Rejuvenate

Worchester, MA (2008)

“We must always change,
renew, rejuvenate ourselves;
otherwise we harden.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832

Self-Deception

“Nobody ever says, ‘I think I will lie to myself today.’
This is the double treachery of self-deception:
First we deceive ourselves, and then we convince ourselves
that we are not deceiving ourselves.”

Lewis Smedes
Author of “A Pretty Good Person”

Hiding

“It is amusing to see souls who, while they are at prayer,
fancy they are willing to be despised and
publicly insulted for the love of God,
yet afterwards do all they can to hide their small defects;
if anyone unjustly accuses them of a fault,
God deliver us from their outcries!”

Teresa of Avila

Some Days

Rocky Fork

“Life is just one damned thing after another.”

Elbert Hubbard, 1856-1915
Influential exponent of the Arts & Crafts movement

Easier to Find Flaws

“To find a fault is easy;
to do better may be difficult.”

Plutarch, 46 AD – 120 AD

Hands Off

“Living apart and at peace with myself,
I came to realize more vividly the meaning of the doctrine of acceptance.
To refrain from giving advice, to refrain from meddling
in the affairs of others, to refrain,
even though the motives be the highest,
from tampering with another’s way of life –
so simple, yet so difficult for an active spirit. Hands off!”

Henry Miller, 1891-1980

Silent Destiny

“No trumpets sound
when the important decisions of our life are made.
Destiny is made known silently.”

Agnes de Mille, 1909-1993

Ugly Duckling

“The older I get, the more I feel almost beautiful…”

Sharon Olds, b. 1942
Poet and author

 

Trust

Sill Branch Falls, Unicoi County

“When you really trust someone,
you have to be okay with not understanding some things.”

Gordon Atkinson

 

Patience

Unaka Mountain

“I am patient with stupidity
but not with those who are proud of it.”

Edith Sitwell, 1887-1964
British poet

On Time

Unaka Mountain

“If something anticipated arrives too late it finds us numb,
wrung out from waiting, and we feel — nothing at all.
The best things arrive on time.”

Dorothy Gilman, 1978

Beauty

Price Lake, Grandfather Mountain

“The kind of beauty I want most
is the hard-to-get kind
that comes from within –
strength, courage, dignity.”

Ruby Dee

The Meaning of Life

Today I received a book in the mail, with this letter from a wonderful family at church, where I was the children’s and youth minister for three years until 2007. What a blessing. My only regret is that I wasn’t there Sunday evening to witness Morgan’s baptism.

October 26, 2009

Lee,

Enclosed is a book and CD that we purchased seven or eight years ago. We purchased this book with the intention of some day presenting it to the person whom we felt had the most influence on Morgan on her path to Jesus thus far in her life. We planned to give this book to that person on the day she was baptized. Morgan was baptized yesterday and we would like to present the book to you. With sincere appreciation and gratitude we want to thank you for all of the work you have done with Morgan and the other youth at the church. You have been a great influence.

This book and song express what we often fail to say to those who have served the Lord in our lives. We only think to do so when it is too late…we again say thanks.

Danny & Margaret

 

What a wonderful reminder Danny and Margaret have given me about our purpose in life. I encourage you to love and serve the Lord and to thank those in your life who have helped you on that journey.  “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” (Luke 10:27).

Lee

He answered: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

Too Much To Do

“First things first, but not necessarily in that order.”

Doctor Who

Old Friends

This weekend is Homecoming at Milligan and my 15 year reunion

“It is one of the blessings of old friends
that you can afford to be stupid with them.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Regret

“Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time;
it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.”

Sidney J. Harris

She Was a Delight

Thinking today of my Aunt Toby. Read about her here.

“When you are sorrowful look again in your heart,
and you shall see that in truth
you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”

Kahlil Gibran

Be Vulnerable

Hoar frost on Unaka Mountain

“When we were children,
we used to think that when we were grown-up
we would no longer be vulnerable.
But to grow up is to accept vulnerability…
To be alive is to be vulnerable.”

Madeleine L’Engle, b. 1918
“Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art”, 1980

Act

“An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.”

Friedrich Engels, 1820-1895

Can’t Win

“Stoop and you’ll be stepped on;
stand tall and you’ll be shot at.”

Carlos A. Urbizo

Spoke Too Soon

Unaka Mountain

“Speech is conveniently located midway
between thought and action,
where it often substitutes for both.”

John Andrew Holmes
“Wisdom in Small Doses”

Agape

“Find a need and move to meet it,
not counting the cost,
nor the worth of the other person.”

Knofel Staton
Christian author and professor

Shadowy Future

Bass Lake, Blowing Rock, NC

“Look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again.
Wisely improve the present. It is thine.
Go forth to meet the shadowy future, without fear.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1807-1882

Learn How

“I am always doing that which I can not do,
in order that I may learn how to do it.”

