April Twenty- Eighteen
Nothing is so beautiful
as spring—
When weeds,
in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s
eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing
timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like
lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy
peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The
descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the
racing lambs too have fair their fling.
What is all this juice and all this joy?
-Gerard Manley Hopkins
That’s why I want to think a bit more about
one of the gifts of the church year that we often overlook: how it gives us a
way to practice our faith even when we do not feel our faith.
We are not asked,
come February or March, whether or not we’d like to repent and make room for
God. Lent simply instructs us to get to it.
No one asks us whether or not we feel up to celebrating Easter. We’re
not asked to peer deep inside to see if our souls feel like throwing a drain-the-bank
party.
No, Easter simply hands us a fifty-day feast and says, Go do joy.
–Winn Collier, Love Big. Be Well
May you
recognize in your life the presence, the power and light of your soul.
May you
realize that you are never alone, that your soul in its brightness and
belonging connects you intimately with the rhythm of the universe.
May you have
respect for your individuality and difference.
May you
realize that the shape of your soul is unique, that you have a special destiny
here, that behind the facade of your life there is something beautiful and
eternal happening.
May you
learn to see yourself with the same delight, pride and expectation with which
God sees you in every moment.
-quoted in The Road Back to You by Ian Cron
You can't go back and change the beginning,
but you can start where you are and change the ending. –C. S. Lewis
Never lose sight of
the fact that the most important yardstick of your success will be how you
treat other people - your family, friends, and coworkers, and even strangers
you meet along the way. -Barbara Bush
When
we deny our stories and disengage from tough emotions, they don’t go away;
instead, they own us, they define us. Our job is not to deny the story, but to
defy the ending—to rise strong, recognize our story, and…choose how this story
ends.
-Brené Brown, Rising Strong
True friendship takes us by the hand and reminds us we are not alone in the journey.
God doesn’t drive us to
achieve.
He simply asks us to come
receive.
All great things are an
overflow of His grace.
-Ann Voskamp
She had a lively playful disposition which
delighted in anything ridiculous.
–Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice
You don't choose your family. They are God's gift to you as you are to them.
-Desmund Tutu
It happens to all of us. God simply keeps reaching down into the dirt of humanity and resurrecting us from the graves we dig for ourselves through our violence, our lies, our selfishness, our arrogance, and our addictions. And God keeps loving us back to life over and over. ~Nadia Bolz-Weber
Father of all, we give you thanks and praise that, when we
were still far off, you met us in your Son and brought us home. Dying and
living, he declared your love, gave us grace and opened the gate of glory. May we who share Christ’s body live his risen
life; we who drink his cup bring life to others; we whom the Spirit lights give
light to the world. Keep us firm in the
hope you have set before us so we and all your children shall be free and the
whole earth live to praise your name, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
–Book of
Common Worship
I know God to
be one who is present in all that we go through. He doesn't always make things go as we would
hope-- there is death and loss and grief to face that he doesn't prevent. But
what we do have is Him. So, I'm praying for that gift of presence and the
peace that comes with that. –Heather Kwok
