November 2015
"One
young reader asked me in a letter how she could remain a child all her life and
never grow up. And I replied that she couldn't and that it would not be a
good idea if she could. But what she could do, and what I hoped she would
do, was to remain a child all her life and grow up. So I would urge the
young questioner never to lose the child within- the eager, open, questioning
child, able to rejoice in all the excitement of God's world, to play and to
laugh." - Madeline L'Engle
Anna's "Crossing" Ceremony for her 13th Birthday:
"Every
experience God gives us, every person He puts in our lives is the perfect
preparation for the future that only He can see." - Corrie ten Boom The Hiding Place
"I believe life is a bottle rocket, a celebration,
and it requires everything we have, and it demands that we battle through fear and
resentment, and it demands that we release our need to be the best, the
prettiest, the most perfect and together…"- Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life
"The
truest thing, it seems, is the biggest: the big idea of making a life with God,
with honor, with honesty and community and beauty and the fragile delicate
recipe of those, searching for a place where they all come together, where hope
and struggle and beauty and tears swirl together into the best, brightest
moments of life." - Shauna Niequist, Cold
Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life
The
season of letting go,
summer’s
beauty gone.
Faith in
life-giving strength pledged,
where the
eye sees not.
Belief in
the one who cares
and gave
all for me.
- Dorothy
Payne
The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,
as if orchards were dying high in space.
Each leaf falls as if it were motioning
"no."
And tonight the heavy earth is falling
away from all other stars in the loneliness.
We're all falling. This hand here is falling.
And look at the other one. It's in them all.
And yet there is Someone, whose hands
infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.
-Rainer Maria Rilke
"God
gives us something amazing when he gives us life, and I want to live with
gratitude. I want to live in a way that shows how much I appreciate the gift."
–Shauna Niequist Cold Tangerines
"When we
stood in a circle to pray and close our night together, we held hands and
thanked God for the darkness, and for the way the darkness had become light,
and in that moment, we practiced Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving for the
uncomplicated happiness of babies and friendship and food, and for the very
complicated joys that come from loss, from failure, from reaching the bottom
and pushing back up to the light." –Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life
"And this is why we walk this
road: to behold the wonder and savor this aliveness. To remind ourselves who we are, where we are, what’s going
on here, and how beautiful, precious, holy and meaningful it all is. It’s why we pause along the journey for
a simple meal, with hearts full of thankfulness, rejoicing to be part of this
beautiful and good creation. This
is what is means to be alive."
-Brian McLaren We Make the Road By Walking
"To be alive is to look up at
the stars on a dark night and to feel the beyond-words awe of space in its
vastness. To be alive is to look
down from a mountaintop on a bright, clear day and to feel the wonder that can
only be expressed in “oh” or “wow” or maybe “hallelujah.” To be alive is to look out from the
beach toward the horizon at sunrise or sunset and to savor the joy of it all in
pregnant, saturated silence. To be
alive is to gaze in delight at a single bird, tree, leaf, or friend, and to feel
that they whisper of a creator or source we all share."
-Brian McLaren We Make the Road By Walking
"If I
were to wish for anything I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the
passionate sense of what can be, for the eye, which, ever young and ardent,
sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so
sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating as possibility?" –Soren Kierkegaard
"And keep punching holes in the darkness — evidently that is how the
Light of the world sneaks in among us." –Robert Benson