Pablo Picasso, 1881-1973

Mute Appeal

Unaka Mountain Road

“Autumn wins you best
by this its mute appeal
to sympathy for its decay.”

Robert Browning, 1812-1889
English poet

Well Tried

Sassafras leaf

“Be courteous to all, but intimate with few,
and let those few be well tried
before you give them your confidence.”

George Washington, 1732-1799
First President of the U.S.

Gain or Loss

Blue Ridge Parkway, Virginia

“What makes something special
is not just what you have to gain,
but what you feel there is to lose.”

Andre Agassi, b. 1970

Ah, Memory

Elk River near Elk Park, NC

“I write down everything I want to remember.
That way, instead of spending a lot of time
trying to remember what it is I wrote down,
I spend the time looking for the paper I wrote it down on.”

Beryl Pfizer

Multiple Directions

“To love deeply in one direction
makes us more loving in all others.”

Anne-Sophie Swetchine, 1782-1857

Let Go

“If my hands are fully occupied in holding on to something,
I can neither give nor receive.”

Dorothee Solle, 1929-2003
German theologian

Character

The Apple Barn at Moses Cone Estate, Blowing Rock, NC

“In attempts to improve your character,
know what is in your power and what is beyond it.”

Francis Thompson, 1859-1907
English poet

Wishing instead of counting

Riding the Virginia Creeper Trail – last fall

“Not everything that can be counted counts,
and not everything that counts can be counted.”

Albert Einstein, 1879-1955

Unsaid

Grandfather Mountain

“One of the best rules in conversation is,
never to say a thing which any of the company
can reasonably wish had been left unsaid.”

Jonathan Swift, 1667-1745
Author

Reawakening

Unicoi

“If we fall, we don’t need self-recrimination or blame or anger –
we need a reawakening of our intention and a willingness to recommit,
to be whole-hearted once again.”

Sharon Salzberg

Intimacy

“The easiest kind of relationship is with ten thousand people,
the hardest is with one.”

Joan Baez, b. 1941
Mexican-American folk singer

An Adventure

View from Flat Rock, NC

“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered.
An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.”

G. K. Chesterton, 1874-1936

Humor

“One doesn’t have a sense of humor. It has you.”

Larry Gelbart

Greatness

View from Unaka Mountain, looking towards Buffalo Mountain and Johnson City

“The greatness comes not when things go always good for you.
But the greatness comes when you’re really tested, when you
take some knocks, some disappointments, when sadness comes.
Because only if you’ve been in the deepest valley
can you ever know how magnificent it is
to be on the highest mountain.”

Richard Nixon, 1913-1994
U.S. President

Enthusiasm

Rhododendron

“If you aren’t fired with enthusiasm,
you will be fired with enthusiasm.”

Vince Lombardi, 1913-1970
Football coach

 

Renewal

“Inside myself is a place where I live all alone
and that’s where you renew your springs that never dry up.”

Pearl Buck, 1892-1973
First woman awarded Nobel Prize in Literature

Intelligence

“There is no worse screen to block out the Spirit
than confidence in our own intelligence.”

John Calvin, 1509-1564
French theologian

 

Attitude

“A positive attitude may not solve all your problems,
but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.”

Herm Albright, 1866-1944

Enthusiasm

“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”

Ralph Waldo Emmerson

A Pointer

View from Flat Rock, NC

“The created order is God’s handiwork
and at its best it is a pointer to the One we serve.
Even its brokenness, if we look along it. . . can tell us of him:
his grace, his mercy, his redemption.”

Duane Litfin
President, Wheaton College
“Conceiving the Christian College” (2004)

Ha Ha

“Earth laughs in flowers.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Open Mind

“Merely having an open mind is nothing;
the object of opening the mind,
as of opening the mouth,
is to shut it again on something solid.”

G.K. Chesterton

Real and Costly Love

Pine Ridge Falls, Unicoi County

“It is a serious thing to live in a society of
possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest
and most uninteresting person you can talk to
may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now,
you would be strongly tempted to worship,
or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet,
if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree,
helping each other to one or other of these destinations.
It is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them,
that we should conduct all our dealings with one another,
all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.
There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.
Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations — these are mortal,
and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals
whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit –
immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.
This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn.
We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind
(and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists
between people who have, from the outset,
taken each other seriously –
no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.
And our charity must be a real and costly love,
with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner –
no mere tolerance, or indulgence
which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment.”

C. S. Lewis, 1898-1963

One to the Next

“The only courage that matters
is the kind that gets you
from one moment to the next.”

Mignon McLaughlin, 1913-1983
“The Second Neurotic’s Notebook”

Advice about Advice

“The true secret of giving advice is,
after you have honestly given it,
to be perfectly indifferent whether it is taken or not,
and never persist in trying to set people right.”

Hannah Whitall Smith, 1902

Me Monsters

“The nice thing about egotists
is that they don’t talk about other people.”

Lucille S. Harper