There is much beauty here, because there is much beauty everywhere. Rainer Maria Rilke I pull on tall rubber boots and forge a path through the snow down to the lake. For the first few minutes, it’s Little House on the Prairie snow, the insistent cloud of blizzard crystals stinging my face, the accumulated weight…
Tag: beauty
Angelina & The Lupine Lady
“That is all very well, little Alice,” said her grandfather, “but there is a third thing you must do.” “What is that?” asked Alice. “You must do something to make the world more beautiful,” said her grandfather. “All right,” said Alice. But she did not know what that could be. In the meantime Alice got…
More Beautiful Than It Has To Be
The air was cool and fresh. Ten thousand brilliant stars arched across the sky. But what transfixed us was the phosphorescence. Every little wave rolling into the cove was crested with cold fire. The anchor rode was a line of fire going down into the depths, and fish moving about left trails of fire. The…
This Is The Day
This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice, and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24 “I’m not that sporty,” I said one day long ago, walking around Greenlake with a friend. “You didn’t do sports in high school?” “No, I did. I ran cross country for three years. I didn’t really…
There Are No Lakes Till Eternity
We are not permitted to linger, even with what is most intimate. From images that are full, the spirit plunges on to others that suddenly must be filled; there are no lakes till eternity. Here, falling is best. To fall from the mastered emotion into the guessed-at, and onward. Rainer Maria Rilke, from “To Hölderlin” We…
In the Forest
In the woods, is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods, we return to reason and faith. Ralph Waldo Emerson It is grey November, a Thursday afternoon,…
There And Back Again
Nobody tells you when you get born here How much you’ll come to love it, And how you’ll never belong here. So I call you my country, And I’ll be lonely for my home And I wish that I could take you there with me. “Land of My Sojourn,” Rich Mullins It’s still dark at…
Capturing the Castle
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living…
Yours Also Is the Night
Yours is the day, Yours also is the night. Psalm 74:16 The day has already been long. This morning, we walked up the 2000 meter mountain just behind our school, stopping only for a swim on the 30°+ C day before ascending to “the next summit.” It was a narrow strip of grass underneath a…
Bright Things (Come to Confusion)
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream; Brief as the lightning in the collied night… And ere a man hath power to say ‘Behold!’ The jaws of darkness do devour it up: So quick bright things come to confusion. A Midsummer Night’s Dream (I, i) I am ending the Ingraham ninth grade year with…
The Way Home 