the soul

The soul must forget about {understanding}, and abandon itself into the arms of love,
and His Majesty will teach it what to do next…
St Teresa of Avila

(blooming thrift / Julie Cook / 2018)

“The soul, who is lifted by a very great and yearning desire for the honor of God and the
salvation of souls, begins by exercising herself, for a certain space of time,
in the ordinary virtues, remaining in the cell of self-knowledge,
in order to know better the goodness of God towards her.

This she does because knowledge must precede love, and only when she has attained love,
can she strive to follow and to clothe herself with the truth.

But, in no way, does the creature receive such a taste of the truth,
or so brilliant a light therefrom, as by means of humble and continuous prayer,
founded on knowledge of herself and of God;
because prayer, exercising her in the above way, unites with God the soul that follows
the footprints of Christ Crucified, and thus, by desire and affection,
and union of love, makes her another Himself.”
St. Catherine of Siena,
An Excerpt From
Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena

Beauty in difficulty

Out of difficulties grow miracles.
Jean de la Bruyere

(thistle / Julie Cook / 2016)

Throughout our lives we will each encounter thorns…
Moments and experiences that are laced with those more troubling struggles which are simply unavoidable.

These encounters will obviously be uncomfortable, earth shattering and more often than not,
unbearably painful…

Such encounters will range from mildly irritating and bothersome,
to excruciatingly sharp, piercing and even most torturous.

Yet within each of these uncomfortable and painful encounters…
resides a mystery…

A mystery of rare, unexplainable and even unimaginable beauty…
Moments of pain and sorrow,
suffering and agony…
which are actually honed by the miraculous…

For from these enigmatic encounters…
those irritatingly painful experiences caused by the thorns scattered within our lives,
emerges a hidden majesty and beauty.

It is the blacksmith who must anneal his metals…
making them stronger by the raging fires of the furnace…
following each pass into the furnace, the metal’s trial by fire, comes the process of tempering the steel..
The hammering and beating of the heated and softened metal into a strong composition ready to withstand the rigors of use….

Within these difficult encounters of suffering, heartache and frustration, resides the mystery of our beauty and of our strength…

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed;
perplexed, but not driven to despair;
persecuted, but not forsaken;
struck down, but not destroyed;
2 Corinthians 4:8-9

mystery and majesty

“There is a certain majesty in simplicity which is far above all the quaintness of wit.”
Alexander Pope

“As Emmanuel, Cardinal Suhard says, “To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one’s life would not make sense if God did not exist.”
― Madeleine L’Engle

(foxgloves, Glendalough National Park, County Wicklow, Ireland / Julie Cook / 2015)

If it is small…is it any less majestic?
If it is tiny and hidden from common sight…is it any less a mystery?

Simplicity…
demure…
intricate…
and seemingly…
uncomplicated

Yet amazingly beautiful

An afterthought?
A random act?
A happenstance?

Did it surprise you?
Did it make you stop?
Did it make you smile,
think,
feel…?

Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power
and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,
for everything in heaven and earth is yours.
Yours, Lord, is the kingdom;
you are exalted as head over all.
1 Chronicles 29:11

to infer

Since reasoning, or inference, the principal subject of logic, is an operation which usually takes place by means of words, and in complicated cases can take place in no other way: those who have not a thorough insight into both the signification and purpose of words, will be under chances, amounting almost to certainty, of reasoning or inferring incorrectly.
John Stuart Mill

The idea of a God we infer from our experimental dependence on something superior to ourselves in wisdom, power and goodness, which we call God; our senses discover to us the works of God which we call nature, and which is a manifest demonstration of his invisible essence. Thus it is from the works of nature that we deduce the knowledge of a God, and not because we have, or can have any immediate knowledge of, or revelation from him.
Ethan Allen

(St Kevin’s Monastery / Glendalough, County Wicklow, Ireland / Julie Cook / 2015)

Limitation collides with the Limitless
Try as it must, it cannot describe that which is beyond description.
The human mind labors to find the words…
even just one word…
but it fails.

An Entity that is without time, without form, without definition, without words…
Efforts are made to contain, to explain and to chain…
To detect, to dissect as well as inspect
Yet to do so has proven impossible.

Is IT greater than?

Of course IT is…
Without exception…

Yet…

The ego must see, must touch, must measure….
in order to claim, to believe and to state that something is indeed real.

The masses are left to merely inject, project, and to infer…
their own words…
their own thoughts…
their own meanings…
as well as
their own feelings…

Making IT forever less than…
less than IT should ever be…

“Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth; Yours is the dominion, O LORD, and You exalt Yourself as head over all.
1 Chronicles 29:11

And the trees rejoice

Let the trees of the forest sing,
let them sing for joy before the Lord,
for he comes to judge the earth.
1 Chronicles 16:33

(all images Troup Co, Georgia / Julie Cook / 2014)

Images of trees can never ever offer the viewer of such pictures the same sense of smallness when standing in the presence of trees, be it within the enveloping forest and woods or of the grandeur of a lone tree or two dominating a yard or park reaching heavenward.

Trees are such an integral component to our lives as they offer protection, defense, housing, shelter, furniture, fuel. . . Just as they, in the midst of tempest storm, can be a device of terrible harm and destruction. Yet there just isn’t another living component on this Earth of ours which seems to offer such a towering presence of majesty, dominant beauty, power of presence, or stately purpose than that of a tree.

It is during this time of year, late summer, when I begin to watch, with keen and grand anticipation, the trees for they are the first to herald in a new season of time. Soon all of the land, in the northern hemisphere, will be ablaze with the overwhelming color of a million dazzling leaves. Red, yellow, magenta, orange, flame. . .all accented by the deep wispy greens of pines.

The silent sentinels in our lives, which like so much of this natural Earth, are most often ignored, sacrificed, or taken for granted. May we stop long enough, in the pace of our busy and hectic lives, taking time for wide eyed-wonder and observation, as well as for taking the time to offer thanks for the natural wonders and beauty which are so often over looked, forgotten or ignored. The daily gifts of beauty, strength and wonder given to us by our dear planet.