:55:00.000-07:00

Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.

~Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

Slow down and enjoy life. It's not only the scenery you miss by going too fast - you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.

~Eddie Cantor (1892-1964)

2008-07-23T20:16:00.001-07:00

Once torched by truth, [...] a little thing like faith is easy.
~Leif Enger,
Peace Like a River, 2001

2008-06-22T14:40:00.000-07:00

To be good company for ourselves we must store our minds well, fill them with happy and pure thoughts, with pleasant memories of the past and reasonable hopes for the future.
~John Lubbock

2008-04-25T05:50:00.000-07:00

Only when the heart loves can intellect do great work.

~N.D. Hillis

2008-03-31T19:28:00.000-07:00

Pain and loss are bitter providences. Who has lived long in this world of woe without weeping, sometimes until the head throbs and there are no more tears to lubricate the convulsing of our amputated love? But O, the folly of trying to lighten the ship of suffering by throwing God's governance overboard. The very thing the tilting ship needs in the storm is the ballast of God's good sovereignty, not the unburdening of deep and precious truth. What makes the crush of calamity sufferable is not that God shares our shock, but that his bitter providences are laden with the bounty of love.

~John Piper,
The Misery of Job and the Mercy of God

2008-03-31T11:48:00.000-07:00

"There are in this world blessed souls, whose sorrows all spring up into joys for others; whose earthly hopes, laid in the grave with many tears, are the seed from which spring healing flowers and balm for the desolate and the distressed. "

~Harriet Beecher Stowe,
Uncle Tom's Cabin

2008-03-04T12:27:00.001-08:00

At the end of the day the only thing that matters is-
Did you live your life lovingly?
The source of joy or pain is in that response.

~Corey Amaro,
Tongue in Cheek

2008-02-17T17:45:00.000-08:00

When our passion leads us to do something, we forget our duty; for example, we like a book and read it, when we ought to be doing something else. Now to remind ourselves of our duty, we must set ourselves a task we dislike; we then plead that we have something else to do and by this means remember our duty.

~Blaise Pascal, Pensées

2008-02-04T18:34:00.000-08:00

Worth While
It is easy enough to be pleasant,
When life flows by like a song,
But the man worth while is one who will smile,
When everything goes dead wrong.
For the test of the heart is trouble,
And it always comes with the years,
And the smile that is worth the praises of earth
Is the smile that shines through tears.
It is easy enough to be prudent,
When nothing tempts you to stray,
When without or within no voice of sin
Is luring your soul away;
But it's only a negative virtue
Until it is tried by fire,
And the life that is worth the honor of earth
Is the one that resists desire.
By the cynic, the sad, the fallen,
Who had no strength for the strife,
The world's highway is cumbered to-day;
They make up the sum of life.
But the virtue that conquers passion,
And the sorrow that hides in a smile,
It is these that are worth the homage on earth
For we find them but once in a while.

~Ella Wheeler Wilcox 1850-1919

2008-01-29T12:36:00.000-08:00

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

~Viktor Frankl (1905-1997),
former prisoner of a Nazi concentration camp

2008-01-25T18:53:00.001-08:00

To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to the stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to bear on cheerfully, do all bravely, awaiting occasions, worry never; in a word to, like the spiritual, unbidden and unconcious, grow up through the common--this is my symphony.

~William Henry Channing

2008-01-20T04:29:00.000-08:00

You have laid the table well
For those who would feast on sorrows.

You have given trials richly
To those You know must grow.

Yet must this be so?
Can only through the pain,
So very like the pains of death
The gift of wisdsom find its rest?

I am not weak, and bitterness
In me finds little consolation
That it should live or grow
Near to my chest.

Yet even so, I find the
Call to suffer and to suffer well
More cryptic than all the twists of
Gordium. Shall I rest?

I do not think that rest was made for you.
Much wisdom is your stock
And wisdom brings its sweetness and its pain.
Endure and learn.

With time, you shall, I think, find hope
To rise again.

~G.B.

2008-01-19T08:38:00.000-08:00

It is good to be tired and wearied by the vain search after the true good, that we may stretch out our arms to the Redeemer.

