Mrs. Mayes's Way With Words

I have never read A Year in the World, Under the Tuscan Sun or any of Frances's other books, but I do buy her calendars. At least, I have the past 2 years. I love the quotes they include with the photos of her beloved Italian landscape. Her writing touches me. I connect with her statements though I have never been under the Tuscan sun. I thought I would try to capture scenes from my own world that resonate with the same truth she observes in her world. The quotes below each photo are from my 2008 calendar:

~"As you get older, time, that delicious, slowly oozing, honeyed time you squandered, now has become a nasty roadrunner stopping for nothing."

~"What do I want on those magic blank days? I want the mental equivalent of a bottomless black pond surrounded by long grasses and a willow tree. ...to reclaim my childhood right to explore -all sorts of pleasures attending my interests..."

~"When you do what you know how to do too many times, it is useful to shake off the lethargy of custom. ...You may come back to what you have always done, but it will be with new insight."

"the further inside you a place moves the more your identity is intertwined with it."

"Every day a heaping basket of red, red, red tomatoes. I look on these brimming baskets with more pleasure than my first new car..."

"I am longing for the days of dolce far niente, sweet to do nothing..."

"We love living so close to the pulse of the seasons"

"A moment. Of such a moment, myths are made."

"The summer sun hits like a religious conviction."

"Behind the pleasure and fresh beauty of a sunrise, I detect an old and primitive response : The day has come again, no dark god swallowed it during the night"

"The miracle of no technology - how amazingly it restores human importance."

"...always take the turn down that intriguing little path..."

"What I never anticipated was the absolute sweet joy of everyday life - la dolce vita."

Hope you are looking forward to the new year and all the possibilities of promises held within it!

Justice

"Justice is what love looks like - in public" ~ Dr. Cornel West
http://www.callandresponse.com/

The greatest is love ...

So, I'm trying to let God speak to my wounded heart. Wounds don't like to be spoken to. None-the-less, Holy Spirit is speaking and even getting through somehow.

Having Holy Spirit speaking and moving is humbling. I am constantly at the verge of tears it seems. A few days ago these verses were running through my head :

I Cor. 13: 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. - - 13 ...Faith, hope and love will endure, but the greatest of these is Love.

I've also been re-reading A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, & A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeline L'engle. I came across a conversation in A Wind that cut to the quick. A Cheribum is giving a lesson to a human girl-

"To be named is to be known, & to know who you are meant to be. ...to be known you must be loved. If someone knows who he is, really knows, then there is no need to hate or envy. (Satan) is an Un-namer -- causing people to not know who they are -- causing hate."

"If I hate someone whenever I think of them, am I naming them?"

"No. You are un-naming." You are a tool of Satan.

"How do I name someone/thing I do not love or find lovely?"

"Only love makes a person know who they are. You are full of love, but you do not know how to stay within it when it isn't easy. If you fail to name someone, you yourself are open to being un-named. You must find something worthy of love & begin there."

"Loving makes us wholly ourselves as well as making others whole?"

"Yes, Meg-let, whole and real and alive..."

How many have I kept from Life by not choosing to find something worthy of loving? What have I gained from witholding protection, trust, and hope from others?

Have I un-named myself by not giving others a name that declares His love for them?

At the end of the day faith, hope and love abide -- at the end of life will I be known for the greatest of these?

Journey to the Center

"Over the years I have come to realize that the greatest trap of our life is "self refection". It is the greatest enemy because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved". Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth to our existance." ~Henri Nouwen

If you have read this blog for any length of time you know that My life theme seems to be death to the self that keeps me from being fully God's. I talk often of my state of depravity, of wanting to become less so he can become more, of the cross working in me...

But there is a danger in camping there. The Love, which called me into existance, calls me to come out of self-loathing and step into The Truth.

"the reason we never enter into the deepest reality of relationship with God is hat we so seldom acknowledge our utter nothingness before Him." ~ Thomas Merton

This acknowledgement is not, however, done with a hatred for who I am, but in a humility as I realize who He is and His love towards me - not in spite of who I am but as I am.

To the extent that I allow the relentless tenderness of Jesus to invade me, will I see the Truth of who I am. He promises that He will not snuff us out; that He will be a Savior of unbearable forgiveness. God's sorrow lies in my failure to approach Him. I am accepted, loved immutably. God loves me even in (I could go as far as to say Especially in) my brokeness.

