A little comfort on a very ordinary day…

For the life of me, I could find nothing photo worthy today, or yesterday or the day before… It’s just January in our  sleepy backwater.  The evergreens are still green, the rest of the trees still quite bare and the water still wet… What more can I say? (or see?)

Reflections are deeper and more somber at this time of year, both in the swamp out back and in my head—but nothing very picturesque!

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I did  see a robin today, which is a hopeful sign!  And there might have been a picture of a chubby little gray bird with his creamy bib had he stayed still for a few seconds…but he flitted off.

So, I leave you instead a tip for getting off to a good start on very ordinary days that hold no particular promise of great things to come.

Pick up some steel-cut oats (Costco carries them now!).  Soak a cupful overnight in a couple cups of water…and in the morning after just a few minutes of cooking…voila, comfort food!

P1130567 Of course, if you happen to have some left-over whipped cream just waiting to be lapped up, that will help.

Add a sprinkle of  Turbinado Sugar for just the right sparkle and crunch.  For the record, I don’t use it because it’s less refined than white, it’s just prettier, tastier, and well, crunchier!

Oh, how a proper bowl of oatmeal warms and brightens an otherwise very ordinary day!  Try it and see.

Here’s wishing you many winter mornings warmed with steaming bowls full of steel-cut oats ( :

–LS

A Winter’s Day Walk…

Broom and bramble compete to obscure the way, but twin firs mark it still…P1130560

The Lake gleams far below where sun has shot through clouds’ billowing defenses…

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Young trees rise to conquer the once-cleared slope…

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Boats and their houses lie safely snugged in quiet harbor lolling below…

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While a gut-wrenchingly forlorn bray rends the air as if speaking for the whole of creation: “How long, Lord, how long?”

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“For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now…Even so, come Lord Jesus.” (Rom.8:22; Rev.22:20)

–LS

“At twenty, you want to save the world. At forty, you want to be saved from it.”—Robert Bruce

The Grandeur of God

Today, from the archives, this scrumptious morsel of words that bear reading and re-reading, by Gerard Manley Hopkins

“The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

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berries
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed.  Why do men then now not reck his rod?*
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Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

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And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

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And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

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And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs–

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Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.”

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–by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

I’m grateful for the Spirit of God who makes those He inhabits to be lights in dark places despite themselves!  Shine on!

–LS

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” Jn.8:12 ESV

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Mt.5:14 ESV

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*”reck His rod” = heed His divine authority

Edited from the Archives–Dec.3,2010