~Blaise Pascal, Pensées

2007-12-14T21:31:00.000-08:00

Preserve me, O God; For in thee do I take refuge.
[O my soul], thou hast said unto Jehovah,
Thou art my Lord: I have no good beyond thee.
As for the saints that are in the earth,
They are the excellent in whom is all my delight.
Their sorrows shall be multiplied that give gifts for another [god]:
Their drink-offerings of blood will I not offer,
Nor take their names upon my lips.
Jehovah is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup:
Thou maintainest my lot.
The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places;
Yea, I have a goodly heritage.
I will bless Jehovah, who hath given me counsel;
Yea, my heart instructeth me in the night seasons.

Psalms 16:1-7, ASV

2007-12-03T13:07:00.000-08:00

Absolutely Clear

Don't surrender your loneliness
So Quickly.
Let it cut more deep.

Let it ferment and season you
As few human
Or divine ingredients can.

Something missing in my heart tonight,
Has made my eyes so soft,
My voice
So tender,

My need of God
Absolutely clear.

~Daniel Ladinsky,
quoted in Jennie Schroedel's article "From Loneliness to Solitude"

2007-11-22T07:58:00.000-08:00

November 22, 1980

In the moment of recognition
we reach
for that
one
who comes new
upon the wind,
the presents around--
fresh fallen leaves,
the waters sound
and shoreward break

~Rodney Delmont Newton

2007-10-31T08:37:00.000-07:00

--But yet, continued Gabriel, his voice falling into a softer inflection, there are always in gatherings such as this sadder thoughts that will recur to our minds: thoughts of the past, of youth, of changes, of absent faces that we miss here to-night. Our path through life is strewn with many such sad memories: and were we to brood upon them always we could not find the heart to go on bravely with our work among the living. We have all of us living duties and living affections which claim, and rightly claim, our strenuous endeavors.

~James Joyce, "The Dead"

2007-09-22T21:21:00.000-07:00

Best I love September's yellow
Morns of dew strung gossamer,
Thoughtful days without a stir;
Rooky clamours, brazen leaves,
Stubble dotted o'er with sheaves-
More than Spring's bright uncontrol
Suit the Autumn of my soul.

~Alexander Smith

2007-09-08T13:06:00.001-07:00

But love is the first comforter, and where love and truth speak, the love will be understood even where the truth is not. Love indeed is the highest in all truth; and the pressure of a hand, a kiss, the caress of a child, will do more to save, sometimes, than the wisest argument, even when rightly understood. Love alone is wisdom, love alone is power. And where love seems to fail, it is where self has stepped between and dulled the potency of its rays.

~George MacDonald, The Lady's Confession
ed. Michael Phillips

2007-08-28T20:14:00.001-07:00

There is a comfort in the strength of love;
'Twill make a thing endurable, which else
Would overset the brain, or break the heart...

~William Wordsworth, "Michael: A Pastoral Poem"

2007-08-08T11:42:00.000-07:00

Don't waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour's duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

2007-07-10T07:04:00.000-07:00

Never regard study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later work belongs.

~Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

2007-06-28T19:25:00.000-07:00

Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy. For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger. And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine. And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and voices of the night.

~Kahlil Gibran,
The Prophet

2007-04-13T17:05:00.000-07:00

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

~Rainer Maria Rilke

2007-03-31T06:31:00.000-07:00

Dreaming Eyes of Wonder

A friend shared these resolutions with me, ones he loves to emulate and thought I would enjoy. They were written by Clyde Kilby, a professor a Wheaton College, quite a few years ago now.

1.) At least once every day I shall look steadily up at the sky and remember that I, a consciousness with a conscience, am on a planet traveling in space with wonderfully mysterious things above and about me.

2.) Instead of the accustomed idea of a mindless and endless evolutionary change to which we can neither add nor subtract, I shall suppose the universe guided by an Intelligence which, as Aristotle said of Greek drama, requires a beginning, a middle, and an end. I think this will save me from the cynicism expressed by Bertrand Russell before his death, when he said: “There is darkness without, and when I die there will be darkness within. There is no splendour, no vastness anywhere, only triviality for a moment, and then nothing.”

