My Quilts: “I make them warm to keep my family from freezing;
I make them beautiful to keep my heart from breaking.”
–From the journal of a prairie woman, 1870
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I stalked her
in the grocery: her crown
of snowy braids held in place by a
great silver clip,
her erect bearing, radiating tenderness,
the way she placed yogurt and avocados
in her basket,
beaming peace like the North Star.
I wanted to ask, "What aisle did you find
your serenity in, do you know how
to be married for 50 years, or how
to live alone,
excuse me for interrupting, but you
seem to possess
some knowledge that makes the earth
burn and turn on its axis,"
but we don't request such things
from strangers nowadays.
So, I said, "I love your hair."
I Confess, by Alison Luterman
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“So, art is saying Stop. It helps us to stop by putting a frame around something and makes us see it in a way we would never have seen it under the normal circumstances of living . . .”
―Frederick Buechner, The Remarkable Ordinary
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“Fill the paper with the breathings of your heart.”—William Wordsworth
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“Although Harriet Doerr had come to writing very late in life, she discovered, as we did, that she was almost a flawless lens, with a capacity to make a world out of the fragmentary images she had caught.”—Wallace Stegner, Director of the Writing Program at Stanford
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From the love of my own comfort From the fear of having nothing From a life of wordly passions Deliver me O God From the need to be understood From the need to be accepted From the fear of being lonely Deliver me O God And I shall not want I shall not want when I taste Your goodness I shall not want when I taste Your goodness I shall not want From the fear of serving others From the fear of death or trial From the fear of humility Deliver me O God Deliver me O God —I Shall Not Want, Audrey Assad
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“My story is important not because it is mine, God knows, but because if I tell it anything like right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours . . . It is precisely through these stories in all their particularity, as I have long believed and often said, that God makes himself known to each of us more powerfully and personally. If this is true, it means that to lose track of our stories is to be profoundly impoverished not only humanly but also spiritually.”—Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets
“When there is no time for being there is no time for listening. I will never understand the silent dying of the green pie-apple tree if I do not slow down and listen to what the Spirit is telling me, telling me of the death of trees, the death of planets, of people, and what all these deaths mean in the light of love of the Creator, who brought them all into being, who brought me into being, and you.”—Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water—Reflections on Faith & Art
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“. . . I don’t need faith to know that if I take flour and butter and milk and seasonings and heat them in a double boiler, the mix will thicken and become white sauce. Faith is for that which lies on the other side of reason. Faith is what makes life bearable, with all its tragedies and ambiguities and sudden, startling joys. Surely it wasn’t reasonable for the Lord of the Universe to come and walk this earth with us and love us enough to die for us and then show us everlasting life? We will all grow old, and sooner or later we will die, like the old trees in the orchard. But we have been promised that this is not the end. We have been promised life.”—Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water—Reflections on Faith & Art
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My heart can sing when I pause to remember A heartache here is but a stepping stone Along a trail that's winding always upward, This troubled world is not my final home.
Chorus
But until then my heart will go on singing,
Until then with joy I'll carry on,
Until the day my eyes behold the city,
Until the day God calls me home.
The things of earth will dim and lose their value
If we recall they're borrowed for awhile;
And things of earth that cause the heart to tremble,
Remembered there will only bring a smile.
This weary world with all its toil and struggle
May take its toll of misery and strife;
The soul of man is like a waiting falcon;
When it's released, it's destined for the skies.
Chorus
But until then my heart will go on singing,
Until then with joy I'll carry on,
Until the day my eyes behold the city,
Until the day God calls me home.
—Until Then, Stuart Hamblen
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It doesn't have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don't try
to make them elaborate, this isn't
a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.
—Praying, Mary Oliver
Cabin Granny 