Last week of February, 2021

"After the Storm" by Mumford and Sons
"Bonfire Heart" by James Blunt
 "Cover Your Tracks" A Boy and His Kite
Dragonfly for Claudia and Deb @danielmiyaresdoodles
"East" by Sleeping At Last listen with lyrics here
"Flaws" by Bastille
"Glad You Came" by Boyce Avenue
"Hero" by Family of the Year and "Home" by Phillip Phillips
"I bear little resemblance to the king I could become" lyrics from "East" by Sleeping At Last
"King" by Lauren Aquilina
"Let Her Go" by Passenger
Musical gift form Logan on CD January 2014
Nobody sees a flower - really - it is so small it takes time - we haven't time - and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.” ~ Georgia O'Keeffe
One Hundred Flowers by Georgia O'Keeffe
Questions are so very important 
"Realize that everything connects to everything else." ~ Leonardo da Vinci
"Solitude is one of the most precious things in the human spirit. It is different from loneliness. When you are lonely, you become acutely conscious of your own separation. Solitude can be a homecoming to your own deepest belonging. One of the lovely things about us as individuals is the incommensurable in us. In each person, there is a point of absolute nonconnection with everything else and with everyone. This is fascinating and frightening. It means that we cannot continue to seek outside ourselves for things we need from within. The blessings for which we hunger are not to be found in other places or people. These gifts can only be given to you by yourself. They are at home at the hearth of your soul." ~ JOHN O'DONOHUE
When you change the view from where you stood - The things you view will change for good”  - Mary Poppins
Xiaolong bao (soup dumplings) thank you, Julie
 Zoom Coffee Hour with All Souls UU? maybe next week?

The Book of Isaiah

"Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee."  Isaiah 60:1 
 21 Feb 21
"Awake, awake, put on your strength, O Zion; put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city; for there shall no more come into you the uncircumcised and the unclean." Isaiah 52:1
"But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed." Isaiah 53:5 
Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!" Isaiah 55:1
Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” Isaiah 40:28-31
"...Engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me." Isaiah 49:16
 Isaiah 55:12
"God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught." Isaiah 50:4
 "How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, "Your God Reigns!" Isaiah 52:7
Invitation to the Thirsty - Isaiah 55
"Jesus loved to quote Isaiah" ~ Tim Mackie part 9 of 9 "Exploring Isaiah"
Key Background to Isaiah: The Covenant story found in this Handout 
Listen to me, O coastlands, and give attention, you peoples from afar. The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name." Isaiah 49:1
"Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught." Isaiah 50:4
"Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at your presence...O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand." Isaiah 64:1-8
"Provides the fertile ground from which the whole idea of the cross as substitution for human sin." ~ Tim Mackie 
Quiet Habitation: the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity. Isaiah 33:24
Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice with her in joy, all you who mourn over her; that you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast; that you may drink deeply with delight from her glorious abundance.” Isaiah 66:10-11
Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise from the end of the earth, you who go down to the sea, and all that fills it, the coastlands and their inhabitants. Isaiah 42:10
"They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint." Isaiah 40:31
"Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne...Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” Isaiah 6:1-7
Verses to consider from A to Z
"Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?" ~ Isaiah 40:12
EXploring Isaiah - An Intensive Study by Tim Mackie (The Bible Project) 2015 on YouTube
You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. Isaiah 62:3
Zion, redeemed, carries on the mission servant ('light to the nations' 42:6; 49:6) Isaiah 60:1-3

February 14-20, 2021

Activities of daily living (ADLs) are routine activities people do every day without assistance. 
Before the storm...
Clouds  of love
Deuteronomy 6:4-6 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God; the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”
Endgame as in Avengers: Endgame with Logan was quite Enjoyable 
 "For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." ... It is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart." Hebrews 4:12
Glowing Valentine  from Dad in 1977
Have a heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires, a touch that never hurts.” ― Charles Dickens

 from Dad, from Rota, Spain, 1977
Keeping Claudia and her sister Debbie in my thoughts and prayers all week long
Love 
My Funny  Valentine
Nick's 21st birthday book is coming along Nicely :)
"Only one Being can satisfy the last aching abyss of the human heart, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ." ~ Oswald Chambers' "The Discipline of Disillusionment"
Poetry of the book of Isaiah is complex but I've benefit greatly from online resources (see next post) 
Quotes from the Book of Isaiah will be my next blog post
Robert Downey Jr  makes me smile :) snagged this gem from his story earlier this week.
Shema, is the Hebrew word for “Hear”, the Jewish confession of faith made up of three scriptural texts which, together with appropriate prayers, forms an integral part of the evening and morning services.
TQ and texted me on Saturday ("Galentine's Day) and a few days later, this "Facebook memory" appeared:
Usual dreams and "finds" this week while searching for a particular picture of Jean Carlton from nearly 25 years ago in honor of her 80th birthday
Valentine for Mom
"We have a tendency to think in terms of doing and not in terms of being. We think that when we are not doing anything, we are wasting our time. But that is not true. Our time is first of all for us to be. To be what? To be alive, to be peaceful, to be joyful, to be loving. And that is what the world needs most ..
~ Thich Nhat Hanh ~
"...eXpect many things of God... as you sit around the campfire of the heart...Expect to have hope rekindled. Expect your prayers to be answered in wonderous ways ...
"... You talk, but who listens? You listen, but who talks? A safari of the self and Spirit is at times lonely. But! we know we are never alone. It is a comfort to realize that this sense of isolation is necessary IF we are to encounter [God] ... Awareness of how wonderful it is just to see the sun set and rise again in the morning... Someone is listening. Someone is talking to you, encouraging you to take the next step as you embrace the Mystery of the wilderness within... The dry seasons in life do not last. The Spring rains will come again." ~ February 18 Simple Abundance by Sarah BanBreathnach
Zs in the book of Isaiah include Zion, and God's Zeal - see next blog post for Isaiah quotes from A to Z


