"Life is sacramental: the outward signs reveal the inward grace. The outward sign of bread and wine at this altar are what they are — real bread from the earth and wine, the fruit of the vine — and yet they are revelatory of more, of Jesus’ real presence. That sacramental principle is a template for life. The whole of life is intended to be like that: sacramental. It is what it is, and yet it is symbolic of something more, a channel of revelation." Br. Curtis Almquist SSJE
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Love iii
by George Herbert Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning, If I lacked any thing. A guest, I answered, worthy to be here: Love said, You shall be he. I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear, I cannot look on thee. Love took my hand, and smiling did reply, Who made the eyes but I? Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame Go where it doth deserve. And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame? My dear, then I will serve. You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat: So I did sit and eat. Source: George Herbert and the Seventeenth-Century Religious Poets (W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1978) "When a man is in a hurry,
the devil is happy." - Polish proverb "...not all monsters are monsters in the beginning, and not all monsters look like monsters. Some carry their monstrosity inside." -Fredrik Backman, And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer
"Thus up from the garden to the Gardener, from the sword, to the Smith. To the life-giving Life and the Beauty that makes beautiful.
'She is in God's hands.' That gains a new energy when I think of her as sword. Perhaps the earthly life I shared with her was only part of the tempering. Now perhaps He grasps the hilt, weighs the new weapon; makes lightnings with it in the air. 'A right Jerusalem blade.'" C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white-wash’d palings,
Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich green, With many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love, With every leaf a miracle—and from this bush in the dooryard, With delicate-color’d blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green, A sprig with its flower I break. Walt Whitman, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed" [in Just-]
e. e. Cummings in Just- spring when the world is mud- luscious the little lame balloonman whistles far and wee and eddieandbill come running from marbles and piracies and it's spring when the world is puddle-wonderful the queer old balloonman whistles far and wee and bettyandisbel come dancing from hop-scotch and jump-rope and it's spring and the goat-footed balloonMan whistles far and wee “To sew is to pray. Men don't understand this. They see the whole but they don't see the stitches. They don't see the speech of the creator in the work of the needle. We mend. We women turn things inside out and set things right. We salvage what we can of human garments and piece the rest into blankets. Sometimes our stitches stutter and slow. Only a woman's eyes can tell. Other times, the tension in the stitches might be too tight because of tears, but only we know what emotion went into the making. Only women can hear the prayer.”
- Louise Erdrich, Four Souls "( A Parenthesis here about quotations and credits. I was taught in college how to footnote, ow to give credit where credit is due, and in the accepted, scholarly way. But most of the writers I want to quote in this book are writers whose words I've copied down in a big brown, Mexican notebook, what is called a commonplace book. I copy down words and thoughts upon which I want to meditate, and footnoting is not my purpose; this is a devotional, not a scholarly notebook. I've been keeping it for many years, and turn to it for help in prayer, in understanding. All I'm looking for in it is meaning, meaning which will help me to live life lovingly, and I am only now beginning to see the usefulness of noting book title and page, rather than simple jotting down, 'Francis of Assissi.')"
Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art "As a subcategory of the habit of generosity, Americans are very good at rescuing each other. Under all circumstances, however drastic, there are men and women who bring skill and training, life and limb, into our crises to do every bit of good that can be done. There is considerable drama in life in North America, from a meteorological point of view, and every calamity inspires an urgent civic festival of rescue and reparation, sandbags and pizza, bandages and backhoes and bratwurst. This is as true now as it ever was."
~ Marilynne Robinson |
"Ideas
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A wee explanation: this website was created as a way to amplify the daily surprise of seeing glory in one small life. The notebook entries represented here are all selected from things actually lived and noted on paper in an effort to live the full life British educator Charlotte Mason so ably championed.
All
Book Of Centuries
Book Of Firsts
Church Year
Commonplace
Copywork
Enquire Within
Fortitude Journal
Gratitude Journal
Keeping
Music Notebook
Nature Notebook
Notebooks
Picture File
Poetry
Prayer Journal
Recipes
Zeitgeist