It is time, I think,

to stop being aimless -

while continuing to strive for

purpose

  and

to pay attention

to the moments of

Daily Grace.

To reach for Grace.

To savor those

Grace Moments.

Visit my new site

Daily Awareness

enlightenment

noun

1. the act of enlightening.

2. the state of being enlightened:   to live in spiritual enlightenment.

3. ( usually initial capital letter ) Buddhism, Hinduism . Prajna.

4. the Enlightenment, a philosophical movement  of the 18th century, characterized by belief in the power of human reason and by innovations in political, religious, and educational doctrine.

Dottsy Brodt Dwyer (born April 6, 1953) is an American country music singer. Between 1975 and 1981, she recorded as Dottsy for the  RCA Records label. During that timespan, she charted thirteen cuts on the Hot Country Songs charts, including the Top Ten “(After Sweet Memories) Play Born to Lose Again.” Four of her other songs reached Top 20 on the same chart.

source: Wikipedia

One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The important achievement of Apollo was demonstrating that humanity is not forever chained to this planet and our visions go rather further than that and our opportunities are unlimited. – Neil Armstrong

. . . But history does matter. There is a line connecting the Armenians and the Jews and the Cambodians and the Serbs and the Rwandans. There are obviously more, but really how much genocide can one sentence handle? You get the point.

- excerpt from Chris Bohjalian’s novel The Sandcastle Girls

There’s no substitute for the love of language, for the beauty of an English sentence.  There’s no substitute for struggling, if a struggle is needed, to make an English sentence as beautiful as it should be. – Harper Lee

May I live this day

Compassionate of heart,

Clear in word,

Gracious in awareness,

Courageous in thought,

Generous in love.

No artist in the history of country music has had a more stylistically diverse career than Marty Robbins. Never content to remain just a country singer, Robbins performed successfully in a dazzling array of styles during more than 30 years in the business. To his credit, Robbins rarely followed trends but often took off in directions that stunned both his peers and fans. Plainly Robbins was not hemmed in by anyone’s definition of country music. Although his earliest recordings were unremarkable weepers, by the mid-’50s Robbins was making forays into rock music, adding fiddles to the works of Chuck Berry and Little Richard.

Source: CMT

Criticism was always the shortest kid in the class. He learned early to use words to defend himself. As a teenager, Criticism loved to take things apart. At that time he didn’t care if they ever got put back together. He retains a strong curiosity about how things work and a deep respect for tools. Criticism is a strict father. He adores his children, but he fears their spontaneity.

Sometimes I want to write Criticism a letter and tell him to leave me alone. The problem is that when I don’t see him for a while, I start to miss him. Still, my conversations with him often make me nervous. I usually believe the bad things he says and forget about the good stuff. When we really disagree, I am upset for days and run around asking everyone I meet to reassure me. If I could trust him more, it would be different, but he changes his mind as much as I do. For all his sensitivity, it was years before he realized that other people also have feelings.

- J. Ruth Gendler, The Book of Qualities

My visits to Clarity are soothing now. He never tells me what to think or feel or do but shows me how to find out what I need to know. It was not always like this. I used to visit other people who visited him. Finally, I summoned the courage to call on him myself. I still remember the first time I went to see him. Was I surprised. He lives on a hill in a little house surrounded by wild roses. I went in the living room and sat down in a comfortable chair by the fireplace. There were topographical maps on the walls, and the room was full of stuff, musical instruments and telescopes and gloves, geodes and crystals and old Italian tarot decks, two small cats. When I left, he presented me with a sketchbook and told me to draw the same thing every day until the drawing started to speak to me.

- The Book of Qualities by J. Ruth Gendler

. . . Christian values, however, cannot be accepted as a superior utilitarianism, just as a means to an end. The biblical message is true and it demands a commitment to truth. It means that everything is not the result of the impersonal plus time plus chance, but that there is an infinite-personal God who is the Creator of the universe, the space-time continuum. We should not forget that this was what the founders of modern science built upon. It means the acceptance of Christ as Savior and Lord, and it means living under God’s revelation. Here there are morals, values, and meaning, including meaning for people, which are not just a result of statistical averages. This is neither a utilitarianism, nor a leap away from reason; it is the truth that gives a unity to all of knowledge and all of life. This second alternative means that individuals come to the place where they have this base, and they influence the consensus. Such Christians do not need to be a majority in order for this influence on society to occur.

Note: the title of Francis Schaeffer’s book comes from the watchman passage in Ezekiel 33:1-11, 19.

Verse 10:

Therefore, O thou son of man, speak unto the house of Israel; Thus ye speak, saying, If our transgressions and our sins be upon us, and we pine away in them, how should we then live?