The Royal Wedding prayer

God our Father, we thank you for our families; for the love that we share and for the joy of our marriage.

In the busyness of each day keep our eyes fixed on what is real and important in life and help us to be generous with our time and love and energy. 

Strengthened by our union help us to serve and comfort those who suffer. We ask this in the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Amen.           

I thought their prayer was extraordinary because of it's simplicity. Simple things are often quite beautiful. 




 

Hope in the wrong things.

I've always been a fool for hope. I get sucked into the beautiful idealism of a new idea. My imagination gets going and I dream about the "hows" and "ifs" and "whens" of it all.

It sucks.

There is a deceit in hope. It can be like a grand spun story or a gigantic lie. The devil wears blue jeans, you know?!

BUT...

If you are the rare bird who is able to consistently place hope in the right place, Jesus, you will be spared the picture slipping away, the dream dying or the heartbreak of unfolding idealism.

If you are able to embrace the moment where a flower is at its most-perfect state, enjoy it fully and release it to the cycle it must take then you see the beautiful truth. This moment is temporal and strangely beautiful if we can release it to a greater plan--one that we may not understand.

Beautiful, like shells and poetry

Shells on the ocean shore, in Portland, appeared to be butterflies. I took a series of photos. I've thought about different things to do to or with them but they are sort of nice just as they are.

Between moments of serendipity and challenges..it has been a full few years. But here and there something beautiful, like these shells, interrupts and I pause and wonder about how such perfectness just happened.

It is just something beautiful, like poetry...and sometimes when I read scripture it surprises me, sometimes it ebbs and flows like poetry.

The other night I came across this verse:

God brings death and God brings life, brings down to the grave and raises up. God brings poverty and God brings wealth; he lowers, he also lifts up. He puts poor people on their feet again; he rekindles burned-out lives with fresh hope, restoring dignity and respect to their lives--a place in the sun!
2 Sam. 6---> The Message