New Wine

The Clementine gifts in 2009

Were symbolic

Of something alcoholic

Could be from the 'Grapes of Laugh'

Or maybe fermented from a bitter past-
Heaven knows

But one thing is clear
The taste that once set our teeth on edge
Is gone-no longer here

Thank You, sweet Jesus
It's Your Spirit
That frees us

Helping us restore blocked water sources
Supplying refreshment-changing our courses

It's finding new direction
Not a matter of our perfection

You are the Perfect One
The Father's uniquely precious Son

Smokin' flaxes

Thank You Lord for not quenching smoking flaxes
Your grace brings us to a place that relaxes


And You don't discard bruised reeds
Instead You come in love
With Your Truth
To meet each of our needs

What could be better
Released from each fetter
Joy for our sorrow
Less and less anxious about tomorrow

Daily Choices

After reading Eugene Peterson's study of Jonah in which he describes a dream in which he learns of a friends best selling book consisting of lists compiled of daily events-and realizing the sacredness of the 'ordinary', the thought occurred to me that the choices of the moments of our lives determine whether we become chaff or chalices--a thought for pondering on our daily adventures in our personal Ninevahs!

More Quotes of John Muir

• The dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on seas and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.
• I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.
• The mountains are fountains of men as well as of rivers, of This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; glaciers, of fertile soil. The great poets, philosophers, prophets, able men whose thought and deeds have moved the world, have come down from the mountains—mountain-dwellers who have grown up strong there with the forest trees in Nature's workshops.

Tribute to one of the greatest Champions of the Mountains

To few men was it given to realize so completely the elements of eternity— of time-effacing enjoyment in work— as it was to John Muir. The secret of it all was in his soul, the soul of a child, of a poet, and of a strong man, all blended into one. An innate nobility of character, an unstudied reverence for all that is sublime in nature or in life, unconsciously called forth the best in his friends and acquaintances. In the spiritual as in the physical realm flowers blossomed in his footsteps where he went. After all it is to such men as John Muir that we must look for the sustenance of those finer feelings that keep men in touch with the spiritual meaning and beauty of the universe, and make them capable of understanding those rare souls whose insight has invested life with imperishable hope and charm. To all who knew John Muir intimately his gentleness and humaneness toward all creatures that shared the world with him, was one of the finest attributes of his character... Among those who have won title to remembrance as prophets and interpreters of nature he rises to a moral as well as poetical altitude that will command the admiring attention of men so long as human records shall endure.

• William Frederic Badé