Only now

I have walked the paths laid out for me;
I have worn the letters pinned to me;
I have smiled and nodded pleasantly;
I have borne the cruelties dutifully;
I have tried to live most honorably;
And now I see how beautifully it all has worked
To lead me to myself,
Beyond myself
To where I must be--
To the One who fashioned me.
To live life freely and truly is to
Live as humbly as a child.
Only now do I begin to see.

Star Thoughts

"I shall see a star tonight
From a distant mountain height;
From a city you will see
The same star that shines on me.

'Tis not of the firmament
On a solar journey bent;
Fixed it is through time and weather;--
'Tis a thought we hold together."

--Frances Shaw

Who loves the rain

"Who loves the rain
And loves his home
And looks on life with quiet eyes,
Him will I follow through the storm;
And at his hearth-fire keep me warm;
Nor hell nor heaven shall that soul surprise
Who loves the rain
And loves his home
And looks on life with quiet eyes."

--Frances Shaw

The perfect lover

"Only the perfect Christian can be the perfect lover."

--Dom Eugene Boylan in This Tremendous Lover

"...but still there is much that is fair..."

"The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater."

-Haldir in The Fellowship of the Ring

Wintry days

These wintry days have their own particular beauty: icy-blue skies like frozen oceans or bright but bitter-cold ones when the sun is out. I have learned to tell what weather is coming by watching the flight of migratory birds above me. These creatures always know which way to go to survive the long Winter; their Creator has fashioned them to know. It is a wonder to see it, to be a part of it, even from a distance.

Soon the snowdrops will awaken and begin to peep their tiny white heads above the soil. The robins will sing, and the stream will rush on without ice or snow to slow it. Spring is coming, and I will walk my favorite trails once again.

Nothing... to recommend her...

"She has nothing, in short, to recommend her, but being an excellent walker. I shall never forget her appearance this morning. She really looked almost wild... To walk three miles, or four miles, or five miles, or whatever it is, above her ankles in dirt, and alone, quite alone! what could she mean by it? It seems to me to shew an abominable sort of conceited independence, a most country-town indifference to decorum."

--Mrs. Hurst in Pride and Prejudice.