Gift from a Dragonfly

Dragonfly on Lantana
(Click on photo to view full size.)

I saw this dragonfly land on a Lantana bush in the back yard and rushed inside for my camera, hoping he (or she?) would stay around. He let me take five pictures before flying off. I felt as if I had been given a precious gift.

Note that we are viewing the flower (the pink floret) through his diaphanous wing.

O Lord, how manifold are your works!
In wisdom you have made them all.
The earth is full of your creatures.
(Psalm 104:24)

Urban Art

Yellow Garden Shed

See also "Hubcap Mandalas" and "More Urban Mandalas."

The Only Path to Happiness

According to Saint Therese Couderc, the only way to be happy is to hand oneself over totally to God.

Oh! If people could just understand ahead of time the sweetness and peace that are savored when nothing is held back from the good God! How he communicates himself to the one who seeks him sincerely and has known how to surrender herself. Let them experience it and they will see that here is found the true happiness they are vainly seeking elsewhere.

Watch the video, "To Surrender Oneself," on YouTube, and notice the images of docility to the Spirit of God.

Summer Sky

Summer Evening Sky
(Click to view full-sized.)

I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples,
and I will sing praises to you among the nations.
For your steadfast love is higher than the heavens,
and your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.

(Psalm 108:3-4)

Bouquet of Fabric Remnants

A Bouquet of Fabric Remnants
(Click photo to view full-sized)

Fill your world with bouquets! Look for the beauty around you and inside you. If you don't have hyacinths or roses, use what life provides.

Lavish in Detail

Yellow-crowned Night Heron by Intracoastal Waterway

If you click on the photo to view it full sized, you will see the intricacies of the heron's feathers. Then gaze on the edge and the patterns in the huge sycamore leaf which dwarfs the bicycle seat on which it is resting.

Dry Sycamore Leaf on Bicycle

Whether in a bird's feathers or a leaf or the double helix of DNA, nature is not parsimonious where detail is concerned.

Lord, how thy wonders are displayed,
where'er I turn my eye,
if I survey the ground I tread,
or gaze upon the sky!

Isaac Watts, "I Sing the Mighty Power of God"

How Lovely Is Your Dwelling!

Cybernun's new video features Brahms' "How Lovely Is Your Dwelling Place" (Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen), from his German Requiem.

How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!
My soul longs, yea, faints for the courts of the Lord.
My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.
Happy are they who dwell in your house,
Ever singing your praise!
(Psalm 84:1-2,4)

Not only the temple, not only the churches are God's dwelling, but all of creation -- and each of us is also the dwelling place of God. "Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?" (1 Corinthians 3:16). How lovely is God's dwelling place!