“i love to mingle with wild nature, because i am a part of it”
-Rini Elvirawaty
Posted by: jakinnan | September 9, 2012
The Natural Mingle
Posted in Nature Writer Quotes | Tags: art, beauty, books, conservation, earth, enviroment, literature, local, nature, personal, photography
Posted by: jakinnan | September 9, 2012
The Worst of all Possible Reactions
The heart, as Pascal said, “has its reasons that reason knows not of.” Something in us longs, or hopes, maybe even at times believes that this is not the way things were supposed to be. Our desire fights the assault of death upon life. And so people with terminal illnesses get married. Prisoners in a concentration camp plant flowers. Lovers long divorced still reach out in the night to embrace one who is no longer there. Its like the phantom pain experienced by those who have lost a limb. Feelings still emanate from that region where once was a crucial part of them, and they will sometimes find themselves being careful not to bang the corner of a table or slam the car door on a leg or arm long since removed. Our hearts know a similar reality. At some deep level, we refuse to accept the fact that this is the way things are, or must be, or always will be.
Simone Weil was right, there are only two things that pierce the human heart: beauty and affliction. Moments we wish would last forever and moments we wish had never begun. What are we to make of these messengers? How are we to interpret what they are saying? As the playwright Christopher Fry wrote,
The inescapable dramatic situation for us all is that we have no idea what our situation is. We may be mortal. What then? We may be immortal. What then? We are plunged into an existence fantastic to the point of nightmare, and however hard we rationalize, or however firm our religious faith, however closely we dog the heels of science or wheel among the starts of mysticism, we cannot really make head or tail of it.
And what does Fry say we do with our dilemma? The worst of all possible reactions:
We get used to it. We get broken into it so gradually we scarcely notice it.
-John Eldredge, Desire, 8 & 9
Posted in Ransomed Heart | Tags: books, John Eldredge, literature, love, nature, personal, photography, Ransomed Heart, salvation
Posted by: jakinnan | September 9, 2012
09/09/2012 Scripture
“I have revealed you[a] to the ones you gave me from this world. They were always yours. You gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything I have is a gift from you,8 for I have passed on to them the message you gave me. They accepted it and know that I came from you, and they believe you sent me.
John 17:6-8 NLT
Posted in Daily Scriptures | Tags: beauty, Bible, Christianity, faith, God, Jesus Christ, life, love, nature, photography
Posted by: jakinnan | September 8, 2012
Offering Beauty
Beauty overwhelms us, enchants us, fascinates us, and calls us.
(Fr. Andrew Greeley)
For a woman to unveil her beauty means she is offering her heart.
Not primarily her works or her usefulness (think Martha in the kitchen). Offering her presence. At family gatherings my mother hid in the kitchen. She cooked and baked and prepared and served and cleaned and for the life of us, we couldn’t get her out of there. We wanted her to share her life with us, her thoughts, her ideas, not just her effort. She wouldn’t come. And we were less because of it.
The gift of presence is a rare and beautiful gift. To come unguarded, undistracted, and be fully present and fully engaged with the one whom we are with. Have you noticed in reading the Gospels that people enjoyed being around Jesus? They wanted to be near him – to share a meal, take a walk, have a lingering conversation. It was the gift of his presence. When you were with him, you felt he was offering you his heart. When we offer our unguarded presence, we live like Jesus. And we invite others to do the same.
-John & Stasi Eldredge, Captivating, 138
Posted in Ransomed Heart | Tags: beauty, books, John Eldredge, literature, love, nature, personal, photography, Ransomed Heart
Posted by: jakinnan | September 8, 2012
Help Me God!
“There never was a moment in my life, when I felt so in the Presence, as I do now. I feel as if the Almighty were so real, and so near, that I could reach out and touch Him, as I could this wonderful work of His, if I dared. I feel like saying to Him: ‘To the extent of my brain power I realize Your presence, and all it is in me to comprehend of Your power. Help me to learn, even this late, the lessons of Your wonderful creations. Help me to unshackle and expand my soul to the fullest realization of Your wonders. Almighty God, make me bigger, make me broader!”
Gene Stratton-Porter, A Girl of the Limberlost
Posted in Nature Writer Quotes | Tags: art, beauty, books, conservation, earth, enviroment, God, literature, local, nature, personal, photography, spirituality
Posted by: jakinnan | September 8, 2012
09/08/2012 Scripture
And this is the way to have eternal life—to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth. I brought glory to you here on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. Now, Father, bring me into the glory we shared before the world began.
