"To touch the cup with eager lips and taste, not drain it; 
To woo and tempt and court a bliss--and not attain it;
To fondle and caress a joy, yet hold it lightly;
Lest it become necessity and cling too tightly;
To watch the sun set in the west without regretting; 
To hail its advent in the east -- the night forgetting;
To smother care in happiness and grief in laughter;
To hold the present close -- not questioning hereafter;
To have enough to share -- to know the joy of giving;
To thrill with all the sweets of life -- is living." 
Anonymous. 

  "If you ever find happiness by hunting for it, you will find it as the old woman did her lost spectacles, safe on her own nose all the time." 
Josh Billings.

 "The work of my salvation is not a solitary process. I cannot build up the virtues of my heart if I am thinking only of God. Would I be humble; mine must be a humility before man. Anyone could be humble before God. It does not need a redeemed soul to shrink into nothingness beneath the stars of night. But to sink my interests before a brother, to refrain from self-display in the presence of an inferior-- that is humility! Would I be meek; it must be before man. I dare not answer God; all flesh is silent in His presence. But to be gentle with an equal, to be soft with a dependent, to be lenient with a fallen soul-- that is meekness! Would I be charitable; it must be before man. God needs not my silver nor my gold; they would add no drop to His ocean. But, to clothe a brother's rags, to soothe a sister’s pain, to give the children bread, to help the orphan's cry, to bind the broken heart and comfort the wounded conscience -- that is to aid God, that is charity!" George Matheson.  

  "Sarah only knew that life within her could, and sometimes did, blossom into moments of unimaginable, incredible loveliness, glimpses of the Eternal in time: rare moments which came and went, which could not be sought or asked for, but by which one steered one's course, wholly alive while they lasted." Marry Ellen Chase.

  I find when I'm in the forest I have moments like these. Shall we not carry these moments into our way of living in some small way? Why can we not take a part of our yard and create a little corner of it and plant a sliver of forest? If we have no yard, we can buy a houseplant and put it by the window. If we have no window we can buy an artificial plant, and if we have no money we can ask a neighbor for a daisy.  

Shall we sit idly down and say

The night hath come; it is no longer day? 

The night hath not yet come, we are not quite

Cut off from labor by the failing light; 

Something remains for us to do or dare; 

Even the oldest tree some fruit may bear.

Santa Filomena

When'er a noble deed is wrought,

When'er is spoken a noble thought, 

Our hearts in glad surprise

To higher levels rise. 

The tidal wave of deeper souls

Into our inmost being rolls, 

And lifts us unawares

Out of all meaner cares. 

Honor to those whose words or deeds

Thus help us in our daily needs, 

And by their overflow

Raise us from what is low! 

 " He that hath love in his breast hath spurs in his side." 

  I love photography, and now and then I run across photos, or paintings, that are so unusual; this would be one of those. What a striking photo: humans are so interesting!

 The following piece I plan to share with the inmates next week. 

  Let me be clear why we come here to the jail each week; every time come we learn. You may think we come to teach as if we think we have some display of wisdom, importance or power. But the truth is we simply mouth the words that Jesus spoke and then listen to the stories you share of unrelenting courage and bravery beyond measure as you recount stories of heroism of Biblical proportion.

Giant Goliath's are faced over and over again. Unequal matches, where you have been pummeled and crushed to the ground repeatedly, only to rise up and fight again.

We cry and whine over a splinter while razor sharp, barbed shafts pierce your very hearts! But somehow, by God's grace, your heart continues to beat a slow, quiet rhythm of hope: desperately faint in some; irregular in others: flat-lined and resuscitated in others. And just when all seems motionless, our eyes filled with tears and anguish, someone’s soul gets set on fire! 

Color flushes back in once pallid cheeks, corpses rise, ground is reclaimed, restoration happens against all odds! Strength returns and we stand in absolute awe as Christ resurrects another soul from the dead; He restores sight to the blind and makes the diseased leper fully whole!

 Oh we come here to see miracles, where smoldering faith bursts into flame! Bruised and nearly broken reeds are healed! Oh friend, we come to be inspired by you!

What fool would stay home and watch a pointless sporting match when we sit ring-side and witness the full scale battle of life!

  I have a file where I put pictures of people I find interesting. And if I happened upon them I would like to strike up a conversation. These woman is an example; with her modest stylishness, remnants of the sixties; her love for the outdoors betrayed by her coastal complexion; a confident air but cautious; self-assured but open; content with her diminishing beauty and a twinkle in her eye, but with no appetite for the shallow.  

  When I ran across this picture it stunned me. Oh God, it reminds me of all of those I talk with who have suffered so much, but still retain a beauty and a hope within that refuses to die. God reaches the darkest recesses of the soul. 

 George Matheson defines what he considers "witnessing" or Soul-winning" with a broad and encompassing description. Few measure up but as we grow to understand the mind of Christ we edge closer.    

  "Kingdom expansion is something that engages "enterprise" and the anxious responsibilities that come with it; the study to learn how to lift the downcast, the seeking out it takes to find those in need: locomotion, movement, rising up and acting, trusting with the willingness to be betrayed; investigating, as the Bible states, 'considering the poor' and how to bring remedy without enabling, which requires deliberation, judgment, discernment. Not simply becoming a, 'hand but not heart', dispensary of charity."

I remember a great quote by Harriet Beecher Stowe, 

 "There are soul-artists, who go through this world, looking among their fellows with reverence, as one looks among the dust and rubbish of old shops for hidden works of Titian and Leonardo da Vinci, and finding them, however cracked and torn and painted over with tawdry daubes of pretenders, immediately recognize the divine original, and set themselves to cleanse and restore. Such are God’s real priests, whose ordination and anointing are from the Holy Spirit; and he who has not this enthusiasm is not ordained of God, though whole synods of bishops laid hands on him.”

  Sometimes we have to just stop and drink in the beauty and majesty of God's creative power. 

Why did Jesus tell the leper not to tell anyone about his healing?

  "The answer is that the fame of that presence would have quickened the drying of human tears. It would have made benevolence easy. It would have congregated the world of Jewish sufferers round a common center. It would have dispensed with the need of private enterprise. It would have relieved many hearts of anxious responsibilities. It would have sent each inquirer to the fountainhead.     "Just because of all these benefits; just because the visible presence of Jesus would have made charity an easy thing.'

Remember what it is that Jesus desires. It is not simply the healing of humanity; it is man's education to be the healer of humanity. From the moment in which He became head of the disciples, His 'league of pity' His primary object became not the abolition of the hospital, but the training for the hospital.

To Him the most precious part of that sympathy was the seeking out of disease; 'The Son of Man,' He says, 'is come to seek that which was lost.' These words express a real fact of His experience; they express the conviction that for Him all sympathy must begin in seeking. Therefore He desired that His followers should also seek.

 He did not wish all cases of distress to be brought to the door because then there would be no help in aiding them. If His power would have been proclaimed, there would have been a visible earthly center around which would have circled the victims of sorrow. Then the disciples would have been spared the pain of locomotion, spared the pain of seeking and investigating. There would cease to be any need for "considering the poor." The function of sympathy would be limited to the hand. It would no more require deliberation, judgment, discernment. It would lose its character as an intellectual power. It would become an attribute rather of the body than of the soul.

Therefore in the days of His earthly presence He forbade its members to make Him known - forbade them to render easy that path of benevolence which ought to be a path of anxious inquiry." Matheson.