3.) I shall not fall into the falsehood that this day, or any day, is merely another ambiguous and plodding twenty-four hours, but rather a unique event, filled, if I so wish, with worthy potentialities. I shall not be fool enough to suppose that trouble and pain are wholly evil parentheses in my existence but, just as likely, ladders to be climbed toward moral and spiritual manhood.

4.) I shall not turn my life into a thin straight line which prefers abstractions to reality. I shall know what I am doing when I abstract, which of course I shall often have to do.

5.) I shall not demean my own uniqueness by envy of others. I shall stop boring into myself to discover what psychological or social categories I might belong to. Mostly I shall simply forget about myself and do my work.

6.) I shall open my eyes and ears. Once every day I shall simply stare at a tree, a flower, a cloud or a person. I shall not then be concerned at all to ask what they are, but simply be glad that they are. I shall joyfully allow them the mystery of what Lewis calls their “divine, magical, terrifying, and ecstatic” existence.

7.) I shall follow Darwin’s advice and turn frequently to imaginative things such as good literature and good music, preferably, as Lewis suggests, an old book and timeless music.

8.) I shall not allow the devilish onrush of this century to usurp all my energies but will instead, as Charles Williams suggested, “fulfill the moment as the moment.” I shall try to live well just now because the only time that exists is now.

9.) If for nothing more than the sake of a change of view, I shall assume my ancestry to be from the heavens rather than from the caves.

10.) Even if I turn out to be wrong, I shall bet my life on the assumption that this world is not idiotic, neither run by an absentee landlord, but that today, this veryday, some stroke is being added to the cosmic canvas that in due course I shall understand with joy as a stroke made by the Architect who calls Himself Alpha and Omega.

11.) I shall sometimes look back at the freshness of vision I had in childhood and try, at least for a little while, to be, in the words of Lewis Carroll, the “child of thepure unclouded brow, and dreaming eyes of wonder.”

2007-02-21T05:37:00.000-08:00

Morning Has Broken
Traditional Song, Lyrics by Eleanor Farjeon

Morning has broken, like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for the springing fresh from the world

Sweet the rain's new fall, sunlit from heaven
Like the first dewfall, on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where his feet pass

Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning
Born of the one light, Eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise every morning
God's recreation of the new day

2006-12-03T16:18:00.000-08:00

Where are Men
When they're Not at Home?

Different places.
Some are out at the barn checking on the mare that's about to foal.
I know, not many now.
A few.

Some are running down to the corner store to pick up something they forgot.
Be right back.

Some are in offices practicing pitches. Spiels.

Some are phoning from offices—saying they'll be late.

Of course, many are dead.
You suddenly think about them because you're back where you haven't been
in 20 years
and go to look them up.
But they're not there.
Just some widows.

But most are way off somewhere searching for fathers who were never home enough.

"Where are Men When they're Not at Home?" by Reid Bush, from What You Know. © Larkspur Press, discovered on Bob Nickles' blog, The Back Burner.

2006-11-29T20:11:00.000-08:00

Perhaps argument and teaching, too, cannot reach all men, but the soul of the listener, like the earth which is to nourish the seed, should first be cultivated by habit to enjoy or hate things properly; for he who lives according to passion would neither listen to an argument which dissuades him nor understand it, and if he is disposed in this manner, how can he be persuaded to change?

~Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Apostle

2006-10-27T20:51:00.000-07:00

I would not be anywhere else but in this hardest of fields with an invincible Christ... I am full of hope that when God delays in fulfilling our little thoughts, it is to leave Himself room to work out His great ones. And, more and more as times goes on, I feel that the longer He waits the more we can expect, for the deeper and wider will be the undermining, and the greater will be the band of those who will come forth free from their prison walls. When one gets hold of that vision, one can throw back in the devil's face his taunts over the seemingly wasted years that lie behind us.
~Lillias Trotter
(a gem discovered at MargaretAshwood.com)

2006-10-12T21:31:00.000-07:00

"What I like about experience is that it is such an honest thing. You may take any number of wrong turnings; but keep your eyes open and you will not be allowed to go very far before the warning signs appear. You may have deceived yourself, but experience is not trying to deceive you. The universe rings true wherever you fairly test it."

