Competition In Hand

I send Two Sunsets —
Day and I — in competition ran —
I finished Two—and several Stars —
While He — was making One —

His own was ampler — but as I
Was saying to a friend —
Mine — is the more convenient
To Carry in the Hand —

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Quote for Thought (3)

"That the world is my world appears in the fact that the boundaries of language (the only language I understand) indicate the boundaries of my world."

(Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889-1951)

The Art of Your Face

I find the lyrics to this song by Michael Card so inspiring and wanted to share them. They challenge and inspire me to truly live and to live truly. I hope you'll enjoy them.

Life is a song we must sing with our days
A poem with meaning more than words can say
A painting with colors no rainbow can tell
A lyric that rhymes either heaven or hell

We are living letters that doubt desecrates
We've the notes of the song of the chorus of faith
God shapes every second of our little lives
And minds every minute as the universe waits by

The pain and the longing
The joy and the moments of light
Are the rhythm and rhyme
The free verse of the poem of life

So look in the mirror and pray for the grace

TO TEAR OFF THE MASK,
SEE THE ART OF YOUR FACE

Open your earlids to hear the sweet song
Of each moment that passes and pray to prolong
Your time in the ball of

THE DANCE OF YOUR DAYS

Your canvas of colors
Of moments ablaze
With all the is holy
With the joy and the strife
With the rhythm and rhyme of the poem of your life
With the rhythm and rhyme of the poem of your life.

I find all of Michael Card's work very inspired, very inspiring, very meaningful and very scriptural. These lyrics, of course, are much more powerful WITH the music.

If you're interested you'll find this song on his album Poiema

Welcoming SKY

Sierra Katherine

Welcome to the world!!

I wish my arms could reach all the way to North Carolina to hold you!

Congratulations Mike and Amy!!

Stone Standing

If you are looking for a new and unusual hobby, you might want to consider stone standing. My husband and son took it up recently and practiced it a great deal on our recent trip.

The idea is to balance one stone on top of another and to do so in a way that appears impossible. Choose an oblong stone - perhaps with a pointy end - and balance it so it is standing the long way on top of another stone as the images show.

It's really pretty cool when you find the balance point and let go and it does, in fact, stay in place.

Motto: Leave no stone unbalanced.

Trippin'

Commentary on trippin' through national parks across the Western USA:

Bryce is nice.

Grand Canyon is gorgeous.

The Rockies rock.

But NOTHING beats Yosemite!

Morality of Knowledge

Have I said anything I started out to say about being good? . . . . I don’t know. A stranger is shot in the street, you hardly move to help. But if, half an hour before, you spent just ten minutes with the fellow and knew a little about him and his family, you might just jump in front of his killer and try to stop it. Really knowing is good. Not knowing, or refusing to know is bad, or amoral, at least. You can’t act if you don’t know. Acting without knowing takes you right off the cliff.

from Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury 1962

A Puzzle

Here is a puzzle for you. I will post answers in the comment section in two weeks.

The puzzle is to decipher the symbols on the image below (click to enlarge).


To get you going in the right direction, let me tell you this is a score card from a simple card game (Rook), which is based on bidding and the winner of the bid choosing the suit (color) that is trump and calling a partner.

A score card could simply consist of the players names with a running total of points below, but, my husband, like his father before him, has turned score keeping into an art form - recording every bit of minutiae possible.

Can you determine what all the extra symbols mean - the stars and o's and lines and letters and plusses and minuses and any other extraneous markings you see? They all have meaning and are not just doodles.

When we get back from Colorado in two weeks, I'll check the comments to see how you did!