I Love Winter Sunrises

Look who's getting up
Stretching fiery colors across the eastern sky...

With promises of a beautiful day.

"Watching the clock is not the same as watching a sunrise"

~ Sophia Bedford Pierce

I just started a new book from the library entitled Dawn Light: Dancing with Cranes and Other Ways to Start the Day. I enjoyed author Diane Ackerman when she used to post publish articles in the classic Victoria magazine. Now I have the delight of reading one of her books.

"In an eye-opening sequence of personal meditations through the cycle of seasons, celebrated storyteller-poet-naturalist Diane Ackerman awakens us to the world at dawn, bring into stunning focus a time of day that many of us literally and metaphorically sleep through." (inside front cover)

"Ackerman's essays awaken us to a fresh awareness, saying: Pay attention, these ordinary sights are marvelous." ~ Publisher's Weekly

Yes, I want to pay attention and see with fresh awareness the beauty of these ordinary sights!

Wishing you a beautiful day!

Brenda

xox

Photos:  © Brenda C Leyland 2010 

Still Enjoying Monet

I found a treasure when I found this book entitled "Monet's Table, The Cooking Journals of Claude Monet (Claire Joyes and Jean-Bernanard Naudin.)

Not only did Claude Monet know how to create delightful art on a canvas, he knew what made great art in a dining room -- good food, lovely table settings, and a host of congenial friends with which to share it all.

"They came to dine in almost ritual form, first visiting Monet's studio and the greenhouses, then having lunch at 11:30 (the time the family always dined, to enable Monet to make the most of the afternoon light). Tea would later be served under the lime trees or near the pond." Excerpt from front cover

Of course these happy times came a long time later in his career. There is a story about Monet and his struggling artist friends -- they all knew how to eat beans for days on end, so they could scrape enough coins together to buy paints and canvas for their ever-hungry artistic muse.

See the blue-trimmed yellow dishes in the bottom corner of the photo below? This pic shows a artistically-laid table in Monet's dining room.

Now... just imagine the excitement my former housemate and I experienced years ago, when we stumbled upon the same pattern of dishes in a local department store.

We snapped them up for our own entertaining, and though our table might not have included such auspicious guests as Monet's, those blue-rimmed dishes tell their own tales of good food, pretty table settings, and congenial company. Mmm... maybe it was the dishes!

Don't you just love it when you go to someone's house for dinner and they've created a beautiful table for the occasion? It adds to the whole pleasure of eating. Monet knew that. Maybe that's one reason why I love him -- he seemed to know that our lives are enhanced when every area is touched by beauty.

Catch a glimpse of it today...

 Brenda

Simply Sunday - A 'Hallelujah' Peek

For those of you starting to get in the Holiday mood, you might enjoy this video. And, if you are not in the mood, it might get you started...

Enjoy your Sunday!

Brenda

Knees Go Weak

Yes, they definitely go weak on this one...............
Michael Buble singing Sway!

Brenda

God Whispers: Beauty In Every Corner

photo: leonardo wong | unsplash.com

"God has called you to speak the word to the world

and to speak it fearlessly. While acknowledging 

your woundedness, do not let go of the truth that lives
in you and demands to be spoken".

~ Henri Nouwen, Inner Voice of Love

My desire to establish Beauty in every corner is not so much about flowers, teacups and lace -- although it is certainly part of it -- it is also about establishing the beauty of heaven here on earth where ugly stuff like p*ornography, child a*buse, s*ex trade, hunger, cruelty to man and beast, crime, lying,  stealing, cheating is lessened, maybe even eradicated.

A place where people can flourish because they deal with their issues wisely; where they know how to overcome the enemy of their souls, and they have learned to walk out the royal law of love and kindness in every situation. Because people everywhere who hear the whispers of heaven are determined to establish heaven's Beauty here on this blue marble we call home. 

"Your vocation is to speak from
the place in you where God dwells."

~ Henri Nouwen, Inner Voice of Love

People say that's impossible, just look at the world around you. How do we do this? I don't know, but it can't be by praying out of fear or hopelessness or wringing of the hands. Can we believe that our prayers can change the world? Lord Alfred Tennyson once wrote that "more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. Perhaps if we believe we receive when we pray, we shall have the answers more often. I want to work towards that with my words and actions and intentions.

For nothing shall be impossible to him who believes.

Wishing you a beautiful day,
Brenda

xox