~C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy

2006-09-14T09:52:00.000-07:00

"What is grace? It is the inspiration from on high: it is love; it is liberty. Grace is the spirit of law. This discovery of the spirit of law belongs to St. Paul; and what he calls 'grace' from a heavenly point of view, we from and earthly point, call 'righteousness.'"
~Victor Hugo, (1802-1885)
French Novelist

2006-09-08T21:10:00.000-07:00

"Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point."
~C. S. Lewis

2006-03-07T20:01:00.000-08:00

“Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith” (Heb. 12:2).

A blank page. Spells potential. Inspiring. Intimidating. Kind of like the future. Frightening. I’ve felt that way about my future. Sometimes, still do. It’s good to know Someone else is writing the story of my life.

2006-02-18T17:32:00.000-08:00

"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired and success achieved."

~Helen Keller

2006-01-27T17:01:00.000-08:00

“When we come to the edge of the light we know, and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, of this we can be sure…either God will provide something solid to stand on or…we will be taught to fly.”

~Author unknown

2006-01-26T20:13:00.000-08:00

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chilliest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Emily Dickinson

2006-01-10T05:25:00.000-08:00

I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year~
"Give me a light that I might tread safely into the unknown."
And he replied,
"Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way."

~M.L. Haskins (Quoted by His Majesty the King in an empire broadcast.)

God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good. That means even in these periods of confusion and trials of faith. God is good! I don't have direction, but I have Him beside me; that is better than thinking I know where to go on my own.

Not only do I have the hand of God when the world is dark, I have His Word, a lamp for my feet and a light for my path. The five foolish virgins had lamps but no light because their oil ran out. If I have His Word, but not His Spirit, my lamp will not light my way. If I have His Spirit but neglect His Word, there is no context for the oil of His Spirit to flow. Do I have His Word and does His Spirit flow through my life? Then that Word can enlighten my path. "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path" (Psalm 119:105).

When God Says Wait
"The word spoken to me has been to be ready to go, but also to wait on God’s timing."
by Gabe Reese (90&9.com)

2005-12-15T19:53:00.000-08:00

Christmas is approaching and like so many, I'm obsessing over the gift-giving aspect. Would she like this or that, or even that? We all want to please our freinds and our motivation to find that perfect something is the hope of beholding their delight on opening the gifts Christmas morning.

Too, I've been looking closer at God's gifts. "Every good and perfect gift is from above..." I haven't always seen His gifts to me as good and perfect. I've mistrusted and despised the gifts, even tried to shove some back at Him, thinking I wouldn't have time to enjoy them. But He has been a true friend, still aiming to please, hoping to kindle delight in my eyes.

I don't deserve them, but He's given me some good and perfect gifts. May I delight!

2005-11-23T12:50:00.000-08:00

When is a Man Educated?

"When he can look out upon the universe, now lucid and lovely, now dark and terrible, with a sense of his own littleness in the great scheme of things, and yet have faith and courage. When he knows how to make friends and keep them, and above all, when he can keep friends with himself.
"When he can be happy alone and high-minded amid the drudgeries of life. When he can look into a wayside puddle and see something besides mud, and into the face of the most forlorn mortal and see something divine.
"When he know how to live, how to love, how to hope, how to pray--is glad to live...and has in his heart a bit of song."

Joseph Fort Newton (a distant relation?)

2005-11-10T20:33:00.000-08:00

"I am in the mood for a good story; of course, I am always in the mood for a good story," a sentiment voiced by Winston Churchill and echoed by many others, including one Miss Skinner at her blog, Musings of a Lady.

2005-11-02T05:28:00.000-08:00

"Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do which must be done, whether you like it or not. Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you temperence, self-control, diligence, strength of will, content, and a hundred other virtues which the idle never know."

~Charles Kingsley

2005-10-14T17:07:00.000-07:00

I don't understand the mechanics of faith or why the exercise of it is pleasing to God. Is being out on a limb ever comfortable? Yet I rest there, assured that underneath are the everlasting arms. If I fall when following His voice, He will bear me up. Abraham's faith and active obedience to God were counted for righteousness. He believed God. Would I leave my home and family because God promised to show me favor in another land? Would I believe it if He promised my descendants would outnumber the stars even though I were old and childless? God has spoken smaller promises to my heart, and for fear or doubt, I haven't always followed Him. But with His help, I will in this exercize of faith; I will trust Him and I will follow. "But He knoweth the way that I take: when He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold (Job 23:10).

