FROM the THRESHOLD.....

"Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.." -Rumi

            "It is never too late to be what you might have been." -George Eliot

"Anyone can start today and make a new ending.." " -Maria Robinson

                "Fear not for the future. Weep not for the past.." -Shelley

                         "Before you quit.....Try..." - William Ward

           "Find the goodness that is within you..." -Eckhart Tolle

"The magic in new beginnings is truly the most powerful of them all.." -Josiyah Martin

               "Every moment is a fresh beginning. " - T.S. Eliot

"Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering....'It will be happier'...." -Tennyson

         "You are never too old to dream a new dream..." -C.S. Lewis

"New Year's most glorious light is sweet hope! " -Mehmet Muran Idan

"Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be? " -Charles Bukowski

"The future is literally in our hands to mold as we like.But we cannot wait till tomorrow. Tomorrow is now! " -Eleanor Roosevelt

"And now we welcome the New Year. Full of things that have never been..."  -Rainer Maria Rilke

"We will open the book. Its pages are blank. The book is called Opportunity, and it's first chapter is New Year's Day!" -Edith Lovejoy Pierce

       "I close my eyes to old ends. And open my heart to new beginnings.."  -Nick Frederickson

 Photographs 2023. 

GLORY...(Christmas story)

"On Christmas Eve the bells were rung...." -Sir Walter Scott

Above the hills, the sun fell on broken mountains, bowing  to the  darkness that swallowed everything in its path. It left only a gleam  of  gold touching the horizon.

Skiffs of snow swirled  over craggy peaks, a promise of winter. So cold , thought he, as he stood out in the blackness. He longed for peace today. Too many people . Something howled as the moon rose and a single star  shone  insistently. He grudgingly began walking, muttering to himself about how  annoyed he was to be out this late.  His lantern faltered .  

 He wrapped his heavy cloak around his head.  Wind whipped at  his feet. Biting cold. His lantern was the only comfort he  brought. Little solace for him.

 He was drawn to the light in the sky.  The way was long and arduous. He wanted to be anywhere but here. And yet he had to be here. In the night. With the star.

Just that one star piercing the sky like diamonds. 

 He complained to the wind about his lot in life, while the star flamed over his head.

Wind blew with a fragrance he did not recognize. Sweet. Pungent . He breathed it in. 

The star led him  into the  hills.  To a place he used to play as a  boy. Long ago, when he was young and the world seemed new. Now he was old and had forgotten . So forgotten.

The star did not leave him. "Glory...."he heard, somewhere beyond the beyond. "Glory...."it sang again.

He knew it at once. A place of refuge .  A place that he  had come before as a child with his friends to play. It was a poor place. A safe place. It was his old place.

The star stopped over that  quiet, dark place now bathed in light.  He saw them there. The two of them. She  held a  baby, newly born. It wailed  to the new  world.

"Glory," he heard singing somewhere out of the dark. On this night of nights. He shivered. Not with the cold.  

He was the first to arrive in this place. This lovely, special place. He could not speak. His words would not come. The baby fussed, as babies are want to do.  

His eyes met hers. She smiled and touched his shaking hands. "Glory..." he heard from far away.

He did not know this child, but he felt the child knew him.   "Glory" sang from the star into the night. He no longer felt tired or old, but new again. So new.

Others came . Others  who were curious. Others drawn by the star. And still others wrapped in velvets and wore crowns, and had travelled  from afar. They bowed down and gave  "Glory..."

 He had no gift. So he gave them his lantern to hang up high and shed light in this place. This wild , poor place .

The star  moved on, close to morning. It was time for him to leave. It was time to return.  He had been the first to arrive. Now he was the last to leave.

   On that bleak winter's night, when the world was new again,  when  he saw heaven in the sky.....

 Photographs 2023

FIND JOY!

" Find Joy. It's waiting for you. In everything..." -R. Raphe

                                               "Joy is the simplest form of gratitude..." -Karl Barth

"Joy is but the sign..." -Charles Du Bos

"Joy is prayer, joy is strength, joy is love, joy is a net of love by which we catch souls." Mother Teresa

          "When we lift our hands....fragrance of our praise...." -Dennis Ignatius

Joy is a 100 year old storybook  that has survived two world wars,  a fire in a farmhouse and  a flood,13 moves,  and still  is here. It  bears the marks of my mothers' hands, the stains of peanut butter and jelly from years and years of reading in the late of night.  I found the second book, the same one, same era, by chance. My mother would be thrilled to see her old friend again. It's not Christmas without it.....

                        "Joy blooms..." -J. L. Huie

                                             "Let your joy be in your journey..." - Tim Cook

                        "Create. For the pure joy of creating and sharing it.." -Ernest Barbaric

"I cannot imagine where I would be today were it not for those friends who  have given me a heart full of joy..." -Charles R. Swindoll

                                   "Scatter Joy..." Emerson

"Joy is not in things....it is in us.." - Richard Wagner

Then there's the Angel. My mother's angel with the painted features,  cloth hair and flat felt feet. This  ancient angel,  has been  on the  tree every year,   since about 1943. She has a new dress; her old one was stained with rust and rips.  For most of the year, she's kept in a cabinet . Then each Christmas she's on the very top of the tree, where she  heralds in the season, and sometimes  I think I hear  her playing her horn at Christmas midnight, when the bells peal.

"I have drunken deep of joy  and will taste no other..." - Shelley

                                "I slept and dreamt that life was JOY..." - Tagore

"Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God.." -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

"You show me Joy. You are steadfast. And I marvel ...." - R. Raphe

ADVENT 3...the Advent of Joy.....
 Photographs 2023