evidence

A garden is evidence of faith. It links us with all the misty figures of the past who also planted and were nourished by the fruits of their planting.

Gladys Taber

anticipation

One of the most delightful things about a garden is the anticipation it provides.

Captain W.E. Johns, The Passing Show: A Happy Book for Gardeners, 1939

opens

When hope is not pinned wriggling onto a shiny image or expectation, it sometimes floats forth and opens.

Anne Lamott

moments - a video I stumbled on

Moments from Everynone on Vimeo.

dirt

In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.

Margaret Atwood

pleasant

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.

Anne Bradstreet

poems

Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems.

Rainer Maria Rilke

forget-me-nots

Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of Heaven, blossom the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

blossom

Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

fly

Oh how the little things

Strengthen my tiny wings

Help me to take on the world

When you love me there's nothing I wouldn't try

I might even fly

Sara Groves, Fly

see

The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.

Dorothea Lange

twice

with every burden I have carried

with every joy it's understood

life with you is half as hard

and twice as good

Sara Groves, Twice as Good

vanishing

Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.

Henri Cartier Bresson

express

The camera always points both ways. In expressing the subject, you also express yourself.

Freeman Patterson

artwork

All this beauty exists so you and I can see His glory, His artwork. It's like an invitation to worship Him, to know Him.

Donald Miller, To Own a Dragon: Reflections On Growing Up Without A Father

dawn

Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.

Anne Lamott

wholeness

Don't fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God's wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It's wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.

Philippians 4:6-7, The Message

beauty

Redemption comes in strange places, small spaces

Calling out the best of who we are

And I want to add to the beauty

To tell a better story

I want to shine with the light

That's burning up inside

Sara Groves, Add to the Beauty

nature

The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature.

Anne Frank

mystery

I do not at all understand the mystery of grace - only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.

Anne Lamott

friendship

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: What! You too? I thought I was the only one.

C.S. Lewis

wonder

And wonder is that feeling we get when we let go of our silly answers, our mapped out rules that we want God to follow. I don't think there is any better worship than wonder.

Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz

open

standing at this waters edge

looking in at God's own heart

I've no idea where to begin

to swallow up the way things are

everything in me is drawing in

closing in around this pain

I will lay my heart wide open

like the surface of a lake

wide open like a lake

Sara Groves, Like a Lake

freshness

Then followed that beautiful season... Summer....

Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape

Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

story

We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it?

Donald Miller, Through Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road

soul

I have a body, but I am a soul

I see a fraction, it's not the whole

I cannot prove it, but still I know

I have a body…I am a soul

Carolyn Arends, I Am A Soul

unforced

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly.

Matthew 11:28-30, The Message

lights

Then one day I was walking along Tinker Creek thinking of nothing at all and I saw the tree with lights in it. I saw the backyard cedar where the mourning doves roost charged and transfigured, each cell buzzing with flame. I stood on the grass with the lights in it, grass that was wholly fire, utterly focussed and utterly dreamed. It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance.

Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

thirsty

"Come!" say the Spirit and the Bride. Whoever hears, echo, "Come!" Is anyone thirsty? Come! All who will, come and drink, Drink freely of the Water of Life!

Revelation 22:17, The Message

spent

How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.

Annie Dillard

The Writing Life