“…Love is reflected in love.” – Mary Baker Eddy
Note: The artwork below was published by the USGS. The artwork was created to illustrate the water cycle, but I have modified it and added my own text to show… well… something else. 🙂
Every year, during the first weekend of August, Anacortes, Washington, hosts its art festival. I always have such a blast there – not just because of the beauteous art that fills every booth …
Source: “The best part was the people.”
It was so beautiful on Sauk Mountain yesterday that I teared up from the sheer dazzling wonder of it. The wildflowers were amazing – Indian paintbrush, and tiger lillies, and daisies – …
Source: Sauk Mountain Dazzled
The sculptor turns from the marble to his model in order to perfect his conception. We are all sculptors, working at various forms, moulding and chiseling thought. What is the model before mortal mind? Is it imperfection, joy, sorrow, sin, suffering? Have you accepted the mortal model? Are you reproducing it?… Do you not hear from all mankind of the imperfect model? The world is holding it before your gaze continually… We must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives. Let unselfishness, goodness, mercy, justice, health, holiness, love – the kingdom of heaven – reign within us, and sin, disease, and death will diminish until they finally disappear.
– Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
Ah hah! Now I can see –
that that’s not the truth about me!
An impatient, sad, and fearful she
has nothing at all to do with me.
I am Love’s joyous, happy child –
giving and free and kind and mild
Right where I am – right now and here
I have all that I need and nothing to fear
In this moment I’m safe, with all that is dear.
I’m surrounded in Love and full of good cheer.
– Karen Molenaar Terrell
I passed this young woman riding her bike along the side of Chuckanut. Her bike was loaded with supplies – the coolest thing she had on there was a cheery little sunbonnet. I went to The Sisters for my lavender iced tea, and as I was getting back in my car she rode by on her bike. I asked her if she’d like something cold to drink from the Sisters and she said yes, that would be great. She ordered a strawberry lemonade and we sat down at the picnic table for a quick chat. She was very cool. Her name is Kathleen (she goes by Kasey), and she’s traveling on her bike from Alaska to San Diego. (!) She hails from jolly olde England and has a wonderful accent.
Here’s the URL to her blog: https://uphilldownhillrepeat.wordpress.com/
Kathleen Pollitt
Brought Moz and Dad (98) over today to watch The Sound of Music and to give Dad a chance to watercolor on my dining room table. I told him on the drive over that this time it was just for him – he wasn’t going to be painting for anyone else. So I brought in his paints, set out his watercolor paper, and went into the family room to start The Sound of Music for Moz – and by the time I got back to Dad he’d already started painting! I asked him what he was painting, and he said he was “just farting around.” I watched him for a bit, as a mountain emerged on his paper, and I asked him what mountain he was painting there, and he said, “It could be any mountain.”
He didn’t finish today. After he’d laid down the background and a few trees he went in and watched The Sound of Music with Moz. I told him I was going to bring him back sometime soon to work some more on his painting, and he nodded his head and said, “Okay.” I told him I’d keep his paints here because this is a nice quiet place for him to work, and he won’t have a lot of interruptions here, and he said, “Yeah. That’s good.”
Dad Painting
“Whatever inspires with wisdom, Truth, or Love—be it song, sermon, or Science—blesses the human family with crumbs of comfort from Christ’s table, feeding the hungry and giving living waters to the thirsty.”
– Mary Baker Eddy
Man, I am really going to miss President Obama. I’m sitting here, wiping the tears and snot from my face, having just listened to his speech. We have been so blest to have him at the helm the last eight years. Here are some quotes from his speech that really inspired me (and I really needed to feel some inspiration right now):
“It can be frustrating, this business of democracy. Trust me, I know… when the other side refuses to compromise… (but) I promise you when we keep at it, when we change enough minds… then progress does happen. Democracy works, America. But we gotta want it. Not just during an election year, but during all the years in between. We all need to be as vocal and persistent as Bernie Sanders’s supporters have been this election… Feel the Bern! “
– Pres. Obama
“The American dream is something no wall will ever contain.”
– Pres. Obama
“We can honor police and treat every community fairly – we can do that.”
– Pres. Obama
“Democracy doesn’t work if we constantly demonize each other. For progress to happen we have to listen to each other and see ourselves in each other and… fight to find common ground.”
– Pres. Obama
“Democracy isn’t a spectactor sport. It isn’t about yes, he will. It’s about yes, WE can.”
– Pres. Obama
“America is already great… and I’ll tell you that our greatness does not depend on Donald Trump. He’s betting that if he scares enough people he might just score enough points to win this election… He’s selling the American people short. We’re not a fragile people. We’re not a frightened people… we don’t look to be ruled. Our power comes from those immortal declarations “WE hold these truths to be self-evident…” It’s not about what one person can do FOR us, but what we can achieve together.”
– Pres. Obama
“We’re not done perfecting our union…and that work involves a big choice this November… this is not your typical election… this is a more fundamental choice about who we are as a people and whether we stay true to this great American experiment in self government…what we heard in Cleveland wasn’t particularly Republican, and it certainly wasn’t conservative… (when) we turn away from each other and isolate ourselves from the world… that is not the America i know. The America i know is full of courage and optimism… decent and generous… we are challenged to do better, to be better…(as I’ve traveled around the country) what I have seen more than anything is what is right with America…I see a younger generation full of energy and new ideas.. ready to seize what ought to be… I see an America of every party, every background, every faith…. who believe we are stronger together… that’s the America I know.”
– Pres. Obama
In 2012 I was a delegate for Pres. Obama at the 2012 Washington State Democratic Convention. Here I am with Cory Booker. Yeah, I was a little excited. 🙂
Adventures of the Madcap Christian Scientist 