It’s in the “small” things that you can tell……
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Winter sunlight refractions through a small snowflake prism
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“Little things come daily, hourly, within our reach, and they are not less calculated to set forward our growth in holiness, than are the greater occasions which occur but rarely.
“Moreover, fidelity in trifles, and an earnest seeking to please God in little matters, is a test of our real devotion, and love. So let your aim be to please our dear LORD perfectly in little things, and to attain a spirit of childlike simplicity and dependence.
“In proportion as self-love and self-confidence are weakened, and our will bowed to that of God, so will hindrances disappear, the internal troubles and contests which harassed the soul vanish, and it will be filled with peace and tranquility. Such a life gives much glory to God.”
–Jean Nicolas Grou 1731-1803
My note: It is this ‘childlike simplicity and dependence’ that is the key, by which God opens our hearts, and fills them with His own great and loving heart. What an easily accessible wonder this is, revealing the very character of God in our words and in our silences, even our facial expressions, the gestures of our hands. The ‘smallest’ acts can be filled with meaning and the beauty of God. A gentle and quiet spirit can speak volumes of truth, and love.
But this childlike spirit is decidedly not the spirit of these times in which we live. ‘Humble simplicity and dependence’ cannot coexist with a prideful, stubborn and independent spirit, which characterize far too many so-called followers of Christ. These personal evils must be seen, and renounced persistently for the harm they cause, destroying the likeness of Christ in any of us.
–Quilla
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What about a Man?
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Bronze sculpture, Native American, NC Arboretum near Asheville
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What about a Man?—
—an educated man, many millions
of words filtered down his decades,
his ‘little grey cells’ storing countless
fragmented files of data random facts
too many layers of memory and experience
to remember: the swarmy, mother soup
of endless troubling and exhilarating thoughts—
practical, spiritual, scientific, artistic, technical,
political, social, (not to mention fantasies and fears)
wishing sometimes
he had the simple presence of being
the stillness, the care-less contentedness
of a fat spring toad by a dark pond
basking in the warm spring sun?
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Fear
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Fear
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“Go on, in all simplicity. Do not be so anxious to win a quiet mind, and it will become
all the quieter. Do not examine so closely into the progress of your soul. Do not crave
so much to be perfect, but let your life with God be formed by your duties, and
by the actions called forth by your daily circumstances.
Do not take overmuch thought for tomorrow. God, who has led you safely on so far,
will lead you on to the end. Be altogether at rest in the loving holy confidence which
you ought to have in His heavenly providence for you.” —Francis de Sales 1567-1622
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“Why are you so afraid?
Do you still have no faith?” —Jesus
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“Fear not, I am with you.
I will never leave you.” —Jesus
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Ruach 333, by Quilla 