Nature

A Few Highlights…..

I headed to the attic alcove and hung my hat……..
My very own lookout….in the morning I opened the windows and woke up with the Stellar’s Jays racket high up in the trees…..heavenly.
This wonderful cabin had windows that opened in…..I was like a little kid when I saw them!
Our home for two wonderful days…….
Lunch at one of my favorite places with three of my favorite people Diane and Elaine……(My Mom not pictured)
 Meeting the new family member, Abby
I got to spend some quality “Aunty” time with our girl, Lauryn
Lauryn and my brother, Ron who bought us this wonderful cabin for the weekend!
Yes, it is…….
Now we are home, bringing back summer colds but thankfully, great memories to go along with them! These memories we made are such gifts from God and I am truly thankful for every moment……

A Wonderful Birthday Week

If the sight of the blue sky fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive. Eleonora Duse

I am heading back to the desert filled with sweet memories for my soul’s bouquet.

It is fragrant and alive, and still fresh in my mind.

I carry their voices away with me along with the times we shared, held close to my heart.

So grateful am I for this time. To refresh, renew.

Unwind.

We will be further down the road tomorrow and heading back home.

How curious and bittersweet to go from home to home once again.

This is the afterglow of vacation.

I am still in it.

The cabin we rented actually had these stars all ready for us!

Hide and Seek

“God takes everyone he loves through a desert. It is his cure for our wandering hearts, restlessly searching for a new Eden… The best gift of the desert is God’s presence… The protective love of the Shepherd gives me courage to face the interior journey.” — Paul E. Miller (A Praying Life)

I almost missed these little guys as I walked by…….Sometimes it is hard to find the beauty in a day, sometimes there is turbulence in the soul that distracts us from it. But it is there all the time.
 
This morning the sunrise made the clouds blush a wonderful pink…….God was telling me, look what I did for you! At every turn, He does something stunning in nature and it never stops. An ever changing piece of His artwork.
 
Life and noise try to compete for it, but we must not let it get the best of us.
 
That’s all I got today. Getting ready for another trip to California to visit the family.
 
Camera ready!
 
Peace and Blessings for a wonderful weekend opening your eyes to what God shows you……
 

pics taken with iphone on a walk in the desert this spring

The Beauty all around us

He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. 1 Thessalonians 5:10

Imagine, that we can know the originator of all beauty, truth and everything good. Imagine standing in His eternal presence. Imagine the best of everything we have experienced in this life…….. magnified way beyond anything we can dream. Sometimes it is enough to burn a hole clear through my brain, if I think of it too much!

I think of everything I have seen, what a gift memory is, a reliving of every most beautiful moment in my life. To think that of all these things I look back on, there is so much more to come.

Things like the hushed, hallowed quiet of standing in a snowfall, how it’s almost Holy.

Those times when you feel like all is right with the world for a brief moment…..when you have felt so happy you want to break into song, and you do.

All this beauty, and we have only experienced a very small fraction of it…….of what’s to come.

Every sigh of the wind through the trees….woven together as a chorus of praise to Him.

Look around next time you are surrounded by loved ones, and everyone is laughing. Who but God could invent something like laughter?

I remember a Christmas service that was just the right amount of joy and holy.

The world is magic, and if you don’t think it is, you haven’t opened your eyes yet. Just think of the way a small child’s eyes light up when they see bubbles. In their eyes you can see the light of Heaven if you look.

There is a spark there that the world has not yet put out.

So many moments of such grand and wondrous beauty, I think in those best of times….what else can possibly be better than this. And yet God says…..