-John 17:3-5 NLT
Picture Credit: D L Ennis
Posted in Daily Scriptures | Tags: beauty, Bible, Christianity, faith, God, Jesus Christ, life, love, nature, photography
Posted by: jakinnan | September 7, 2012
Kings in Exile
All good things come to an end. I hate that phrase. It’s a lie. Even our troubles and our heartbreaks tell us something about our true destiny. The tragedies that strike us to the core and elicit the cry “this isn’t the way it was supposed to be!” are also telling the truth – it isn’t the way it was supposed to be. And so Pascal writes,
Man is so great that his greatness appears even in knowing himself to be miserable. A tree has no sense of its misery. It is true that to know we are miserable is to be miserable; but to know we are miserable is also to be great. Thus all the miseries of man prove his grandeur; they are the miseries of a dignified personage, the miseries of a dethroned monarch…What can this incessant craving, and this impotence of attainment mean, unless there was once a happiness belonging to man, of which only the faintest traces remain, in that void which he attempts to fill with everything within his reach?
Should the king in exile pretend he is happy there? Should he not seek his own country? His miseries are his ally; they urge him on. And so let them grow, if need be. But do not forsake the secret of life; do not despise those kingly desires. We abandon the most important journey of our lives when we abandon desire. We leave our hearts by the side of the road and head off in the direction of fitting in, getting by, being productive, what have you. Whatever we might gain – money, position, the approval of others, or just to get away from the discontent itself – its not worth it. “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” (Matt 16:26).
-John Eldredge, Desire, 12, 13
Posted in Ransomed Heart | Tags: beauty, Bible, faith, God, Jesus Christ, John Eldredge, life, local, love, nature, personal, photography, Ransomed Heart, salvation, spirituality
Posted by: jakinnan | September 7, 2012
Returning the Natural Favor
“When the world has changed and the rivers run dry ad the forests grow brown will we realize that we don’t run the world. We must understand that Nature is what helped us into this beautiful planet, so we must help her in return.”
-Verinoca White
Picture Credit: BullDoug
Posted in Nature Writer Quotes | Tags: beauty, books, conservation, earth, enviroment, local, nature, Nebraska, personal, photography, rivers
Posted by: jakinnan | September 7, 2012
09/07/2012 Scripture
Jesus asked, “Do you finally believe? But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when you will be scattered, each one going his own way, leaving me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me. I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”
-John 16:31-33 NLT
Posted in Daily Scriptures | Tags: beauty, Bible, Christianity, faith, God, Jesus Christ, life, love, nature, photography
Posted by: jakinnan | September 6, 2012
Rushing the Field
A friend of mine wanted to teach English as a second language in an Asian country, as a way of becoming a sort of undercover missionary. A beautiful dream, one that I’m sure she would have been excellent in fulfilling. But she rushed to the field unprepared in many ways. I don’t mean finances and language skills; I mean in the ways of the heart. Lurking down in her soul were some deep and unresolved issues that would set her up for a fall: among them shame and guilt from an abusive past. The team she joined was totally unfamiliar with the new heart, and they doubted its goodness; as with too many Christian ministries, shame and guilt were often used as motivators. Their old covenant theology would play right into Susan’s issues, shut down her young heart. Finally, she was unpracticed in spiritual warfare, ill-equipped for what hell would throw at her. The devil is a master at shame and guilt. She went; she got hammered; she came home, defeated. Her friends wonder if she’ll ever try it again.
The disaster could have been avoided. Wisdom was crying out: do not rush the field (Luke 14:31); train yourself to discern good and evil (Heb. 5:14); live as though your life is at stake, and the enemy is waiting to outwit you (Matt. 10:16). God has given us all sorts of counsel and direction in his written Word; thank God, we have it written down in black and white. We would do well to be familiar with it, study it with all the intensity of the men who studied the maps of the Normandy coastline before they hit the beaches on D-Day. The more that wisdom enters our hearts, the more we will be able to trust our hearts in difficult situations. Notice that wisdom is not cramming our head with principles. It is developing a discerning heart. What made Solomon such a sharp guy was his wise and discerning heart (1 Kings 3:9).
We don’t seek wisdom because it’s a good idea; we seek wisdom because we’re dead if we don’t.
-John Eldredge, Waking the Dead, 99-100
Posted in Ransomed Heart | Tags: art, beauty, books, faith, God, Jesus Christ, John Eldredge, literature, nature, photography, Ransomed Heart, salvation
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