The God Who Sees
Sometimes we have to jump when we can’t see what we’re jumping into.
By Steve Ares

2005-10-12T05:29:00.000-07:00

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

Emily Dickinson, American Poet (1830-1886)

2005-09-19T20:48:00.000-07:00

"I'll quite procrastinating...tomorrow." That seems to be my modus operandi. Today, when I was tempted to put something off, I plunged straight into it. This afternoon, I ran two packages to the post office on my break. I answered several emails within hours of their receipt. I'm posting to my blog after several months of silence. I waste so much energy, never mind time, in putting off till tomorrow what I can very well do today. Today is the day...Carpe diem!

2005-06-14T21:48:00.000-07:00

A particularly poignant quote from Lloyd Douglas' The Robe:

Marcellus had been doing an unusual amount of new thinking, these past few days, on the subject of property. According to Justus, Jesus had much to say about a man's responsibility as a possessor of material things. Hoarded things might easily become a menace; a mere fire-and-theft risk; a breeding ground for destructive insects; a source of worry. Men would have plenty of anxieties, but there was no sense in accumulating worries over things! That kind of worry destroyed your character. Even an unused coat, hanging in your closet; it wasn't merely a useless thing that did nobody any good; it was an active agent of destruction in your life. And your life must be saved, at all costs. What would it advantage a man-Jesus had demanded- if he were to gain the whole world- and lose his own life?

2005-06-06T21:34:00.000-07:00

"I want the company of the godly men and women in the land; they are the true nobility," (Psalm 16:3, TLB).

2005-05-13T17:31:00.000-07:00

There are chapters in my life that I would just as soon skip over, as I do when a novel I'm reading grows tedious. But in life, there is no way to page through the tedious parts. And so we live them, one daypage at a time.

3 1/2 weeks ago, early on the morning of April 24, a new chapter began for us. I was awakened by an unfamiliar crackling sound. When I wandered out of my bedroom, my sleep-swollen eyes were accosted by a wall of fire outside the sewing room window. "Oh God! The Ortiz's house is on fire!" My wail raised the slumbering Amy and Rachel. Rachel: "We have to see if everybody got out. We have to go help them!" Amy: "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!" I called Mom who was at work, and then 911. We pulled on some clothes and ran out of the house and into the cold night. In the light of fire, I could see the Ortizes huddled on the side of the street, all six of them. "Is everybody okay?" I asked. "Yes." Just minutes after our exit, flames lept the 10 feet between the two houses and our house caught fire. Shuddering, from cold and from the horror, I screamed.

"The puppies!" The dachshunds, Zeidel & Joey were shut in on the south side of the yard, in the area between the two burning houses. When one of our neighbors realized this, he tore off to rescue them. In his haste, he tore down the little lattice gate we'd had constructed to keep them confined to their run because he could not tell how it fastened. The dogs fled into the night. Through the french doors in the back of the house, our neighbor could see our cat Anna, totally fritzed. He took a flower pot and smashed a pane of glass so she could escape the inferno. He returned, brandishing a wounded arm where Anna had scratched him.

In a nightmare, I would have woken up at the point our house caught fire, but when the fire had been contained an hour later and we went home with Bro. Moss, the nightmare was still real. We sat in the Moss' living room as the sun rose and recalled the morning's events over tea.

"It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not," (Lamentations 3:22).

2005-03-10T18:48:00.000-08:00

"They say there is a young lady in New Haven who is beloved by that Great Being who made and rules the world, and that there are certain seasons in which this Great Being in some way or other invisibly comes to her and fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight, and that she hardly cares for anything except to meditate on him. That she expects after a while to be received up where he is, to be raised up out of the world and caught up into heaven, being assured that he loves her too well to let her remain at a distance from him always. There she is to dwell with him, and to be ravished with his love and delight forever."

