The Voice of Flowers

Fragrant Wild Sweet Pea and Lavender

Take delight in all things that surround us. All things teach us and lead us to God. All things around us are droplets of the love of God – both things animate and inanimate, the plants and the animals, the birds and the mountains, the sea and the sunset and the starry sky. They are little loves through which we attain to the great Love that is Christ. Flowers, for example, have their own grace; they teach us with their fragrance and with their magnificence. They speak to us of the love of God. They scatter their fragrance and their beauty on sinners and on the righteous. ~ St. Porphyrios

Wrapped in Light

Inspiring local sunset accompanied with a natural quartet of peaceful, lapping waves, tangy seabreezes, soft rustling cliff grasses, and the yodeling of gulls flying home to roost for the night.

Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honour and majesty. Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain: Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters: who maketh the clouds his chariot: who walketh upon the wings of the wind: Who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire: Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever. Thou coverest it with the deep as with a garment: the waters stood above the mountains. ~ Psalm 104:1-6

The word inspire comes from Middle English enspire, derived from the Latin inspirare, which means to breathe or blow breath into. Inspire was originally used in the sense of divinity imparting a truth or idea to someone.

Watching the sunset above inspired my soul with a few recollective breaths of memory verse, from Psalm 104.

Echoes of Eden

Arbutus tree and wild golden yarrow flowers overlooking Finlayson Arm, BC. (Old English name for Yarrow was “Our Saviour’s Back.”)

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. ~ Psalm 121: 1-2

Let the sea roar, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. Let the rivers clap their hands: let the hills be joyful together before the Lord; for he cometh to judge the earth: with righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with equity. ~ Psalm 98: 7-9

I want creation to penetrate you with so much admiration that everywhere, wherever you may be, the least plant may bring to you the clear remembrance of the Creator. A single plant, a blade of grass, or one speck of dust is sufficient to occupy all your intelligence in beholding the art with which it has been made. ~ St. Basil the Great

The whole earth is a living icon of the face of God. ~ St. John of Damascus

Some people, to discover God, read books. But there is a great book: the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Note it. Read it. God, Whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink. Instead, He set before your eyes the things He had made. Can you ask for a louder voice than that? ~ St. Augustine

God speaks to us through nature. We may hear His still, small voice, in the seas, the rivers, the mountains and hills; in refreshing breezes and warm sunshine. Long ago, God placed us in the Garden, to tend it, to dress it, and to keep it. Continuing the privilege of being His stewards of the land, we recognize the immense importance of protecting God’s wondrous Gift of Nature. Sometimes we may receive an unexpected blessing, and folded like petals close beneath our hearts, we are sweetly swathed in the unfading Echoes of Eden.

From creation, learn to admire the Lord! Indeed the magnitude and beauty of creation display a God who is the artificer of the universe. He has made the mode of creation to be our best teacher. ~ St. John Chrysostom

Great Sea of Being

God always was, and always is, and always will be. Or rather, God always Is. For Was and Will are fragments of our time, and of changeable nature, but He is Eternal Being. And this is the Name that He gives to Himself when giving the Oracle to Moses in the Mount. For in Himself He sums up and contains all Being, having neither beginning in the past nor end in the future; like some great Sea of Being, limitless and unbounded, transcending all conception of time and nature, only adumbrated [alluded] by the mind, and that very dimly and scantily. ~ St. Gregory the Theologian

Into the Depths of the Sea

Thessaloniki, Greece – 2006

Christ is Risen!

Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. ~ Micah 7:18,19

Truly He is Risen!

His Wonders in the Deep

Christ is Risen!

Those that go down to the sea in ships that do work in many waters, these have seen the works of the LORD and his wonders in the deep. For he commands and raises the stormy wind, which lifts up its waves. They mount up to the heavens; they go down again to the depths; their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro and stagger like a drunken man, and all of their knowledge is of no avail. Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he delivers them out of their afflictions. He makes the storm a calm, so that its waves are still. Then they are glad because they are at rest; so he brings them into the haven of his will. Oh that men would praise the LORD for his mercy and for his wonderful works unto the sons of Adam! ~ Psalm 107:23-31

Truly He is Risen!

Ineffable Greatness

The Lord on high is mightier, Than the noise of many waters, Than the mighty waves of the sea. ~ Psalm 93:4

He stilled the storm to a whisper; the waves of the sea were hushed. ~ Psalm 107:29

And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him. And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep. And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish. And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. But the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him! ~ St. Matthew 8:23-27

Threshold

Today’s 28 Layer Blini Crepe Cake contained… almost zero calories?

Tomorrow’s appeasement-chickpeas are placidly soaking.

Bon Voyage! Wishing you a blessed and fruitful Great Lent!

Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the season of repentance. Let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour of light, that having sailed across the great sea of the Fast, we may reach the third-day Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of our souls. ~ Aposticha Sunday Night Forgiveness Vespers

Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour of light. ~ Romans 13: 11-14

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