hiking

screw your courage to the sticking-place

"How may a man be born again and a blasted land made to bloom anew? Why, screw your courage to the sticking-place: dare to ask terrifying questions, and you may be answered." - Russell Kirk, from Eliot & His Age: T.S. Eliot's Moral Imagination in the Twentieth Century

camping in the Shenadoah National Park

 bacon & coffee.

 Camp tea is the best tea of all tea. (I know...my hat is goofy.)

 

Photos by the amazing Heather Boerum.

Russian equivalent to "the grass is always greener on the other side"

"Хорошо там где нас нет."

English translation: "It is better where we are not."

send your angels down

[Gillian Welch, "Caleb Meyer"]

辛苦中有幸福

辛苦中有幸福 

happiness in the midst of difficulty

Hat Tip: Rachel

i'm a very lucky girl

["On a Roll" by Over the Rhine]

This oyster is my world 

My oyster’s got a pearl 

This ain’t no dress rehearsal 

I’m a very lucky girl 

I’m on a roll

patient acceptance of whatever happens

"If you wish to remember God unceasingly, do not reject as undeserved what happens to you, but patiently accept it as your due. For patient acceptance of whatever happens kindles the remembrance of God, whereas refusal to accept weakens the spiritual purpose of the heart and so makes it forgetful."

[Saint Mark the Ascetic, “No Righteousness by Works” # 134, The Philokalia, Vol. 1]

He took me...for this I will praise You

"I love you, O LORD, my strength.
The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,
my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold...
He sent from on high, he took me;
he drew me out of many waters.
He rescued me from my strong enemey and from those who hated me,
for they were too mighty for me.
They confronted me in the day of my calamity,
but the LORD was my support.
He brought me out into a broad place;
he rescued me, because he delighted in me...
For it is you who light my lamp;
the LORD my God lightens my darkness...
by my God I can leap over a wall.
This God--his way is perfect,
the word of the LORD proves true;
he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him....
your gentleness made me great...
The LORD lives, and blessed be my rock,
and exalted be the God of my salvation...
For this I will praise you, O LORD, among the nations
and sing to your name..."

[from Psalm 18]

on the heel that has crushed it

"Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it." - Mark Twain

gonna get along without you now

[She & Him, "Gonna Get Along Without You Now"]

where only those embracing coldness go

This is so beautiful. Does anyone know its name?

It reminds me of the line in the Great Lake Swimmers' song "Pulling on a Line":

The line, it inks across the freshly fallen snow,
Where only those embracing coldness go
It whistles and it whispers, and sometimes it howls,
It sings to me sweetly from the trees and in vowels...

be messy. cry lots.

Please let yourself be broken before the Lord. "The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." I know this firsthand....The point is that after some time away from the Lord I had this moment when I snapped. I completely fell apart. It was awesome because I had to say "I can't fix this". I could not fix me and my looming depression. I couldn't fix him... All I could do was fall at the foot of the cross, and the Lord met me there. Our God had a heart for the hurting. Oh, and before you go beating yourself up for what you should and shouldn't have done know that he came for the messy, sick people. Be messy. Cry lots.

- advice from my good friend

there were scars before my scars

[JJ Heller, "Control"]

your hands are holding me, they hold me still

[JJ Heller, "Your Hands"]

their hooves are giving me growing pains, i sleep like a tornado

"I saw four black eagles with horns growing towards the ground like columns or anchors reaching for the bottom; their feathers folded like hands on a man resting in his coffin bending over each other, rattling my bones, drumming out the answers in ways I will need one day; their hooves are giving me growing pains; I sleep like a tornado..." ["You Have Never Lived Because You Have Never Died" by Listener]

forgiven much

"Forgiven Much" by Keith Johnson

[Hat Tip: A Holy Experience]

the real question is...

"Indeed, the most ghettoized people of all, I've come to learn, are those who don't know they grew up in a particular time and place and culture, and who think they can get to universal truths outside of particular realities and commitments. There are ghettos and then there are ghettos. The real question is not whether you grow up in a ghetto, but whether the ideas and customs and rhythms of your particular ghetto prepare you to engage other ideas and customs and life experiences without losing touch with your roots."

[George Weigel]

gets busy on the proof

steering clear of what we'd like to say

Moths by Jennifer O'Grady

Adrift in the liberating, late light
of August, delicate, frivolous,
they make their way to my front porch
and flutter near the glassed-in bulb,
translucent as a thought suddenly
wondered aloud, illumining the air
that's thick with honeysuckle and dusk.
You and I are doing our best
at conversation, keeping it light, steering clear
of what we'd like to say.
You leave, and the night becomes
cluttered with moths, some tattered,
their dumbly curious filaments
startling against my cheek. How quickly,
instinctively, I brush them away.
Dazed, they cling to the outer darkness
like pale reminders of ourselves.
Others seem to want so desperately
to get inside. Months later, I'll find
the woolens, snug in their resting places,
full of missing pieces.

[Hat Tip: The Writer's Almanac]