Tag Archives: sun

From the rising of the sun…

poetry, Psalms, , , , , ,

PSALM 112

Praise the Lord, O ye servants,
praise ye the Name of the Lord.

Blessed be the Name of the Lord
from henceforth and for evermore.

From the rising of the sun
unto the going down of the same,
the Name of the Lord is to be praised.

High above all the nations is the Lord,
above the heavens is His glory.

Who is like unto the Lord our God?
Who dwelleth on high
and looketh down on things that are lowly,
in heaven and on the earth.

Who raiseth up the poor man from the earth,
and from the dunghill lifteth up the pauper,

Who maketh the barren woman to dwell in a house
and be a mother rejoicing over children.

A warming winter sunshine.

home, nature, , , , , , , , , , ,

When I first sat down at the computer to begin this post, I checked the weather also and the temperature was 79°! I had surprising good sense then, to know that I must postpone writing, and hurry back out into the sunshine. The house was cold, though it was a little warmer than usual because I had stoked the wood fire before going to bed last night.

I dragged the tarp off the woodpile and brought armloads of logs into the garage and the house. Tomorrow the more typical weather will return, and I’ll build fires again.

On my walks this week I was surprised to see the pussy willows out! Today I walked on the golf course for a hundred feet or so trying to get back to the creek path, and I saw lots of English daisies that had escaped someone’s yard and were well established, growing in the turf.

NOT pyracantha, but cotoneaster

I’ve been complaining about February and saying that I want to be in Hawaii next winter, which is silly when I live in such a mild climate. I know I’ve been grumpier than usual partly because of various inconveniences of the remodeling. Experienced altogether over a year’s time they feel like afflictions.

I never thought the disruption — of my solitude, my routine, and my “nest” — would last over a year. At least two of the important persons will tell me things such as, that they are coming “in the next two hours,” so I wait around and don’t take a walk or run errands, but then they don’t come at all. If I run the errands at night, I get to bed late, but the workers might arrive at 7:30 the next morning. I’m sort of stuck here a lot, but with not much I can do of my usual housework. (That’s why I’ve been able to write more blog posts lately.)

But “Richard the Wonderful” is the main carpenter, and he is always my friend. 🙂 Today he was finishing the prep work for the bathroom tile, including this Valentine pink stinky waterproofing stuff that had to be painted around the tub/shower.

I was glad the day was so warm, because it gave me a chance to make use of another improvement in my upstairs arrangement. The new passageway between my bedroom and the sewing room also allows for a cross breeze from the front of the house to the back, and I opened those windows to let the smell out. This option will make a big difference during the rare heat wave, to be able to get that draft going as soon as the sun goes down and cool off my bedroom so I can sleep.

In my garden, the asparagus spears are emerging!

The east side/front of my house only gets a good amount of morning sun in the upstairs rooms, of which my new sewing room is one. Long ago we used to do our homeschooling in that big room (now divided into two) because on clear winter days it was by far the warmest place in the house. As soon as possible I’m planning to get a cozy chair in which I can sit by the window and bask on chilly mornings. I expect to look something like this lady when I do.

But now, my feet are already cold, so I’ll go tuck them under some blankets!

(painting “Morning Sun” by Harold Knight)

Love like the sun.

love, quotes,

“Man is worthy of being loved just because he’s in the image of God. It doesn’t matter at all if he’s good or bad, moral or sinful. Man is worthy of being loved for what he is. Christ loved and sacrificed Himself for sinful, corrupt people. ‘I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance’ (Matthew 9:13).

“We should be the same way: we should love everyone without making any distinctions. Just like the sun rises on everyone, intelligent and unintelligent, good and evil, beautiful and ugly, our love should be like the love of God – love that’s like the sun and shines on His whole creation without making distinctions.”

+Saint Paisios

(Quoted in The Gurus, the Young Man, and Elder Paisios by Dionysios Farasiotis.)

In the depths of your being.

my garden, nature, quotes, , , ,

During Lent our women’s book club at church is reading Wounded by Love: The Life and Wisdom of Saint Porphyrios. Merely reading the words of this 20th-century saint as he tells about his life is “wounding” me with his own love, which of course flows from God Himself through that human life that received much grace.

Yesterday was sunny and the biting winds had calmed. When I went out to cut some asparagus and then to look more closely at the plum blossoms, the orange chair invited me to sit down; immediately the ergonomics of the Adirondack design and the enclosed spot between the rosemary and the fava beans began to apply a balm to my body and soul, and before my face started to burn I went back to the house to get my book and sun hat.

This is what the view was like, from my cozy corner:

Did you notice that black chair by the rosemary above? I actually got too hot after a while and moved to that one. Then I was closer to the tray bird feeder and I took this picture; it was almost as hard for me to see the birds as they are to see in this shot, everything was so sunny bright.

I alternated between being lost in the saint’s tale of his youth in Greece, and being conscious of the deliciousness of my situation and how it seemed to be the perfect lenten activity and food for the soul that had been given to me. Truly, if it were not Lent I no doubt would be busy about more “useful” work. But here I was, enjoying the first days of springtime, watching the bees — the first sighted this year — working the rosemary.

And then, what was that –?  on my hat, making a rustling noise and scratching feeling through the weave. I raised my hand, and a bird flew off into the redwood tree. I could see his profile up there, smaller than a dove but larger than a finch… and then he was right back down to the feeder, and he was a sparrow. Did he land on me because he didn’t recognize me as a human, or because he did recognize me as the lady who fills the feeders?

In the front garden the pale yellow California poppies have sprouted all over the place, and one bloom opened. This picture of plum flowers shows my bedroom window up above.

As my bones warmed from the solar heat, my heart soaked up joy from Father Porphyrios. There is so much I want to share with you about him, but for now I’ll just offer this quote from the second part of the book, which collects some of his teachings. Then I need to get out of this cold corner of my house and into the sunshine again.

“Man seeks joy and happiness in heaven. He seeks what is eternal far from everyone and everything. He seeks to find joy in God. God is a mystery. He is silence. He is infinite. He is everything. Everyone possesses this inclination of the soul for heaven. All people seek something heavenly. All beings turn towards Him, albeit unconsciously.

“Turn your mind towards Him continually. Learn to love prayer, familiar converse with the Lord. What counts above all is love, passionate love for the Lord, for Christ the Bridegroom. Become worthy of Christ’s love. In order not to live in darkness, turn on the switch of prayer so that divine light may flood your soul. Christ will appear in the depths of your being. There, in the deepest and most inward part, is the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is within you [Luke 17:21].”

–St. Porphyrios

[I’m sorry to give you the same quote that I see I posted before, when there are so many other good ones! Well, they will come, God willing.]