Happiest 2nd Day of Christmas 🎄 ~ Monday Ponderings {December 26th}

BLESSED are those who die for GOD

And earn the Martyr’s crown of light;

Yet he who lives for GOD may be

A greater Conqueror in His sight.

A.Proctor, The Cloud of Witness

Monday Ponderings {August 29th}

I ask Thee for a thoughtful love,

Through constant watching wise,

To meet the glad with joyful smiles,

And wipe the weeping eyes;

And a heart at leisure from itself

To soothe and sympathize.

Wherever in the world I am,

In whatsoe’er estate,

I have a fellowship with hearts

To keep and cultivate,

And a work of lowly love to do,

For the LORD on Whom I, wait.

A.L. Waring, The Cloud of Witness, p. 356

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

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 🎄♥️🎄

20191223_104429
20191223_104653

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}

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

20191216_142251

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}

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