~Jonathan Edwards, a young student at Yale in 1723 on first hearing of Sarah Pierrepont, the young woman who became his bride four years later at age 17

2005-02-24T20:48:00.000-08:00

It isn't that I intend to plagiarize others' genius. I have revelations of my own, but little time to convert them to intelligible paragraphs. Thus, I resort to cataloguing the writings of more gifted individuals. These are the words that inspire, challenge, and provide fodder for my intellectual fires...

Culture takes leisure, elegance, wide margins of time, a pocketbook; drudgery means limitations, coarseness, crowded hours, chronic worry, old clothes, black hands, headaches. Our real and our ideal are not twins. Never were! I want the books, but the clothes basket wants me. I love nature and figures are my fate. My taste is books and I farm. My taste is art and I correct exercises. My taste is science and I measure tape.

Can it be that this drudgery, not to be escaped, gives "culture"? Yes, culture of the prime elements of life, of the very fundamentals of all fine manhood and fine womanhood, the fundamentals that underlie all fullness and without which no other culture worth the winning is even possible. Power of attention, power of industry, promptitude in beginnning work, method and accuracy and dispatch in doing it, perseverance, courage before difficulties, cheer, self-control and self-denial--they are worth more than Latin and Greek and French and German and music and art and painting and wax flowers and travels in Europe added together. The latter are the decorations of a man's life, those first things are the indispensables. They make one's sitfast strength and one's active momentum--they are the solid substance of one's self.

Father and mother and the ancestors before them have done much to bequeath those mental qualities to us, but that which scrubs them into us, the clinch which makes them actually ours and keeps them ours, and adds to them as the years go by--that depends on our own plod in the rut, our drill of habit; in a word, our "drudgery." It is because we have to go and go morning after morning, through rain, through shine, through toothach, headache, heartache to the appointed spot and do the appointed work, no matter what our work may be, because of the rut, plod, grind, humdrum in the the work, that we get our foundations.

Drudgery is the gray angel of success, for drudgery is the doing of one thing long after it ceases to be amusing, and it is "this one thing I do" (Phil 3:13) that gathers me together from my chaos, that concentrates me from possibilities to powers and turns powers into achievements. The aim in life is what the backbone is in the body, if we have no aim we have no meaning. Lose us and the earth has lost nothing, no niche is empty, no force has ceased to play, for we have no aim and therefore we are still--nobody. Our bodies are known and answer in this world to such or such a name, but , as to our inner selves, with real and awful meaning our walking bodies might be labeled, "An unknown man sleeps here"!

But we can be artists also in our daily task--artists not artisans. The artist is he who strives to perfect his work, the artisan strives to get through it. If I cannot realize my ideal I can at least idealize my real. How? By trying to be perfect in it. If I am but a raindrop in a shower, I will be at least a perfect drop. If but a leaf in a whole June, I will be a perfect leaf.

This is the beginning of all Gospels, that the kingdom of heaven is at hand just where we are.

--Author Unknown; quoted in A Beautiful Possibility, by Edith F. Black, reprinted from Foundation Truth magazine

2005-02-18T19:03:00.000-08:00

My sister clipped this quote from Family Circle and had tacked it to her bulletin board. I think Ms. Hepburn's words are in danger of becoming cliches, but even so, they are true. It is interesting: when I read them through the first time, their deeper meaning escaped me. Now, as I type them, I hear them resonate inside me.

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.

For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.

For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.

For beautiful hair, let a child run his fingers through it once a day.

For poise, walk with the knowledge that you'll never walk alone.

The tender loving care of human beings will never become obsolete.

People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed and redeemed and redeemed and redeemed.

Never throw out anybody.

And remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm.

As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands: one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.

Your "good old days" are still ahead of you.

May you have many of them.

2005-02-08T19:58:00.000-08:00

Further thoughts on the the topic of inner beauty:
Beauty and the Beastly Heart

(Where have I been all my life without Boundless? This is good stuff!)

2005-02-05T19:27:00.000-08:00

Last Friday was interminable. Even though I wasn't physically chained to my desk, I felt that way, and all I could think of was escaping! Yesterday, though spent in my same cell on the third floor of the old courthouse, was far more pleasant. For one, I was learning a new procedure and had low expectations for myself. When I have learned it, then will come the pressure to perform my task quickly and efficiently; for now, learning is my only job.

