...whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. ... And the God of peace will be with you. Philippians 4: 8 -9
What is my only comfort in life and in death? That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.
~Heidelberg Catechism
Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
~Mary Oliver
I must consume the abundance of moments now. Days I am overwhelmed, wanting to write the music of my life in a slower tempo … yet this is the glorious dance of now.
So I shall dance in bare feet. For I am on holy ground.
~Ann Voskamp "A Holy Experience"
To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man's life.
~ T.S. Eliot
A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
To live is so startling, it leaves little room for other occupations.
~Emily Dickinson
I believe in God as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
~ C. S. Lewis
Remember this. When people choose to withdraw far from a fire, the fire continues to give warmth, but they grow cold. When people choose to withdraw far from light, the light continues to be bright in itself but they are in darkness. This is also the case when people withdraw from God.
~ Augustine
Hello, sun in my face. Hello you who made the morning and spread it over the fields...Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.
~ Mary Oliver
The seed is in the ground. Now may we rest in hope while darkness does its work.
~ Wendell Berry
Nothing will sustain you more potently than the power to recognize in your humdrum routine the true poetry of life.~ Sir William Osler
But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts, and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
~George Eliot's final sentence in Middlemarch
If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
~ E.B. White
Geese appear high over us, pass, and the sky closes. Abandon, as in love or sleep, holds them to their way, clear, in the ancient faith: what we need is here. And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and in eye clear. What we need is here.~~ "The Wild Geese" Wendell Berry
Let it come, as it will, and don’t be afraid. God does not leave us comfortless, so let evening come.
~ Jane Kenyon from "Let Evening Come"
You can only come to the morning through the shadows.~ J.R.R. Tolkien
If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for. ~ Thomas Merton
This life therefore is not righteousness,
but growth in righteousness,
not health but healing,
not being but becoming,
not rest but exercise.
We are not yet
what we shall be,
but we are growing toward it.
The process is not finished
but it is going on.
This is not the end
but it is the road.
~Martin Luther
Ten times a day something happens to me like this - some strengthening throb of amazement - some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.
~ Mary Oliver
Love isn’t a function of communication so much as Love is a function of communion.
~ Ann Voskamp
It is not your love that sustains the marriage —
but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.
~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer
She has done what she could...
~Mark 14:8
What do you mean? Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good on this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?~ J. R. R. Tolkien from The Hobbit
Barnstorming 
Your photographs of home are breathtaking! No wonder you long to return! I was always like that too, as a child, and now in my late fifties. A divorce a decade ago still leaves me with an aching homesickness for a life I can’t return to. So I go back to the mountains where I grew, the meadows and mist. This place knows me. It doesn’t replace what was lost, but it welcomes me, a wounded version of what was once a strong girl. The longing for home is piercing sweet.
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yes Kellie, you describe exactly what I felt too, that “piercing sweet”, also a child of divorce so that “home” became something elusive and so much more precious. blessings on your moments of “going home” too! Emily
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I love your sweet confessions. Knowing that even in the middle of your 6th decade you experience these feelings is so comforting to me. I don’t feel so alone in my feelings.
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I know what it reminds me of! A Thomas Kinkaide painting! He always makes me feel that longing too. I follow YouTube art channels, and one day I was reading the comments and a commenter was mocking Thomas Kinkaide and one of his jokes about Mr. Kinkaide’s Art was that the lights were always on, and what a power bill he must have. And I knew immediately why he always painted the lights on. Lights on means someone is there. That is the biggest part of beauty, and of home. I think Thomas Kinkaide was homesick too.
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There is no place like home, but I love to travel too. I was so good to see you and play Dutch Bingo. I hope that you didn’t feel left out. Barb
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I was also terribly homesick as a child, with parents who didn’t understand. As an adult, I can leave home in peace now, but I’m always so happy to return.
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It must be hard to be a child of divorce. My daughter’s partner is afraid of marriage and kids because as the youngest son and a middle school child; he watched his parents’ marriage fall apart. His mom was a homemaker, so she really struggled. He went through all of that. No marriage is perfect, even the best marriages.
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and thank you to you, Roger and Reed for making us feel at home this week (and you took us to “Greece” with that wonderful meal!)
love to you all, Emily
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I am also have appreciation of Kinkade’s work too (and now you’ve given me a new defense why I like it so well — someone is always home, waiting!) thank you,Kellie!
