…that most delicate and beautiful of human possessions, an educated conscience, comes only by teaching with authority and adorning by example.
Charlotte Mason, School Education, p. 129
Monday Ponderings {Happy May 1st 🌸🌷🌿}
Category: Prayer
Monday Ponderings {April 10th}
…lead by slow degrees, by ever-watchful efforts, by authority never in abeyance and never aggressive…authority is not only a gift, but a grace…
Charlotte Mason, excerpts from School Education, p.22-24
Joy Journal {April 5th}
•monochromatic children playing in school yard, black & bright splashes against the drab gray of early spring• puddles fizz-pluming under my tires•theater life, two children’s makeup-encrusted smiles, as they see me gazing up at them, role reversal•spring yard clean up, imprints left in the soaked grass• bags of purge waiting to be someone else’s treasure•ruddy grinning cheeks, watery eyes, runny noses, muddy springy play, cold wind grasping at straws•
•bookish mugs for bits & bobs, gifts from friends • soft-colored sticky tags, enough to share• splashes of color against red-brown brick• discussing Grapes of Wrath, sipping oat milk latte, and conversation with a sweet friend• foam heart on latte, day of small things• little boy with bandana, ninja, he says• blocks on book shelf in alternating pattern• epic soundtrack as I slip through gray countryside, just a hint of green under her skirts•an unexpected flash of stain glass•
•little bodies being compass roses, pointing arms north•almost 14 yo birthday gift buying, disconcertingly not little girl things anymore • shafts & shadows of longer sunlight •shockingly orange chairs• midwestern goodbyes •surprise book won, Katherine Wentworth by D.E. Stevenson • reviewing, revamping, & renewing rhythms• charming nooks & crannies•
Monday Ponderings {March 20th}
What truth do I preach better than I practice?
Oswald Chambers
Monday Ponderings {March 6}
…Lord of my merry cheers,
My grey that turns to gold,
And my most private tears
And comforts manifold,
‘Tis wonderful to me
That I am loved by Thee.
excerpt from “Brooding Blue” by Amy Carmichael
||nourishing newness||
release your hold,
your icy grip off of
Saint Valentine’s wrist,
Janus, you selfish giant you,
you two-faced, greedy,
grasper, holding at
arms length from us
your children, the hint
of green, your snowy
finger still extending
over the land, but your
days are numbered
white witch melt
warmth will rule
once more
A.M. Pine, originally for Peace Poem Project 2023. Drawing from this well.
||living loved||
I cracked the Montana mug
I lost the swallow earring
flea market finds from my man
is this all marriage is
feeling cracked & lost?
but that’s how hope crawls in
through the cracks & crevices
in small corner light is found
loneliness is lumped & kneaded out
not unlike what that
potter did with the clay
back in Montana
turning something
rough into a little something
different one day
the beader who set
my earring soaring
didn’t see a marriage
celebrated as her
dangling art pierced through
my earlobe
the cracked & loss
a little more whole
A.M. Pine, originally written for Peace Poem Project 2023
-drawing from this well ♥️
Monday Ponderings {February 13th}
The goal of my spiritual life is such close identification with Jesus Christ that I will always hear God and know that God always hears me. If I am united with Jesus Christ, I hear God all the time through the devotion of hearing. A flower, a tree, or a servant of God may convey God’s message to me. What hinders me from hearing is my attention to other things…
Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest
||winged words||
•blank page, cut hand
ink dribbled off edge
down onto palm of mine
mingle with blood
can they course through
both vein & pen?
can winged words
life blood be
ink that oxygenates
black to bloody red
soaring over pulsating sea
red & black scribbles
across wide, white expanse
staunch the wound
bleed the ink
my heart is lanced •
A. M. Pine, originally for the Peace Poem Project, drawing from this well.
Monday Ponderings {February 6th}
If the wind from the promised land is at times cruel, it is to remind me that my journey is not yet complete.
Michael D. O’Brian, Strangers and Sojourners, p. 193
Monday Ponderings {January 23rd}
…Oh, it is well to waken with the woods
And feel, as those who wait with God alone,
The forest’s heart in these rare solitudes
Beating against our own.
Close-shut behind us are the gates of care,
Divinity enfolds us, prone to bless,
And our souls kneel. Night in the wilderness
Is one great prayer.
excerpt from “Midnight in Camp” by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Monday Ponderings {January 16th}
O God, along with sunny days, life brings its nights of ills…and if fearlessly I face these nights, my soul in rapture thrills…
Each time I face life’s disciplines, unbowed and unafraid…then deep within this heart of mine new courage is displayed…
When disappointments come my way, don’t let me run and hide…for if I stand with head erect, then courage will abide…
It’s not what happens to me, God, but what I do with it…that helps determine whether I shall fall or rise a bit.
“Don’t Let Me Run and Hide” by George Bilby Walker, The Quiet Time: A Collection of Prayer-Poems, p.20
A.M. Pine - Hearth Ridge Reflections 