Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.
Helen Keller
A nudist beach at Camp Cookie????
It seems that some folks at Camp Cookie just couldn’t wait for their bathing suits!!!
“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
Oscar Wilde
Let the veil of silence fall presently over what happened afterwards.
Silence, too, can speak out.
Lech Walesa
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
― C.S. Lewis
(tiny tomato blooms basking in the sun / Julie Cook / 2015)
She teases, tantalizes and titilates, dancing in and out. . .
Often hiding behind a thin gossamer veil.
Embracing with tender warmth, she soothes and caresses weary souls.
Yet like a fickle temptress, her sweet warmth can grow hot with rage. . .
It is without warning that she can assail the unsuspecting with her wicked wrath.
Yet more often than not, she greets each day sweetly . . .
In a sleepy silence. . .growing ever more beautiful and bright.
She beams in glowing radiance. . .
Yet as it is with those of intense beauty, she has her darker days of melancholy. . .
Those dreary days when she is barely present. . .
Waxing and waning, lethargic and dull. . .
She broods within herself, hidden away as if tending a deep wound or insult.
And yet in spite of any perceived slight, she will reappear in her full glory. . .
Refreshed, glowing and once again her sly coy self. . .
As she merrily seduces all into complacent assumptions.
It is in like turn that she will offer up her full majesty with a triumphant fervor–
Spinning her passions while coaxing and summoning. . .
Pulling and prying that which was not from out of the darkness. . .
Willing the lifeless upward from the black void of nothingness. . .
As once again she works her magic,
Waving and stretching her radiant arms outward over all in need of light. . .
“Be of good cheer. Do not think of today’s failures, but of the success that may come tomorrow. You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere; and you will find a joy in overcoming obstacles. Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost.”
― Helen Keller
(photograph: giant sunflower at the shore of Lake Michigan / Chicago, Illinois / Julie Cook / 2013)
I know what you’re thinking—“you’re wearing me out Julie, two in one day–not to mention those postings over on the ” the legion of door whores” and now the windows of “what light through yonder window breaks….”
Do you actually think I could leave you on a Friday on a sad note… albeit a note of birthday wishes and blessed redemption— but still with a sad taste in all of our mouths!!??
Heavens NO!!
It’s Friday for goodness sake!!!…. plus a Friday marking the start of a holiday weekend, not to mention the kick off to a season of college football—it doesn’t get much better—whoowhooooo!!!
So on this wonderful Friday afternoon, may I offer you a sun filled weekend spent doing whatever it is your heart desires—sans the labor…..that is if you’re fortunate enough not to have to go in to work—but even if you do have to work–here’s to blessings at work as well….
and incase you’re interested:
thelegionofdoorwhores.wordpress.com
whatlightthroughyonderwindow.wordpress.com
I know, I still hate the door title…but I love the doors…and now windows—–
I learn more about God from weeds than from roses; Resilience springing through the smallest chink of hope in the absolute of concrete…. Phillip Pulfrey
What is that yellow ball in the sky?? we all wondered this morning.
I believe that would be the sun.
HOORAY for the Sun!!
Unfortunately according to the weathermen, we best not get use to it.
Yet for this wonderfully bright morning, with a promise of mild temperatures, I shall relish the sights and feels..and I shall even take pleasure in the weeds as their resilience and desire to flourish,in the often poor conditions in which they grow, are not phased by even this wretched weather—they sprout and grow, much to our consternation, despite the ideal. No fickled needs for them–perseverance and resilience, rather than pampering and babying—qualities learned from a weed that may suit life better than the prize flower that is nurtured and spoiled into blooming.
The weeds bloom despite attention and fanfare. They have no need or want of an audience. They ask nothing from me. They wish to show me their own beauty–that of determination and tenacity. I need to take a lesson from the weeds. Perseverance and Resilience, Tenacity and Determination shall be the battle cry on this day!! God wishes to teach us mighty lessons. The mighty lesson which is most often found in the humble and demure–in the quiet, the skinny, the scrawny.
What lesson, what blessing have you over looked that was/ is hiding amongst the weeds?
Oh Happy Day of Spring!!
The sun is shinning, I can actually feel it’s warmth when I venture out and not that irrepressible cold wind!! Somewhere in my mind I’m hearing Beethoven’s Ode to Joy playing. It’s time to think about Sunday’s Easter lunch…color for the table, color in the the house, color in this relentless winter–I think this color shall do!!!
It’s Monday yes, but the sun is shining—here’s to a happy and grand day!
(image: Salzburg, Austria/ September 2012)
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