Just wait…..

picture credit: public domain pictures, Anna Cervova

Morning Journal

When morning gilds the skies my heart awaking cries:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
Alike at work and prayer, to Jesus I repair:
May Jesus Christ be praised!
When you begin the day, O never fail to say,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
And at your work rejoice, to sing with heart and voice,
May Jesus Christ be praised!
German hymn, author unknown
The birds were busy this morning,  as they crisscrossed staccato clouds. Roused from their nightime secrets places of slumber, they now have places to go, things to do.
Bunny is busy too, zig-zagging further down the street. It was a gilded sunrise, everything washed in peach……I had a great night’s sleep and I feel rested, first time in four days.
The moon still hangs lazily above the cloud bank to my right. I guess she is not ready to wake up on the other side of the world just yet.
What a luxury it is to sit here and watch the world wake up.
In my memory, I see myself, my Dad, a group of us standing in a circle holding hands on a green lawn, still damp with dew. We are singing the song, “Morning Has Broken.” Celebration in the air……
It is Easter sunrise.
Today I had another.
 

Just today…..

“In the days before his death,his Aunt Louisa asked him if he had made his peace with God.
His answer was “I did not know we had ever quarrelled, Aunt.” Attributed to Henry David Thoreau
The LORD your God in your midst,
The Mighty One, will save;
He will rejoice over you with gladness,
He will quiet you with His love,
He will rejoice over you with singing.”
Thank you God for placing me here in this world you have created. I could have been born anywhere or not at all, and I thank you that I was. Each day holds a glimpse of Your Heaven. Help me not fail to notice the small moments of wonder happening all around me. Too many days have passed when I haven’t.
Consider just one bird….the cactus wren, so busy, so industrious is this couple that they build not one nest, but two….one as a backup, or maybe a decoy to fool predators?
And when I consider the full moon hanging there just so, its own presence daring us not to believe. I wonder how anyone can deny that kind of majesty and say that it was not created…..
that….. it….. just….. happened
We are all born with a spark of Grace…..made for eternity.
No matter how bad I think things are, there is always so much to thank you for. Sometimes it helps to do just that.
So today, I pause.

Buggy thoughts……

I saw it as I wiped the cleaning rag over my bathroom counter. It was so small I almost thought it was a microscopic particle of dirt or something else, until it moved. Something made me look closer. It was so very, very small. How very large my counter top must look, as big as a whole world! I wondered how it even knew where it was going, for it certainly seemed to have a destination. There was something about the way it was just there. Any other day I may have just scrunched it up in a towel, because, after all…..it was so very small.

It moved me, watching that little bug. I could have smashed it without a second thought….sent it to a watery grave, and yet it didn’t know that. That’s what got to me, I guess. How many people are walking around just like that little bug, clueless that the God who created them has the power to stop their breath in an instant. And His great mercy keeps them going, because He loves them so much.

Loves all of us so much.

It humbled me, thinking of that little bug. So unaware of my bigness and its smallness….So unaware of what I could do. What I might have done another day. I think it was that thought alone that made me take it outside to a safe place. It was just too small to survive indoors. This morning, something in me needed to save it. At first it balked at my efforts to help it, it didn’t know what I wanted to do. I coaxed it onto a tissue and carried it outside and set it tenderly at the base of a shady plant.

Safe for one more day.

My best self

I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes. ~e.e. cummings

How often I have stood in the meadow and gazed at this beloved view. It is part of me, I consider myself part owner anyway, having been blessed enough to have grown up near Yosemite. We went there every year. How grateful I continue to be for my parents, who instilled in me a deep love and appreciation of nature. Those memories have carried me through many tough times. I can’t help but smile when I think of all those trips……so thrilled at the first view of those magnificent cliffs. Sometimes, unable to contain our excitement, we would pull over and run outside just to get a whiff of the sweet pine-air.
 
I have always found my best self close to nature. I really become the person I most want to be. I become at ease and the self confidence that alludes me nearly all of the time, comes to life in it. Much of the time I am ill at ease in the world, never sure of my place in it. But there, standing in a meadow, or on the shore listening to the crash of the waves, my best me comes out. I like myself there. Nature beckons me, invites me to be a part of it…..asking nothing in return except to come and enjoy.
 
Feel the peace of it, relax in it, and thank God for His marvelous creation.
 