Rumi Gems

 "A thousand half-loves must be forsaken to take one whole heart home." ~ Rumi ~Art work by Debbie Marie Arambula
After despair, many hopes flourish
just as after rain
thousands of roses open.
Surrender to the Almighty –
and be led into life. - Jalal-ud-Din Rumi
"Be wild and crazy and drunk with Love. If you are too careful, Love will not find you." ~Rumi
Cartwheeling Through Life has included Rumi in at least 159 of 1337 post in the last 12+ years
Dance, when you’re broken open. Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you’re perfectly free.” ~Rumi
Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious.” ~Rumi
"Glorious  is the moment we sit in the palace, You and I.
Two forms, two faces, but a single soul: You and I.
The flowers will blaze and bird cries shower us with immortality
The moment we enter the garden, You and I.
All the stars of heaven will run out to gaze at us
As we burn like the full moon itself, You and I.
The fire-winged birds of heaven will rage with envy
In that place where we laugh ecstatically, You and I.
What a miracle, You and I, entwined in the same nest;
What a miracle, You and I: one Love, one Lover, one Fire,
In this world and the next, in an ecstasy without end. - Jalal-ud-Din Rumi" 
How lovely...
"In the driest whitest stretch of pain's infinite desert I lost my sanity and found this rose." ~ Rumi
Jalal-ud-Din Rumi : 13th-century Persian poet, Hanafi faqih, Islamic scholar, Maturidi theologian, and Sufi mystic originally from Khorasan, Iran. (Sept 30, 1207 Dec 17, 1273, Konya, Turkey source
"Keep walking, though there's no place to get to. Don't try to see through the distance. That's not for human beings." ~ Rumi
"Love is a tree with branches in forever, with roots in eternity and a trunk nowhere at all." ~ Rumi 
"My Face is everywhere – and all you are gazing at is roses." - Jalal-ud-Din Rumi
"Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi, or Zen. Not any religion or cultural system. I am not from the East or the West, not out of the ocean or up from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all. I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or the next, did not descend from Adam or Eve or any origin story. My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless. Neither body or soul. I belong to the beloved, have seen the two worlds as one and that one call to and know, first, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human being."  listen here
Poems to Awaken the Love Within Us - click here
Quiet... but... the 
Roots are Riotous" ~ Rumi
"Set out now, while you're strong, on the heart's vast plain:
You'll never discover joy on the plain of the body.
The heart's the only house of safety, my friends:
It has fountains, and rose gardens within rose gardens.
Turn to the heart and go forward, travelers of the night;
there's where you'll find trees and streams of living water." - Jalal-ud-Din Rumi

The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you : Don't go back to sleep!
You must ask for what you really want. Don't go back to sleep!
People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch,
The door is round and open. Don't go back to sleep!” ― Rumi (Ken's video)
"Unknown, in the Un-manifest" click here for the entire poem
"Very little grows on jagged rock. be ground, be crumbled. wildflowers will come up where you are." ~ Rumi
Video: click here Ken (who often  posted on Instagram October 7, 2019
When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.” ~Rumi
"eXpanded further than the last star / All that is left of Rumi is only / This garden laughing with fruit."
"...You worry too much. Your arms are filled with treasures of all kinds." ~Rumi
Zakir Hossain Reads "Only Breath by Jalaluddin Rumi

Some bits from Week of Feb 8-14

Amanda Kathryn Law sent me this :) 
Center Chapel, Lebanon, Kansas
Dad's hands? I gasped at min 1:10. His hands reminded me of my Dad's hands in that shot
Euangelion : “gospel” a royal announcement about Jesus, who is the crucified and risen King of the world who overcame death with his love. video
"For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the Spirit of the man which is in him... but the Spirit who is From God" 1 Corinthians 2:9-12

 Hope everyone had a loving Valentine's Day

Isaiah study with Tim Mackie : "Exploring Isaiah - An Intensive Study"
Jeremiah 9:24 "have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness,
    Justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the Lord. 
"Knowing I can trust You is a treasure / With eyes wide open now I finally see" ~ "Out of My Hands" by Jeremy Camp
Library Sat and Sun: 

