Category: The Cloud of Witness

Monday Ponderings {February 28th – Merriest of March Eve to you!} 🌿♥️🌿

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MAY I reach

That purest heaven, -be to other souls

That cup of strength in some great agony!-

Enkindle generous ardour, -feed pure love,-

Beget smiles that have no cruelty,-

Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,

And in diffusion ever more intense!

So shall I join the choir invisible,

Whose music is the gladness of the world!

G. Eliot, The Cloud of Witness, p.136

4th Sunday in Advent 🎄♥️🎄

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The Four Seasons of Mary Azarian, by Lilias Macbean Hart, illustrated by Mary Azarian

Continuing my Advent musings with Azarian and The Cloud of Witness…

In every gladness, LORD, Thou art

The deeper Joy behind.

~George MacDonald

p. 29, The Cloud of Witness

(emphasis mine)

{Take Joy home. Considering the words from J. Ingelow in the above photograph and Mr. MacDonald’s line, also. Just perfection for contemplation while gazing at Azarian’s lovely woodcut. Christmas blessings to you all!}

Monday Ponderings {December 13th}

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THE night

Wanes into morning, and the dawning light

Broadens, and all shadows fade and shift!

I follow, follow, – sure to meet the sun,

And confident that what the future yields

Will be the Right,-unless myself be wrong.

Longfellow, The Cloud of Witness, p. 22

3rd Sunday in Advent

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The Four Seasons of Mary Azarian, by Lilias Macbean Hart, illustrated by Mary Azarian

Continuing my Advent musings with Azarian and The Cloud of Witness…

…Heaven within the reed

Lists for the flute-note; in the folded seed

It sees the bud, and in the Will the Deed…

~D. Greenwell

How shall we judge their present, we who have never seen

That which is past forever, and that which might have been?

Measuring by ourselves, unwise indeed we are!

Measuring what we know by what we can hardly see.

~F.R. Havergal

Be not proud of well-doing;

for the judgment of God is far different

from the judgement of men, and that

often offendeth, Him which pleaseth them. 

~Thomas A Kempis

God judges by a light Which baffles mortal sight;

And the useless – seeing man the crown hath won

In His vast world above, –

A world of broader love, –

God hath some grand employment for His Son.

~Fabor

all partial or full selections above from The Cloud of Witness, p. 20

Monday Ponderings {December 6th}

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But two ways are offered to our will – Toil with rare triumph, Ease with safe disgrace: – Nor deem that acts heroic wait on chance! The man’s whole life precludes the single deed That shall decide if his inheritance Be with the sifted few of matchless breed, Or with the unmotivated herd that only sleep and feed.

~ Lowell, p.36, The Cloud of Witness, emphasis mine

2nd Sunday in Advent

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The Four Seasons of Mary Azarian, by Lilias Macbean Hart, illustrated by Mary Azarian {previously published post from December 2019}

Continuing my Advent musings with Azarian and The Cloud of Witness…

Earth breaks up, time drops away,

In flows heaven with its new day

Of endless life, when He who trod,

Very Man and very God,

This earth in weakness, shame

and pain,

Dying the death whose signs

remain

Up yonder on the accursed tree, –

Shall come again, no more to be

Of captivity the thrall,

But the one God, All in All,

King of Kings and Lord of lords:

As His servant John received the words,

“I died, and live for evermore.”

~ Browning, p. 9

The Cloud of Witness

Azarian Advent

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These posts were originally published in December 2019 and I recently remembered this lovely book and just had to pull it off my shelf. It was a few moments of pure peace as I perused it. Reposting to share a bit of the joy again. Advent begins today! ♥️🎄

The Four Seasons of Mary Azarian, by Lilias Macbean Hart, illustrated by Mary Azarian.

It may be in the evening,

When the work of the day is done,

And you have time to sit in the twilight,

And watch the sinking sun,

While the long bright day dies slowly

Over the sea,

And the hour grows quiet and holy

With thoughts of ME:

While you hear the village children

passing along the street –

Among those thronging footsteps

May come the sound of my feet

Therefore I tell you, Watch!

By the light of the evening star

When the moon is growing dusky

As the clouds afar,

Let the door be on the latch

In your home,

For it may be through the gloaming

I will come.

~B.M. , p. 4

The Cloud of Witness

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{Join me this month in quiet contemplation and prayer on our Savior’s coming…}