east or west

Breakfast was so pleasant. Then, briskly, and still talking,  Laura and Carrie did the dishes and went upstairs to make the beds. While they were tucking in a sheet, Laura said, "Carrie, do you ever think how lucky we are to have a home like this?"

Carrie looking around her in surprise. There was nothing to be seen except the two beds, the three boxes under the eaves where they kept their things, and the underside of the shingles overhead. There was also the stovepipe that came up through the floor and went out through the roof.

"It is snug," Carrie said, while they spread the first quilt and folded and tucked in its corners. "I guess I never did think, exactly."

"You wait till you go away," Laura said. "Then you'll think."

a moveable feast

 "Since by His mercy He gives us still a little time, let us begin in earnest, let us repair the lost time, let us return with a full assurance to that FATHER of mercies, who is always ready to receive us affectionately. Let us renounce, let us generously renounce, for the love of Him, all that is not Himself; He deserves infinitely more. Let us think of Him perpetually. Let us put all our trust in Him: I doubt not but we shall soon find the effects of it, in receiving the abundance of His grace, with which we can do all things, and without which we can do nothing but sin.

We cannot escape the dangers which abound in life, without the actual and continual help of GOD; let us then pray to Him for it continually. How can we pray to Him without being with Him? How can we be with Him but in thinking of Him often? And how can we often think of Him, but by a holy habit which we should form of it? You will tell me that I am always saying the same thing: it is true, for this is the best and easiest method I know; and as I use no other, I advise all the world to it. We must know before we can love. In order to know GOD, we must often think of Him; and when we come to love Him, we shall then also think of Him often, for our heart will be with our treasure."

~The Practice of the Presence of God

Brother Lawrence

agape

“How then are we to have this transcendent living whole conveyed into our souls? We brace our wills to secure it. We try to copy those who have it. We lay down rules about it. We watch. We pray. But these things alone will not bring Love into our nature. Love is an effect. And only as we fulfill the right condition can we have the effect produced. Shall I tell you what the cause is? ...“Because He first loved us,” the effect follows that we love, we love Him, we love all men.... Our heart is slowly changed. Contemplate the love of Christ, and you will love. Stand before that mirror, reflect Christ’s character, and you will be changed into the same image from tenderness to tenderness. There is no other way. You cannot love to order. You can only look at the lovely object, and fall in love with it, and grow into likeness to it .” 

"The Greatest Thing in the World"

Henry Drummond

wherefore

"He looked at the world as differently from other men as if he had come out of that dark hole walking on his hands. If we apply this parable of Our Lady's Tumbler to the case, we shall come very near to the point of it...Thus that inverted vision, so much more bright and quaint and arresting, does bear a certain resemblance to the world which a mystic like St. Francis sees every day. But herein is the essential part of the parable. Our Lady's Tumbler did not stand on his head in order to see flowers and trees as a clearer or quainter vision. He did not do so; and it would never have occurred to him to do so. Our Lady's Tumbler stood on his head to please Our Lady."
~St. Francis of Assisi
GK Chesterton

Amsterdam

Haarlam

so long, farewell

leaving Norway tomorrow for a week in the Netherlands... and then home again, home again, jiggety jig.