 |
| Image by Brenda @ It's A Beautiful Life |
"Perhaps, after all, our best thoughts
come when we are alone."
GLADYS BAGG TABER
Many good folks are creating a more focused and deliberate online presence and community during this world-wide season of isolation. They offer their unique version of pleasant and interesting material to help people feel supported and connected.
For the time being, it is my intention to join in this endeavour and post more regularly. I shall share excerpts from the many books on my shelves: to open them either randomly and select a few lines from any page, or to follow page numbers with calendar dates. I might comment on the chosen portion or just leave the author say it. You will find the button under the header to access the whole series. Tags: Creating Community In Isolation; Pressing My Books Into Service
I first heard about author Gladys Taber and her lovely writings through Susan Branch, who happens to be a big fan of hers. Today's selection of 'Pressing My Books into Service' comes from page 22 of a tiny treasure I found at our library sale last year. If you want to know more about Gladys, click HERE. Please read on...
March 22nd
Reveries at Stillmeadow, A Woman's Precious Moments
by Gladys Taber, pg 22
"The heart has its own time. How incredibly fleet are the happy hours, and how leaden-slow the sad ones. The clock cannot hurry the sorrowful minutes a jot, nor clip the wings of the joyous ones!
Sometimes, I think we rush so, and we finish a schedule only to make a newer and busier one. We do not, ever, live deliberately and fully, for we haven't time. I know few people who go outdoors now and sit quietly for a couple of hours just looking at the miracle of spring. Sometimes, as we drive along the country roads, I see occasional figures stretched out in lawn chairs. But they aren't observing May, they are reading the newspaper or a magazine. They are like the people I have seen on the great beach at Nauset on Cape Cod who never hear the music of the tide because they have portable radios playing hot music."
I want to add something that I think goes along with Gladys's thoughts. I read a post last week circulating on Facebook from a woman named Rebecca living in Wuhan, China, during this horrid time they've been in lock-down isolation. She spoke of how she and her family were coping and surviving and, yes, even a bit of thriving in the midst of it all. The thing I especially loved learning was how she could hear the birds outside her window on the 25th floor. She said, 'I used to think there weren't birds in Wuhan because you rarely saw them and never heard them. I now know they are just muted and crowded out by the traffic and people. All day long now I hear birds singing. It stops me in my tracks to hear the sound of their wings'.
Talk about catching glimpses of heaven in unexpected places. It made my heart sing, and I kinda think Gladys would have been pleased to hear such a thing, don't you?
Till tomorrow then for more from my bookshelf.
What a treasure this book is! I’d never heard of it before. Yes, I do believe our best thoughts come while we are alone. I look forward to tomorrow’s little treasure from you.
ReplyDeleteI love that book! My copy is from a long ago library sale, too.
ReplyDeleteI need to find this book! What a treasure!
ReplyDeleteYes, Gladys would have loved that. I do, too. I firmly believe that we will find many things to be blessed by in these days that we would not have experienced in any other way. Here’s to birdsong and waves crashing...I do love the quiet.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to look for that book. My daughter shared a piece from Venice. With the Gondolas still the murky looking canals are crystal clear now and you can little minnows and fish swimming in the waters. People are absolutely astonished by it. Perhaps it's time for many to reconnect with the creation Earth.
ReplyDeleteI love Taber and have been reading her for years upon years (almost 45!). Do you happen to have the book, The Stillmeadow Road?
That's amazing about the canals!
DeleteI do believe that all this forced slow down will cause us to hear and see things we missed before.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteReading about Wuhan and the birds just amazes me.
ReplyDeleteGladys Taber was a wise woman and I enjoy reading her observations on the seasons and life. How amazing to be able to hear the birds in Wuhan these days!
ReplyDeleteI'm another Gladys Taber fan and own several of her books. I have not heard of this particular one but will now search for it.
ReplyDeleteOh my Gladys Taber is one of my favorite authors...her books are such treasures to read...remember reading them one summer to lift my spirits when we were hit with a terrible drought that came in May and did not end until September. What a wonderful story about Rebecca in Wuhan...yes we must focus on the daily blessings - perhaps once we slow down we all will see God's hand in nature. Hugs!
ReplyDelete