GRACE NOTES

I love mornings. Maybe I just love new beginnings. A fresh new day, filled with all possibilities. As soon as you start making decisions about anything you begin to limit those possibilities. I put off choosing for as long as I can. I meditate, drink coffee and step outside to breath deeply. Oh, alright those were all choices. We can't not make choices, it is what we were born to do.
So my underlying choice is always to enjoy the moment, not take myself too seriously and extend kindness at all times. Today I'm drawing from my Grace Notes things that I have started my mornings with over the years. In meditation I often draw on my book of sayings to get myself going of a morning.

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This is the day the Lord hath made,

Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Psalm 118:24

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Your life is shaped by the end you live for;

you are made in the imagine of what you desire.

Thomas Merton

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We have only this moment sparkling like a star in our hand---

and melting like a snowflake. Let us use it,

before it is to late.

Marie Edith Beynon

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Listen to the Exhortation of the Dawn

Look well to this day,

for it is life. The very life of life. In it's

brief course lie all the verities and all

the realities of your existence.

The bliss of growth.

The glory of action.

the splendor of beauty.

Yesterday is but a dream;

and tomorrow is only a vision.

But a day well lived makes of every

yesterday a dream of happiness and

every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well, therefore, to This Day.

Such is the salutation to the Dawn.

from the Sanskrit

Kalidasa, Indian poet and dramatist. c 400 c.e.

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Prayer of Protection

The Light of God surrounds me.

The Love of God enfolds me.

The Power of God protects me and

The Presence of God watches over me.

Wherever I am God is

and all is well.

James Dillet Freman

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I am not afraid of tomorrow.

I have seen yesterday

and

I love today!

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The photo of our Rose of Sharon show the glory and bane of the trees. Glorious flowers all summer and the spent flowers littering the ground.

GRACE NOTES

photo by Flutemaker on one of his walks

I wrote quotes, poems and sayings in my book that I call Grace Notes as I came across them and never tried to organize the pages as I went along. Thus each page is filled with random thoughts. This week I want to just open the notebook and transcribe what one page has been filled with.

So here goes.

Ahh....

Nice selection I think.

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Let each one turn his gaze inward and regard himself with awe and wonder, with mystery and reverence; let each one work his own influence, his own havoc, his own miracles.

Henry Miller

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We're all stumbling toward the light

with varying degrees of grace

at any given moment.

Bo Lozoff

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There's a crack in everything.

That's how the light gets in.

Leonard Cohen

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Winter is an etching,

Spring a watercolor,

Summer an oil painting

and Autumn a mosaic of them all.

Stanley Horowitz

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Nothing is so simple that

it cannot be misunderstood.

Freeman Teague

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We make a living by what we get,

but we make a life by what we give.

Norma MacFinan

GRACE NOTES

Grace Notes are musical ornamentation, added notes that give a lilt or character to the musical phrase being played. I find ideas and concepts that add to my personal experience and save them in my book of quotes and I believe they add that type of grace to my life. Along with a strong sense of God's Grace.

I love to sing, I think it must be a part of what it means to be human. We all seem to respond to music, the emotion, the danceable beat or rhythm. The sounds can lift our spirit or calm our anxiety. I wonder why that is so universally true. Over the years I have found the following thoughts that remind me of this inherent trait of human kind.

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Universe--

Uni - one, verse - song.

One Song!

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My idea is that there is music in the air;

the world is full of it and you simply take as much as you require.

Sir Edward Elgar

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"I sing because I'm happy, I sing because I'm free,

for His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me."

song - His eye is on the sparrow.

Civilla Martin & Charles Gabriel

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"Bach gave us God's word,

Mozart gave us God's laughter,

Beethoven gave us God's fire,

God gave us music that we might pray without words"

Engraved on a German Opera House.

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This is my Symphony

To live content with small means, to seek elegance rather than luxury,

and refinement rather than fashion,

to be worthy, not respectable and wealthy, not rich;

to listen to stars and birds, babies and sages,

with heart, to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently,

await occasion, hurry never;

in a word,

to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the cement,

this is my symphony.

William Henry Channing

GRACE NOTES

It is my personal belief that God and the force we call Life are one and the same. Even if we disagree I hope you see a little of my reasoning in this wonderful reflection . You see I believe that no matter where you are or go, God is there, the very fabric of creation.

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The same stream of life that runs through my veins runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measure.

It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth into numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean cradle of birth and death in ebb and flow.

My limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life.

And my pride is from the life throb of ages dancing in my blood at this moment.

Rabindranath Tagore