 


Many Misty Moments
"...Need that connection. We need the middle. We just have to remember the very soil we stand on is common ground. So, we can get there. We can make it to the mountaintop Through the desert
And we will cross this divide." ~ "The Middle"
"Out of my hands and into Yours listen here
"Our light has always found its way through the darkness / And there’s hope on the road up ahead." 
"Power of Knowing God" by Tony Evans RightNowMedia
Quotes by Rumi being sent to me from Dianne have truly brightened my week, in fact...
Rumi quotes from A to Z blog post coming soon. 
"Standing on the exact center of the lower forty-eight. It never closes. All are more than welcome
To come meet here, in the middle..." 
To truly know God we must long for Him without any other motive than reaching God Himself.” ~ A.W. Tozer
Unfinished but perhaps today...
Valentines on what was Gerry's and then "my" door at CCL 
We go astray when we attempt to do spiritual work without spiritual power.” ~ A.W. Tozer
EXploring Isaiah - An Intensive Study by Tim Mackie (The Bible Project) 
Zeal of the LORD Almighty throughout the book of Isaiah (9,37,42, etc) blog post soon

Inspirations Jan 24 through Feb 7, 2021

Amaryllis blooms in sunlight, glorious from every angle
"And in the perfect time, O perfect God,
When we are in our home, our natal home,
When joy shall carry every sacred load,
And from its life and peace no heart shall roam,
What if thou make us able to make like thee— 
To light with moons, to clothe with greenery, 
To hang gold sunsets o’er a rose and purple sea.
p. 30 Diary of an Old Soul qtd. by Dallas Willard
Building Community Any Way We Can - All Souls New London - January 24, 2021 
Cryoseism more commonly known as an "ice quake" or "frost quake", a minor seismic event caused by the sudden cracking action in frozen soil or rock that's saturated with water or ice more here
 photo by me Jan 31, 2019 
Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard and Diary of an Old Soul  by George Macdonald
Enter into the joy of our Lord” Matthew 25:21
"Firmly fixed in our minds what our future is to be like. We want to live fully in the kingdom now, and for that purpose our future must make sense to us." p. 533 The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard
"Golden thread that winds its way through the entire discussion of kingdom living by Jesus, continually correcting our vision and giving us hope." p.308
"He teaches us how to be in prayer what we are in life and How to be in life what we are in prayer." Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard
"Invest your life in what God is doing, which cannot be lost." Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard
Joy” is, of course, the creation and care of what is good, in all its dimensions. A place in God’s creative order has been reserved for each one of us from before the beginnings of cosmic existence. p. 536 The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard
Kumquat: fun word to say, amazing little gem to add to tea and most recently, chicken sautéed in butter and salt in cast iron skillet
"Let God know what you want. And the peace which God himself has will, beyond anything we can intellectually grasp, stand guard over your hearts and minds, which are within the reality of Jesus the Anointed” Philippians 4:6–7 p. 309  The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard
Modern Christians hope to save the world by being like it, but it will never work. The Church’s power over the world springs out of her unlikeness to it, never her integration into it.” A.W. Tozer
New moral power will flow back into the Church when we stop preaching social adjustment and begin to preach social repudiation and cross carrying Modern Christians hope to save the world by being like it, but it will never work.” A.W. Tozer
Our whole body is well directed,” is “full of light” Matthew 6:23 "Our old age is the scorching of the bush / By life’s indwelling, incorruptible blaze. / O life, burn at this feeble shell of me, Till I the sore singed garment off shall push, Flap out my Psyche wings, and to thee rush." p.32 The Diary of an Old Soul by George Macdonald
"Peace as wholeness, as fullness of function, as the restful but unending creativity involved in a cosmos wide, cooperative pursuit of a created order that continuously approaches but never reaches the limitless goodness and greatness of the triune personality of God, its source. p. 555-7 The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard
 Quantum change is a "vivid, surprising, benevolent, and enduring personal transformation" involving a shift in perception and the realization of a new reality" at a deep level.  p. 171 of Chapter 9 Transformational Change article
Reading and re-reading the book of Isaiah... with help from this Tim Mackie teaching series
Story is still being written. It’s being written in us, the church." Donnie Williams, 31 Jan 2021
"This is the golden thread that winds its way through the entire discussion of kingdom living by Jesus, continually correcting our vision and giving us hope." p.308 The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard
Unifying stories... "Unbounded freedom and ease, and with laughter in her eyes..." John Friend from forward of Yoga from the Inside Out by Christina Sell 

"What A Beautiful Name" - Hillsong Worship - listen here
eXploring Isaiah - An Intensive Study by Tim Mackie (The Bible Project)
Your heart will be where what you treasure is,” Jesus tells us Matthew 6:21
Zera : a girl's name of Hebrew origin meaning "seeds, beginning"