returning to you

“You never go away from us, yet we have difficulty in returning to You.
Come, Lord, stir us up and call us back.
Kindle and seize us.
Be our fire and our sweetness.
Let us love.
Let us run.”
St. Augustine

(fallen leaves of color /Julie Cook / 2021

“We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place
where you want to be.
And if you have taken a wrong turning then to go forward
does not get you any nearer.
If you are on the wrong road progress means doing an about-turn
and walking back to the right road and in that case the man who turns back
soonest is the most progressive man.
There is nothing progressive about being pig-headed
and refusing to admit a mistake.
And I think if you look at the present state of the world it’s pretty plain
that humanity has been making some big mistake.
We’re on the wrong road. And if that is so we must go back.
Going back is the quickest way on.”
C.S. Lewis

returning back full circle

You never go away from us, yet we have difficulty in returning to You.
Come, Lord, stir us up and call us back.
Kindle and seize us.
Be our fire and our sweetness.
Let us love.
Let us run.”
St. Augustine

(a heart beautifully appears in the damage of a leaf / Julie Cook / 2021)

Sometimes…we simply yearn to go back…going back, only to return to where
we first began…going, perhaps, full circle

“Much that is true of human relationships is also true of our relationship with God.
Human relationships of friendship or marriage need time, attention,
and care for them to continue and to grow.
The same is true of our relationship with God.
We have been called to union but we need to respond.
As we turn to God in conversion or in a deeper awakening,
besides turning away from deliberate sin—which deforms the soul,
blocks the relationship and offends the Person who has sacrificed His life
for us—we need to positively build the relationship by paying attention
to the One who loves us.
Prayer is at root simply paying attention to God.”
Ralph Martin, p. 121
An Excerpt From
Fulfillment of all Desire, p121

unseasonable

“Preserve me from unseasonable and immoderate sleep”
Samuel Johnson

(Helleborus / Lenten Rose / Julie Cook / 2017)

Unseasonable warmth gives way to
an unrelenting chain of events…

There is…

emerging,
birth,
growth…

A fullness of life…

there is preparing,
and a signaling of readiness,
and the ushering in of the new…

there is hopefulness…

Yet it is all so dangerously premature.
It is ill prepared,
unsuspecting,
and unsustainable…

It is out of step with time…

It is not strong enough to ward off that which will certainly be coming…

It is the living of a falsehood.

Living without regard for the Word,
while there is disregard for the Sovereign…
with contempt for the Promise…
Ignoring or discrediting all that has been proclaimed and foretold.

It is like the premature bloom…

Blooming,
growing,
living…
out of step and out of time…

Ignoring the rhythmic nature of what is to be,
only ushers in an inevitable destruction…
brought about by the reality of rebellion and ignorance.

What makes you think you are any different from the premature
blooms lulled into the pretense of Spring by an unrealistic and untimely change?
You who simply ignore the Truth because you find yourself basking in a
a false and unseasonable warmth…

All the while as you know, in the back of that mind of yours…
you who are fully aware that none of this of the superficial and self indulgent will last…

As you find yourself now unprepared to ward off that which is surely coming…

You will be defenseless and ill prepared.
You who have been basking and relishing in the allure of something other than the Truth.

Be not fooled by your own folly of bliss over the distortion of reality.
The Lion roars as winter is coming…
The premature thaw and warming winds will not last…
Take heed,
for you have been warned and now told…

Only those hearts humbled and now knowledgable will be ready…
for they have not given way to these foolish and heady times…

For out of the North,
and then the West,
while up from the South,
and finally the East…
the premature blooms will be trampled under the hooves
of the stampede…
those who run seeking a safe haven…
who will find none.

Yet the faithful will not dismayed…
you who have been prepared and ready…
Your time draws near…

As Hope is ushered in on the returning winds of change…
As His way has been prepared and now made ready,
as you who have been waiting,
now find yourself more than ready to pay homage to
the returning of the King.

Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath.
For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of
the world until now—and never to be equaled again.
Matthew 24:20-21

Colorful returns

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.
Nelson Mandela

(early season wild blackberries / middle of nowhere Troup County, Georgia / Julie Cook / 2015)

Bejeweled little beauties
Transforming in the May sun’s warmth
Like tiny chameleons. . .
They charm and captivate
First green then red
And later purple, maybe even blue. . .
Before finally reaching the lusciousness of black. . .
Bulging with sweetness
Beguiling and beloved
They bedazzle and bewitch
Tempt and bemuse
Announcing Summer’s triumphant return . . .

Falling comfortably back into place

“This is the place of places and and it is here.”
Gertrude Stein

“Therefore, the places in which we have experienced daydreaming reconstitute themselves in a new daydream, and it is because our memories of former dwelling-places are relived as day-dreams that these dwelling-places of the past remain in us for all time.”
― Gaston Bachelard

(the first “hummer” of the season is back home / Julie Cook / 2015)

When life has been demanding and there seems to be no time to self. . .
No time for. . .
noticing,
reflecting,
observing,
savoring. . .
No moments of a luxuriously exhaled Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. . .

It is at just that precise moment. . .that single moment between breaking apart and holding on. . .
when eyes have glazed over,
nerves are at their rawest
and stress is out the roof. .
At that very and utter almost unbearable, catastrophic, breaking moment,
it is then. . .that it happens. . .
The familiar, the comforting, the nostalgic slips gently back into place. . .

An old familiar friend returns.
You find that long forgotten item of fuzzy feelings and internal warmth.
Happy loving memories come flooding to the forefront of the heart.
It is at that single miraculously wonderful moment that suddenly. . .all is once again,
right with the world. . .and you find that you can hang on one more day. . .

(foraging cardinal / Julie Cook / 2015)

(a tufted titmouse enrobed within the new spring foliage / Julie Cook /2105)