Sunday 7 September 2014

listen to your life


......a quote written in my journal.  love it. 


...storms?


...pain?


...sunshine & gentle breezes???


wherever you are today
and whatever you face
may courage abound 
 as you make your way to 
"the holy and hidden heart of it."
(Buechner in Now and Then)


Photos © copyright Melody Armstrong 2013







Saturday 6 September 2014

arrested by beauty


 "I was in no hurry.  I prayed.  I sang.  I listened. I watched.  IN all that time, I never earned a cent.  I didn't write a word.  I didn't build a thing.  The world is no richer for my passing through it.  But I'm far richer for not missing it."  (Mark Buchanan in The Rest of God)

I had half an hour and my plan was to sit on a bench in the sun beside a man-made pond and read while my son was in a guitar lesson.  But I only made it to the edge of the parking lot where the lilacs gathered in their royal finery.  There I stopped, mesmerized by shades of purple I've never dreamed of (and yes - right there beside the concrete -beauty that almost made my heart stop momentarily). I gazed at the shapes and shades of petals that formed each luscious cluster and whispered my "wow"s to the Creator who spills out beauty so lavishly.  I buried my nose into the soft blanket of color and breathed in as much fragrance as my lungs could hold.    




I could hardly keep silent.  Where were the crowds?  Where were all the hungry, hurried souls who crave this kind of beauty in their lives?  Why weren't there others crowding in for the show with cameras and paints and silly, bedazzled smiles like mine?

Have you ever experienced something so beautiful that you would call a complete stranger over, risk looking like a crazy fool,  just in case they might actually see it too? 

I feel this way all the time, wishing I could share the beauty with every passerby - not only the breathtaking beauty of creation but the immeasurably more potent beauty of the Creator who breathed love and spoke these wonders into being.  

Sometimes I just want to shout it out.  What does it matter to be the fool?


words and images © copyright melody armstrong 2013 (unless otherwise cited)