One lady in our ward, that is, our department, stopped at my cell, ahem...desk and asked if she could tell me something. I said she could and to my astonishment, she told me I had a regal aura about me, like I was royalty. I nearly choked. I was flabbergasted. "Okay..." grinning like a Cheshire. "Thank you." All day, her words lingered in my ears. Sometimes chiding, sometimes inspiring. For I am of royal descent. More than a descendant of the royal Scots, I am a daughter of a King. Do I remember that when I am among commoners? Many times, no. And yet, people see that "regal aura" about me. It makes me want to walk worthy of my calling.

Do I spend as much time cultivating inner beauty as I do attending to daily grooming of my person? Sadly, no. I am a minimalist when it comes to both. "Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman that fears the Lord: she shall be praised." If I am beautiful in looks, what good is it if my spirit stinks as mine does, much of the time? I need to cultivate a quiet spirit and learn more of my Father's ways. Too, what good is a beautiful spirit if hygiene is neglected? Along with my regime for inner-beauty, I need to improve my appearance with exercise and grooming. (I'm sure my chic friend A. would agree!)

Just now, I did a Google search to see what would come up on cultivating inner beauty. When I think of biblical beauty queens, my mind immediately turns to Esther. The King James version and every other translation of the Bible I've read speaks of Esther as a beauty, so this article on BeingJewish.com suggesting she might have been a plain-looking girl surprised me. (Needless to say, I do not agree this article entirely, though I thought it posed some interesting possibilities.) "Hadassah" (Esther's Hebrew name) is from the word "hadas", or myrtle. Myrtle is a humble plant, but when crushed it gives a beautiful fragrance.

Just as the hadas must be bruised and crushed in order to smell its sweetest, so often must each of us undergo suffering in order to fully develop. Our sweet smell is inherent, but it is not always manifest until brought forth through difficult times.
And the two names of Queen Esther work hand in hand in this message: Hashem's salvation lies waiting for us in secret. Somewhere, whatever trouble we may be going through, for whatever reason we may need to be "bruised and crushed," like the hadas, there is always an ester, a hidden salvation waiting for us, that Hashem has prepared for us long before the troubles began.

A Pair of Queens: The Dual Nature of Queen Esther

I feel like Esther, a captive in a strange land. I feel bruised and crushed by a society that couldn't seem to care less about my God. But I am here, and this, whether I like it or not, is my reality. What will be the "hidden salvation" the Lord brings to His people through my life?

2005-02-03T20:19:00.000-08:00

"Be like the bird
That, pausing in her flight
Awhile on boughs too slight,
Feels them give way
Beneath her and yet sings,
Knowing that she hath wings."

Victor Hugo

2005-01-22T07:26:00.000-08:00

"Beware of the barrenness of a busy life." Socrates

I didn't want to do it, but I have, and it is best this way: to have a real job. Socrates reminds me not to let busy-ness lead to barrenness, something I tend to forget with pending deadlines and no time to meet them. Since I started my 8-5 schedule at the insurance company Tuesday, I've striven to start the day with prayer and meditation on scripture. It provides a quiet center for the day.

After 8 hours of staring at the computer screen, though, I'm hardly motivated to work at home. My livelihood no longer at stake, I can work here simply for love.

One of my favorite passages from Kahlil Gilbran's The Prophet reads:

And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,

And all work is empty save when there is love;

And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.

And what is it to work with love?

It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.

It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.

It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.

Work is love made visible.

And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.

And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.

And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.

2005-01-05T11:05:00.000-08:00

The problem is this: I don't want to grow up if it means being independent and earning a living at a conventional job. I thought becoming a woman was about being a domestic goddess; for years I have looked forward making home a sanctuary for my husband and family. When I finished high school, I started a business that would provide a supplementary income for things like new curtains or a gallon of paint to freshen up the kitchen. Never was it my intention to actually support myself by the work of my hands!

I'm angry that, number one, a woman's place in the home is no longer heralded important as it was in Victorian days. Two, that in an effort to liberate themselves from the tyranny of man, women have lost the respect and the freedom they once enjoyed as ladies. And three, that no man has crowned me Queen of his realm called Home.