"This brokeness is what needs to be accepted. Unfortunately, this is what we tend to reject. Here the seeds of corrosive self-hatered take root. This painful vulnerability is the characteristic feature of our humanity that most needs to be embraced in order to restore our human condition to a healed state." ~ Nicholas Harnan

Yes, I need the death of my the cross to be at work in me. But, I also need to find the power of it.

Yes, I need to see my depraved state without Christ. But, I also need to see His strength as my source.

Yes, I need to know the reality of what sin does to my eternal state and be broken by it. But, I also need know the acceptance & love that gives me wings.

Minda's Proclaimation

"I am SO ready for summer!" This seems to be the sentiment of many during these last weeks of winter. I must tell you though, after waiting for YEARS for a snow filled winter, I'm in no rush to see Spring. I will love it when it comes, but snow on the pines, snow on my roof, icicles dripping down ~ I adore it. Minda on the other hand is purchasing a swimsuit and unearthing her coconut oil...

Follow Your Heart

Stepping out to follow a dream that has long been held in the dark and quiet of the soul is never an easy thing. You 2nd guess your decisions, look for a reason to stay put, and wonder if the dream is really nothing more than wishful thinking or escapism. As we step out into an 18 year old dream, and brush off the cobwebs and dust, I have begun reading a book. I didn't know anything about it. Our host son from last year gave it to Tof while we were in Korea this year. It is challenging me. Here are some quotes that have wakened the adventurer/ sojourner/ treasure-seeker in me:

"...people need not fear the unknown... We are afraid of losing what we have, whether it's our life or our possessions... Fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand."
"...understanding is really the sudden immersion of the soul into the current of life, where the histories of all people are connected and we are able to know intuitively..."

"...I'm afraid if my dream is realized, I may have no reason to go on living... I am afraid that it would all be a disappointment, so I prefer to go on dreaming."

"The boy felt jealous at the freedom of the wind." But then he realized that was how he felt when he dreamed...he was the only thing holding him back.

~~Paulo Coelho~~ "The Alchemist

The Sum of Me

at least right now...
"Sometimes I think the people to feel saddest for are the ones who once knew what profoundness was, but lost or became numb to the sensation of wonder."
~ Doug Coupland, Life After God

"We live in a time when faith is thin, because our aching for what is above and beyond us has been anaesthetized and our capacity for wonder reduced to clever tricks." ~ Alan Jones, Passion for Pilgrimage

"We cover our deep ignorance with words, but are ashamed to wonder, to dream, to utter the word 'mystery'." ~ AW Tozer, Knowledge of the Holy

When Nigglers niggle

"It is the nature of Desire not to be satisfied, and most human beings live only for the gratification of it." ~ Aristotle

I'm finding the above quote to be a niggler. I don't know if niggler is a family word or not, so let me explain. A niggler is anything that wriggles under your skin just enough to tickle/annoy you. Annoying + Wriggle = A Niggle. Got it?
Desire is something we long for. It haunts us. At the onset of it we enjoy its call, its song. We hope for it, dream about it, listen for its' music to come to us on whatever breeze is blowing by.
Aristotle's words pricked my conscience.
My mind began mulling. The Bible says that hope deferred makes the heart sick. Yet Desire makes us hope. The Bible says that God will give you the desires of your heart. I felt that niggler again as I mulled.
When nigglers make you mull, understanding eventually dawns. (I could be the next Confucius, don't you think?)
Desire isn't meant to be pursued, God is. Delight yourself in Him and he will give you the desires of your heart. Hope for the desire, but hope in God.
It's elementary, I know, but what do you expect from somebody who mulls nigglers?

On Being Good - a few thoughts

~MarkTwain
"Be Good and You will be lonesome."

"Everyone is a moon, they have a darkside."

"Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief not even afforded in prayer!"

"All good things come to them that wait - and who don't die in the meantime."

~Eleanor Roosevelt

"Do what you feel in your heart to be right- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't."

"Well behaved young ladies seldom make history!"

"What is to give light must endure the burning."

"Women are like teabags. We don't know our true strength until we are in hot water!"

"When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it." Winnie-the-Pooh (or "pooh" for short)

My sentimates exactly. I don't know what this is going to look like. I don't really have time to do it. I have, in my company of companions, some who have wheedled and needled about blogging until I am balck and blue. (I bruise easily) I hope, maybe, the "Thingish things" I think 'outloud' about on this page are found by some to whitty, winsome, and wise. To the others of you...
"We can't all, and some just don't. That's all there is to it." (More from Pooh)