True Quotes

Dear Friends and Readers,

I have decided to suspend updating this Blog — TrueQuotes. 

I will be putting my efforts into my other Blog: God Family Crafts

It is my hope that you will visit God Family Crafts often,  and also, that you will make plentiful use of the archives here at TrueQuotes.

Please check back from time-to-time and see if I have posted any special notices, and…

in the mean time - see you at God Family Crafts.

Peace be with you,

Ann

 Take a look at the simplest of flowers.  The center of a daisy is made up of so many parts. but these parts form a pattern. The center of a flower often forms a spiral pattern. A common pattern in nature has been named the Fibonacci Sequence, as the scientist by this name defined it. The pattern goes like this: add the occurring number to the number preceding it to arrive at the next number.eg: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 , 13, 21. 

You see, 1+1 is 2; add 3, you get 5;  3 + 5, you get 8; etc.

I’m not sure if the daisy center follows the Fibonacci Sequence, but many things in nature do.

Do me a favor, my friend, and look closely at something, anything. It may become wonderful to you!

“Even God cannot change the past. “

–  Agathon

When we think of God as all-powerful, this quote might for a moment jar us, take a breath away. But when it is pondered, it seems that it is very true.

What can God do in His all-powerful nature about the past?  We are told in the New Testament “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28) 

True, God cannot change the past, but that does not mean we need to despair of the bad things that have happened.  We, instead, look for and expect that good will come of it somehow.  The good may not balance the bad past, but God will work on our side, if we give him the chance.

“You have to allow a certain amount of time in which you are doing nothing in order to have things occur to you, to let your mind think.”

– Mortimer Adler

This time, in which we do nothing, could be the much enjoyed and sometimes coveted opportunity to spend in the wilderness.  It could be the time we sit on a dock and gaze out to the ever-moving waters.  We can spend time people-watching, sitting silently in church, or watching birds.

The key to using this time of doing nothing is to not be reading, not be working figures, not be listening to the radio, or television, and not having a conversation.

For some people the time of doing nothing may be preparation for going to sleep at night.  A time when the mind wanders, clears itself, works through problems. The process then continues during sleep.

To feel a peaceful and uncluttered sense of well-being, we need this time of “doing nothing” which in fact we are really doing something very important - filing, organizing, de-fragmenting and deleting.  Our mental computer works much better that way!

  Friends are born, not made.

–Henry Adams

There have been times when I have been sad for my children when they each went through a phase of  teenage loneliness. At that time, they each claimed that they were the only member of the “No Friends Club”.  We’ve all been there — lonely and wondering if we will ever have a friend again.

Deep in my heart, I mourn for these friends. children who were supposed to be born as friends for my children, but were aborted before birth. 

No matter how hard you try to make a friend, there is something to be said for Adams’ comment.  Friends are born to be friends with another specific person.   In the scenario I mentioned, their destinies were inturrupted.  I wish, for everyone’s sake, they had not been.

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”

–Henry David Thoreau

When you look at something, do you assume that you see the same thing as the next person?  I am here to challenge that assumption.  When most people look at the Grand Canyon, they see majesty on a large scale.  When I look at the gran canyon, I see fine lines of sediment left by the years. I see the color of the rocks at my feet. I see the gnarled scraggly evergreen trees clinging to the canyon walls.

Is what you see better than what I see? No!  Nor is what I see better than your view.  We look at the same thing, but we see different things. One sees the large, overall picture, one sees the minute details. Without one, the other could not exist, for one is the components of the whole.

Look, and see. Whatever you see, it is a discovery to see - even if you have seen it before, and will see it again and again.

Obey gravity. It’s the law.  –Unknown

Well, this speaks for itself. doesn’t it. Do we really have much choice but to obey gravity?  My daughter doesn’t want to obey gravity, but then again, she is a high-jumper on her track team and she’s trying to defeat it. Me? Well, I kind of like gravity, it keeps things from moving around on their own, It’s one of those stabilizing factors in life.

Kids learn gravity at an early age — throwing a toy off the high chair.  Eventually it becomes a game, child throws, mom picks up, child throws,….

Efforts to defeat gravity, of course have been successful, but only within the bounds of the laws of science. So one could say, obey nature, it’s the natural law.

“The nation that destroys its soil, destroys itself.”  - Unknown

This quote, which I read on a bumper sticker, is obviously a take-off of the saying “the nation that destroys it’s SOUL, destroys itself.”  How true, and we will talk about that some other day.

Today, I want to utter one word for the small farmer and the home gardener - - “compost“.

History has shown that improper farming methods have depleted the soil at various times in history and location.  For the small grower, composting, returning to the soil what came from the soil is the answer. Composting is easy, natural recycling.  It is re-using in the most complete sense of the word. It prevents us from destroying our soil because it feeds the soil, allowing it to produce more organic matter, encourage healthy critter life (like earthworms) and the satisfaction of using compost to enrich the garden each planting season is…well…satisfying.

And also, where would we be without the ability to grow food?

To read more on composting, go to:

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/How-To-Start-A-Compost-Pile.aspx

“To see a world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wildflower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour.”

-William Blake (from Augries of Innocence)

These classic lines from a 164 line poem by William Blake summon our imagination.

Think about it: then closely observe a grain of sand. There is not much there in your hand, but with Blake’s help and our imagination we can truly see the world. The grain of sand glistens just a bit, and we sense there could be a universe within.

Heaven in a wildflower might be a little easier to reckon. Beauty, purity, innocence, all  within the the petals, center and pollen of one little wildflower.  And… then there is the scent. Another little bit of heaven.

Holding infinity in then palm of your hand. Well, sure. there in that grain of sand - infinity, always there from the beginning. Scientists say that all elements have existed since the beginning of time, but they are just rearranged on a regular basis to become new formation, substance, things.

And eternity in an hour … what could more true!  Eternity is in this hour.  In God’s time, there is no time, yet  all time is in any given moment.

In a sense, these lines escape interpretation. Read, think, and decide.