Since it’s spring, I’ve been thinking about Spring Ephemerals and the Calendar of Firsts. It’s the most glorious time of the year for wildflower hunters. Seemingly daily something new is happening and keeping my Calendar of Firsts up to date becomes a chore – a loving chore – but real work to open it and update it each day.
“At the root of the question is the quest.” Carolyn Weber
Remember those who celebrated the Passover in days gone by, in its unreal and shadowy form; when the command was given to mark their gateposts with the blood of a lamb, they were also sprinkled with hyssop [Exod. 12:22]. This is a lowly and gentle plant, but nothing is stronger or more penetrating than its…
Should humans use each other or enjoy each other? In what way should they love themselves? Which of the things to be used should be loved? Is it possible to hate oneself? Can all people be loved equally in practice? Does the commandment to love one’s neighbour apply to the angels? Does God, in loving…
January and February have brought blow upon blow of bad news for some whom we love. 2022 has been a challenging year so far – many to pray for, many to serve as we can. I’m thankful for some of my reading which points me to higher things. In Voices from the Past: Puritan Devotional…
It’s all their fault, those Their Sistership Spring Seminar called Excellent Marxmanship and read from several books including The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engel. I read the Preface this week This proposition, which, in my opinion, is destined to do for history what Darwin’s theory has done for biology, we, both of us, had…
We cannot make a child ‘good’; but, in this way, we can lay paths for the good life in the very substance of his brain. We cannot make him hear the voice of God; but, again, we can make paths where the Lord God may walk in the cool of the evening. We cannot make…
I’ve been reading Edwin Way Teale’s book Circle of the Seasons this year. A little selection, well written, every day about nature observed. Yesterday’s stood out to me as perhaps more than a natural observation, but a metaphor for our times as well. An old maple tree, that I have known for many years near…
I begged to look about the garden. My request evidently pleased the old gentleman, who took me all round the place and showed me his six-and-twenty cows, named after the different letters of the alphabet. As we went along, he surprised me occasionally by repeating apt and beautiful quotations from the poets, ranging easily from…