Nature itself glorifies God as nothing else can. People many times fail to do that, but nature never does.
 
“God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars.” ~Author unknown, commonly attributed to Martin Luther
 
Stroll over to Moonboat Cafe and see the post that inspired my own post today……..thank you Cassandra!

The Desert Speaks

For the LORD’s portion is His people;
Jacob is the place of His inheritance.
“He found him in a desert land
And in the wasteland, a howling wilderness;
He encircled him, He instructed him,
He kept him as the apple of His eye.
Deuteronomy 32:9,10

Monday was a tough day……It was a day where months, actually years of stress caught up and culminated in words that have been bottled up far too long. It had to be said……and she had to get out. So we went…..fast. Destination: Anywhere but there. Caregivers of the very demanding understand this need to escape.

Who knows whether the words stuck. They were probably forgotten within 10 minutes.That is the thing with Alzheimers, you never know what sticks and what doesn’t. She is not at the stage where she would be in danger alone……yet, although that will come. So we went.

No one tells you. The rules change daily. What is okay one day is met with anger and denial the next. A day trip was necessary, crucial…..sanity was precariously balanced on the edge of a very fine line.

Grabbing my camera I said, “Let’s go to Globe, they have old buildings and it’s not too far away.”

And God gave one of His unexpected little surprises, well actually two. A call came on her cell while we were driving around……cousin Sandra, two states away. A welcome voice from someone who understands the situation and everyone involved. Healing balm for a hurting heart.

Driving along I saw some pretty plants and a sign that said, “Botanical Gardens.” We stopped and found a neat surprise there, a place called  Besh Ba Gowah “Place of Metal” Archaeological Park. The name is referring to the mining that took place there. It was an old Salado pueblo ruins that had been excavated and partially reconstructed.

We paid our 4 dollars and were invited to watch the 15 minute video, which we skipped. My camera was itching in my hands….God gave a gift……Sometimes He speaks in desert blooms. It was like He was saying……….”This is for you………”

and so is this……..

This one reminded me of a fire-cracker…..

As we walked through, we heard the Spirit speak in birdsong…..saw the glory of Him in the blooms that even thorns do not prevent…..
heard His whisper on the breeze,
Telling us all the while that He loved us and longed to give us rest……
In His Presence……
it was very good.
Thank you, my friend. I am so glad you insisted we get away.
You knew how much I wanted a camera day.  
It was one of those God things that it turned out like it did.

Butterflies and Caterpillars

 So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! 2 Corinthians 5:16,17
I was reading something  in a book titled, Classic Christianity by Bob George that struck a chord with me the other day. He was talking about how we walk around defeated because we have failed to recognize who we actually are in Christ. I think there is some truth to this. Sometimes in our efforts not to appear better than anyone else, we walk around like caterpillars instead of the butterflies we are. Who ever heard of a butterfly walking around in the dirt when they could easily fly, in fact, were made to fly?
It’s a delicate balance. We want to be accessible, approachable, and still we have to be “in the world but not of it.….”Jesus was the master at this.  He was equally as comfortable in His skin in the Temple or at the home of “tax collectors and sinners.” Neither atmosphere changed who He was, and yet He made Himself approachable to Chief Priest and Prostitute alike.
While the Apostle Paul was fully aware that he wasn’t exempt from falling into sin, and that many times he was unsuccessful in his efforts to do the right thing, he also never forgot who he was in Christ. He didn’t live a defeated life! He didn’t let his failures keep him from what He knew was sure victory at the end of the race! He kept his eyes on the prize.
We hold within us the power of Almighty God in the form of His Spirit……..the same Spirit that moved across the waters before creation…..also the one who raised Jesus from the grave and broke the power of sin and death forever….That Spirit!
We should never forget what Jesus has saved us from, but we should also remember that when we rose up out of that water from Baptism, we became a new creation!
So enjoy your flight today……and as they say on every flight, feel free to move about the cabin…..