So what am I going to do? If I must support myself, I'd at least like to do something I enjoy. And what do I enjoy? What are my talents? What do others perceive as my gifts? What do I need to do to invest these talents for a profit? Do I keep plugging away at self-education while expanding my business on a shoestring? Or should I put my business on hold while I finish a four-year degree in business or communications? When am I qualified to make my dreams come true?

Can't I live the life I have imagined without altering my dream?

2005-01-05T09:59:00.000-08:00

"Good habits are not made on birthdays, nor Christian character at the new year. The workshop of character is everyday life. The uneventful and commonplace hour is where the battle is lost or won."

Maltbie D. Babcock

2005-01-03T14:59:00.000-08:00

"If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense that our elders are hopeful about us; for no age is so apt as youth to think its emotions, partings, and resolves are the last of their kind."

George Eliot, Middlemarch

2004-12-24T07:47:00.000-08:00

I have been writing, just not in my blog. Today, it's a matter of procrastination that prompts me to write. I am supposed to be down in the kitchen mixing up Dios Patko, a Hungarian bread recipe given me by my Hungarian friend Angela. At four today we will go to the Hicks for tea. Merry Christmas!

2002-08-28T21:54:00.000-07:00

La vita e bella. Life is beautiful. It is an exciting prospect to dream a God-sized dream. Joseph made the mistake of sharing his with jealous brothers and awoke to menacing voices of slave-traders. His brothers shredded and bloodied his coat before showing their father. By all appearances, the dream was dead. But wait, it did not die. Though enslaved by fraternal hate, a woman's lying tongue, and another dreamer's negligence, as Joseph's character emerged, so too his dream.

God understands that our understanding is limited to the here and now; when He speaks to us, He does so in terms that we can accept in the present. The fulfillment comes about in ways that are often unexpected and even unrecognized. Prophetically, the brothers' sheaves bowed down to Joseph, but it was the brothers who bowed down to him in reality. Perhaps Joseph realized the famine would stretch to the land of his father when he interpreted Pharoah's dream, but did he know his brothers would come seeking provisions? Or what circumstances would bring them face to face at last? I doubt it. He was caught up in meeting the deadlines of planting and harvest, storage and rationing; so we get caught up with life.

We say we are 'seeking God's will', but often it is an excuse for putting off the task at hand. God's will is in the here and now. "Whatsoever your hand finds to do, do it heartily as unto the Lord." God knows what circumstances will develop our character best. He knows those faithful in little can be trusted with much. Like Joseph, the fulfillment of our dreams comes, not with loud fanfare, but in everyday ways, when our heart's to God and our hand's to man. Let us realize the dreams God has given us. May we live all the days of our life! L'chaim!!

2002-08-23T08:32:00.000-07:00

Life in town is not the novelty I thought it would be. Strange how we spend so much time dreaming about the future. Wherever I go, whatever I do, I feel so normal. My sister dreams of Italy; I want to live in Israel. If we lived in those far-off countries, those would be our realities. When we were on the farm, town seemed like the solution to our problems; on a busy street with tidy houses crammed in close around ours, the country seems a luxury we surrendered for convenience. I miss the wide expanse of green fields, the huge walnuts and sycamore in our yard, the way the wind whipped my skirt into a hoop, early-morning walks, birdsong. Here we have civilization: a field of souls to reap for the Kingdom and God has placed us here for reasons known to Him and still something of a mystery to us.

2002-08-16T20:44:00.000-07:00

I've filled a dozen journals in my short life. My sister pulls them off the shelf and reads them aloud for entertainment and sometimes I still have the grace to blush over my highschool gushings. But, since coming of age, I don't feel the urgency to make record of every handsome face I pass on the sidewalk, or mention every needlework project I begin. Once in a while I want to make note of an interesting acquaintence made or jot an inspiring quote. My current journal is a little red book I bought at Hastings. The cover has a window cut in it, framing an image of an heirloom rose. It's very pretty and considering I paid $15 for it, I really should go ahead and finish it before starting a new journal. But I won't. This is the 21st century and my composition is aided by the delete button.