life: acoustic & amplified

poetry, quotes & thoughts about life

Archive for the category “Tenderness”

You know me

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You are a creation of God unequaled anywhere in the universe…. Thank Him for yourself and then for all the rest of His glorious handiwork.
–Norman Vincent Peale

But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.
– Matthew 10:30

“Every human has four endowments — self-awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. These give us the ultimate human freedom… The power to choose, to respond, to change.”

— Stephen R. Covey

O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee. For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee. Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God: depart from me therefore, ye bloody men. For they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain. Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee? I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies. Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (‭Psalms‬ ‭139‬:‭1-24‬ KJV)

how does your garden grow?

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Pull up some radishes for dinner,
my mother said.
They grow next to the house under your bedroom window.

Afraid I’d pull up something other than a radish
I gathered a sister, a brother
and we knelt in the dirt
under the screened window

looking

at what we thought
to be a radish.

Its leaves so new so green
our hands so hesitant so unsure

we reached and pulled

earth clung
to our fingers
to the fleshy roots
quivering in the sun

we pulled up radish after radish
handing them
a bouquet
to our mother.

She no longer cares for radishes.
My sister, brother and I tend our own gardens.
But I wish everyday
to kneel again
under that window

to feel new and green
hesitant and unsure.

“Radishes” by Susan B. Auld

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art by watercolor artist, Mary Lou Peters
http://www.maryloupeters.com

THE POSSIBLE CAUSE OF INVISIBILITY

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A somebody walks into a somewhere and meets a someone.

‘Why haven’t I seen you before’ said the somebody, on recognizing a brilliant indefinable light set deep in the bones of the someone.

The someone then sets forth with the usual catalog of tall tales. Each a credible explanation that would more than likely stand up to the strongest of winds.

But, as ever, the true cause of this seeming invisibility was the absence of an answer to a single profound question.

AM – I – WILLING – TO – BE – SEEN – NO – MATTER – WHAT?

Nic Askew
soulbiographies.com

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sometimes memories sound like a melody

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instruments of grace

Where we feel weak, our weaknesses are a cup for God’s power.
Where we feel stretched thin, our stretching is a canvas for God’s glory.
Where we feel out of our depths, right there is where we touch the depths of the love of God.
– Ann Voskamp

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The Path of Waiting

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Passion is a kind of waiting – waiting for what other people are going to do. Jesus went to Jerusalem to announce the good news to the people of that city. And Jesus knew that he was going to put a choice before them: Will you be my disciple, or will you be my executioner? There is no middle ground here. Jesus went to Jerusalem to put people in a situation where they had to say “Yes” or “No”. That is the great drama of Jesus’ passion: he had to wait for their response. What would they do? Betray him or follow him?

In a way, his agony is not simply the agony of approaching death. It is also the agony of being out of control and of having to wait. It is the agony of a God who depends on us to decide how to live out the divine presence among us. It is the agony of the God who, in a very mysterious way, allows us to decide how God will be God. Here we glimpse the mystery of God’s incarnation. God became human not only to act among us but also to be the recipient of our responses.

. . . And that is the mystery of Jesus’ love. Jesus in his passion is the one who waits for our response. Precisely in that waiting the intensity of his love and God’s is revealed to us.

Henri Nouwen
http://www.henrinouwen.org

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expect it…

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You would gladly travel great distances in rain,
arriving at dark in foreign places.
You would eagerly await the news, every call
a promise, in invitation.
You would hold your loved ones, feeling them
in your hands even from far away.
You would have a story to tell of gratitude and grace.
You would already be thinking of a new name for yourself

if you knew God’s love were being poured into your life
like a newborn on the way, a grandchild
you have not yet seen.
__________________________
Weather Report

Birth,
arriving at all hours,
requiring you to do the same;
with periods of intermittent labor and hope,
precipitating in showers of joy and wonder.
There will be shifting patterns,
and a one hundred percent chance
that Things Will Be Different.
______________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
http://www.unfoldinglight.net

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Joy is God’s life – Ann Voskamp

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Our endless desires are fulfilled in endless God. I long to know Beauty, breathe it into lungs, feel it heavy on skin. – Ann Voskamp

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We want something else which can hardly be put into words – to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become a part of it. – C. S. Lewis

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Desperado

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Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses?
You been out ridin’ fences for so long now
Oh, you’re a hard one
I know that you got your reasons
These things that are pleasin’ you
Can hurt you somehow

Don’t you draw the queen of diamonds, boy
She’ll beat you if she’s able
You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet

Now it seems to me, some fine things
Have been laid upon your table
But you only want the ones that you can’t get

Desperado, oh, you ain’t gettin’ no younger
Your pain and your hunger, they’re drivin’ you home
And freedom, oh freedom well, that’s just some people talkin’
Your prison is walking through this world all alone

Don’t your feet get cold in the winter time?
The sky won’t snow and the sun won’t shine
It’s hard to tell the night time from the day
You’re losin’ all your highs and lows
Ain’t it funny how the feeling goes away?

Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses?
Come down from your fences, open the gate
It may be rainin’, but there’s a rainbow above you
You better let somebody love you, before it’s too late

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God’s purpose in our woundedness is to bring to being the highest form of beauty.

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The beauty that emerges from woundedness is a beauty infused with feeling; a beauty different from the beauty of landscape and the cold beauty of perfect form. This beauty that has suffered its way through the ache of desolation until the words or music emerged to equal the hunger or desperation at its heart.
Not all woundedness succeeds in finding its way through to beauty of form. Most woundedness remains hidden, lost inside forgotten and pain filled silence.
Where woundedness can be refined into beauty a wonderful transfiguration takes place.
Compassion is one of the most beautiful presences a person can being to the world and most compassion is born from one’s own woundedness.
When you have felt deep emotional pain and hurt, you are able to imagine what the pain of others is like; their suffering touches you.
The greatest evil and destruction arises when people are unable to feel compassion.
The beauty of compassion continues to shelter and save our world.
– John O’Donohue

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