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oh my, don’t encourage me too much to make confessions, there are dozens more where that one came from! No you are not alone!
blessings and thank you! Emily
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This is beautiful, Emily. I wonder if you have always had the same home since you were married. It would be so nice! Not me, and after one year in an apartment (sold our house and cabin) we are moving again and I don’t know where. Sigh…
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no, Diane, we have lived in four different places but the longest has been right here for almost twenty five years. What that does mean is that we have some major work ahead (my summer project) of doing some purging of accumulated “stuff” – it is past time! hope you find a longer term home with this move! Emily
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I never got homesick as a child. Time away from home was an adventure that let me feel what freedom was like, what testing myself was like. All of this has changed for me, now.
I was an only child, and I have no family. My mother – the love of my life – died 10 years ago this coming December, only a few days before her 91st birthday. My father died 5 years before that, only three months before his 91st birthday. I miss them and my grandparents every single day. At almost 73, I only recently began to feel homesick for the first time in my life. I miss the love and comfort, the companionship and the happy times that my parents, grandparents, and I shared. The world offers spectacular sunsets and glorious sunrises, beautiful white, billowy clouds, and gentle woodlands to give me peace. But, as magnificent as those things are, they cannot but for more than a few moments remove the homesickness from my heart. We were all made to be social beings. We were even more intended to be loved. When the loves of your life are no longer here to share, to laugh, to love, then the beauty of this world fades, and a homesickness sets in. No, you will never outgrow that feeling. But, don’t wish that away. Such homesickness speaks of deep and abiding love that is like a candle in the dark. One day, that candle will lead us all home.
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Dear Janice, what a long wonderful relationship you must have had with your parents and grandparents! I have no doubt you miss those happy times together. Maybe it is possible for you to become that special person to someone younger since you have such clear memories of what it meant to you. My children and grandchildren all live a distance away and we can only see them now and then, so my mothering (and grandmothering) energy goes to those near by. Your homesickness may well take your light to the darkness in another’s life! Thank you for reminding me about the preciousness of memories!
blessings, Emily
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We’re glad you’re here and giving yourself and the Northwest away. Coming North on I5 I always feel like we’re home once we come to Lake Padden…Welcome Home Em and Bless that Barn..
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Until the age of about 13 it was my grandmother’s home in Western NY where I received the love and warmth and deep understanding that she brought to my life. We spent July-August there. Quiet times in her kitchen and on warm summer evenings when she told me stories of her parents’ life in Mayo, Ireland and other stories of family members who had emigrated here out of economic necessity, forced to abandon their family homes for all those generations before.
I can still close my eyes and picture every inch of that so-familiar home. When I returned to my ‘other home’ in late August there was an empty aching feeling that I was not where I wanted to be. When I emptied my little suitcase and put my clothes away, I always cried – deep down. I could still recognize her lovely scent still on its contents that she had packed for me. There was always a note at the bottom of the suitcase that told me how much she loved me and would be there for me when I needed her. Also enclosed was one of her beautiful red roses that sealed the promise. It has always been my hope that when my journey here ends grandma will be there standing beside Jesus, waiting to welcome me back to her ‘new home.’
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oh, what a welcome that would be! And what a blessing your grandma was in your life, Alice!
love, Emily
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Dear Emily,
this is “Aunt Emma” from Twitter.
Your vulnerable post touched so many, me included. I have been an eternally homesick child, never truly belonging anywhere, not even at home — a feeling intensified by immigration in my twenties and a dissolution and loss of my family 30 years later.
About a year ago, while driving from an event that made the homeless feeling especially acute, I passed by a large dying tree propped against an old barn. The poignant sight was accompanied by a voice / thought: “You are not of a place but of spirit.”
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Dear Emma, so good to see you here as well as on Twitter. You had losses that would make the strongest soul homesick and I know you understand that lump in the throat feeling of not belonging. I love how you have resolved that emptiness: “You are not of a place but of spirit” as that ultimately is where we all will find home. This place is only a byway to the eternity of dwelling in Spirit. Thank you and blessings to you, Emily
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Thank you, dear Emily.
The voice / thought that popped up in my awareness reminding me of who I am — who we all are — was not entirely (if at all) of me. The shattering of that last loss has also opened up a connection with God within, my True Self, that was hidden for years. The grief has been emptying me and making space for Him, with His unmistakable protection and guidance, to which I am able to respond with gratitude and awe. As I grieve, I now see and understand. “…grace is not gentle or made-to-order.” Thank YOU.
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