involve

Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.

Benjamin Franklin

spring

No matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow.

Proverb

beauty

She walks in beauty, like the night
  Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that 's best of dark and bright
  Meet in her aspect and her eyes

Lord Byron

spring

It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!

Mark Twain

infinite

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

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

excursion

The excursion is the same when you go looking for your sorrow as when you go looking for your joy.

Eudora Welty

moments

Why hadn't I realized that joy was right in the middle of life, unlocked in the moments? Where did I think it should be? After all, it's only moments that make up a life.

Ann Voskamp

folks

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

Abraham Lincoln

joy

Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.

Henri Nouwen

satisfactory

36 satisfactory exposures on a roll means a photographer is not trying anything new.

Freeman Patterson

illuminated

In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive the community of our healing gift. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light for others.

Brennan Manning
(Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging)

litmus

The litmus test of our love for God is our love of neighbor.

Brennan Manning 
(The Wisdom of Tenderness: What Happens When God's Fierce Mercy Transforms Our Lives)

growing food

When did we become so disconnected from our own being, our own humanity, that growing food for our own bodies, for our very survival, became an act for the intellectually ignorant?

Ann Voskamp

now

Life is only all our moments slipped on in a row, one after the other — and if you turn slow in the light, the moments might shine translucent and the surprise of it catches you and releases you and it is what you always hoped and always knew. There is mystery and glory in every now.

Ann Voskamp

ordinary

The true artist enters into work of Father and makes the ordinary material of the world new.

Ann Voskamp

thirsty

O God, I have tasted of Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me

and made me thirsty for more.

I am painfully conscious of my need for further grace.

I am ashamed of my lack of desire.

O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee;

I long to be filled with longing;

I thirst to be made more thirsty.

A.W. Tozer

dust police

There are no dust police.

No smudge cops, no laundry laws, no fridge patrol.

Ann Voskamp