Listening requires entering actively and imaginatively into the other person's situation and trying to understand a frame of reference different from your own.
We ourselves possess Beauty when we are true to our own being; ugliness is in going to another order; knowing ourselves, we are beautiful; in self-ignorance, we are ugly.
Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God's handwriting — a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing.
. . . Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide? And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech . . . beauty is life when life unveils her holy face. But you are life and you are the veil. Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror.
Warm, spring greetings, dear friends! The earth is waking around us and the sweet notes of birdsong return to our early morning silence. What better time to recall Nan Merrill's beautiful words in the April 2008 FOS: "To spend time in Nature's tapestry of Life is like opening an amazing gift: an instruction book of Love and Life given to us by the Creator, Source of All Being. Here we can see how we participate in the seasons of our lives, the interplay and interconnectedness of all things that sustain our lives, the beauty and wisdom of unity in diversity, and the intricate patterns of every form of life. Celebrating, honoring, and learning from this Divine Gift is in a very real sense to reverence our own lives and the life of the planet, which depend on Nature's abundant bounty. May we share and care for Nature's gifts with equity and gratitude.
The grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never dried all at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.
What we are looking for on earth and in earth and in our lives is the process that can unlock for us the mystery of meaningfulness in our daily lives. It has been the best-kept secret down through the ages because it is so simple. Truly, the last place it would ever occur to most of us to find the sacred would be in the commonplace of our everyday lives and all about us in nature and in simple things.
Spring can be the most difficult season of the year catching us between the rising tide of life and the damp caverns of memory that lie among the sleepy roots of our being. It is time to attend the soil that has lain fallow for many months -- we are, after all, animated ground. April can be an agitating month, leaving us to ride out this new, insistent life from places inside us never before reached. Kites, in the driven skies, tug at thin strings that tether them to earth, just as our souls tug at our bodies. Swallows and purple martins dive heart-stoppingly into the emptiness. Something light and lithe in us responds. . . . We are, after all, much more than rational beings.
~ from AN ALMANAC FOR THE SOUL by Marv and Nancy Hiles
The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.
The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.
I know of no sculpture, painting or music that exceeds the compelling spiritual command of the soaring shape of granite cliff and dome, of patina of light on rock and forest, and of the thunder and whispering of the falling, flowing waters.
I think joy and sweetness and affection are a spiritual path. We're here to know God, to love and serve God, and to be blown away by the beauty and miracle of nature. You just have to get rid of so much baggage to be light enough to dance, to sing, to play. You don't have time to carry grudges; you don't have time to cling to the need to be right.
~ by Anne Lamott, quoted in "The Washington Times," thanks to Liz Stewart
I know the thrill of the grasses when the rain pours over them. I know the trembling of the leaves when the winds sweep through them. I know what the white clover felt as it held a drop of dew pressed close in its beauteousness. I know the quivering of the fragrant petals at the touch of the pollen-legged bees. I know what the stream said to the dipping willows, and what the moon said to the sweet lavender. I know what the stars said when they came stealthily down and crept fondly into the tops of the trees.
Early spring blessings, dear friends! Up north our slumbering earth is gradually beginning to shake itself awake, while further south we already see signs of the mystery of growth and transformation. That which has been sleeping awakens, and the mysterious cycle of life begins again. In this age of what has been called "information overload," we are nurtured by the mysteries of life. While reams of information are available to us at any moment and our minds are constantly busy, always expanding our stores of knowledge, at the same time our souls are starving, yearning for time and space to rest in the Great Mystery. We can build bridges between our minds' knowledge and our souls' longing in the deep silence that is always available to hold us in loving embrace.
Mystery is to be embraced, not avoided. It is the place where the great secrets of the universe are told. In the center of mystery there sits, like an ancient treasure chest hidden long ago, wonder and awe. Swirling around the edges of mystery is learning, the kind that leads to wisdom. Mystery is the magic dust that transforms the mundane into a life glittering with significance. Once you have found the courage to enter the mystery, you are less likely to be overwhelmed with fear ever again.
