Secret Soul Signature

"Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for watching for, listening for?  You have never had it.  All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been hints of it--tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear.  But if it should really become manifest--if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself--you would know it.  Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say, "Here at last is the thing I was made for."  We cannot tell each other about it.  It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work."
C S Lewis, The Weight of Glory

"Our original shimmering self gets buried so deep we hardly live out of it at all...rather, we learn to live out of all the other selves which we are constantly putting on and taking off like coats and hats against the world's weather."
Frederick Buechner, Telling Secrets

"Thirsty hearts are those whose longings have been wakened by the touch of God within them."  A. W. Tozer

"The true story of every person in this word is not the story you see, the external story.  The true story of each person is the journey of his or her heart". Brent Curtis & John Eldredge, Sacred Romance

Tis hard for us to rouse our spirits up
It is the human creative agony
Though but to hold the heart an empty cup
Or tighten on the team the rigid reign. Many will rather lie among the slain
Than creep through narrow ways the light to gain
Than wake the will, and born bitterly.
but we who would be born again indeed,
Must wake our souls unnumbered times a day
And urge ourselves to life with holy greed.
now open our bosoms to the wind's free play,
And now, with patience forceful, hard, lie still
Submiss and ready to the making will,
Athirst and empty, for God's breath to fill.
George MacDonald, Diary of An Old Soul

"Our nature makes us wish for rest, that is to say, an increase in being."              
St. Augustine

"We look for rest and if we find it, it becomes intolerable.  Incapable of the divine activity which alone can satisfy (rest) ... fallen man flings himself upon exterior things, not so much for their own sake as for the sake of agitation which keeps his spirit pleasantly numb ... (The distraction) diverts us aside from the one thing that can help us to begin our ascent to truth ... the sense of our own emptiness."    Thomas Merton, The Ascent to Truth

Immortal Heat, O let thy greater flame
Attract the lesser to it; let those fires,
Which shall consume the world, first make it tame;
And kindle in our hearts such true desires,
As may consume our lusts, and make thee way.
Then shall our hearts pant thee. 
George Herbert

 "Losing our souls means losing touch with our true call in life, our mission, our spiritual task.  It means becoming so distracted by and preoccupied with all that is happening around us that we end up fragmented, confused and erratic. "               Henri Nouwen Society Devotional


"I am obscurely convinced that there is a need in the world for something I can provide and that there is a need for me to provide it.  True, someone else can do it, God doesn't need me.  But I feel He is asking me to provide it.  " Thomas Merton, A Search for Solitude 


                                                   The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

                                                             Robert Frost

Books, Books, Books

What does a list of books that have been read, reread or reviewed say about a person? Hoping to have an answer to that question, I'm only listing the ones I've read completely since turning 60; I'm sure the books one doesn't finish reading also make a statement.  Having a library of the books I've read and enjoyed has always been  important to me.  I think it is because books become "friends" and I may want to visit with them again, so they must be available.  I periodically review the books in my library and do away with the ones that are no longer reflecting my life-interest, mainly because of limited book space, and the need to make room for the new-found delights.  I never take up space for what I call "fluff"  and usually use the local library for that need.  Some authors will always stay in my library; George MacDonald, George Herbert, CS Lewis, Thomas Merton, Kathleen Norris, Brennan Manning, Phillip Keller, Henri Nouwen, Jane Austin, Daphne du Maurier, Ellis Peters.     


TITLE                                  AUTHOR                    COMMENT                                    

Sold                                   Patricia McCormick      eye opener
3 Cups of Tea                    Greg Mortenson            melted my heart
Stones Into Schools            Greg Mortenson            wish there was a third one
Reading Lolita                     Azia Nafisi                    women:second-rate citizens
Standing Alone in Mecca     Assa Nomani                solidarity in my heart          
The Great Gatsby                F Scott Fitsgerald         second reading
The Music of Silence           David Steinal-Rast        love for monastery life 
Jack's Life                          Douglas Gresham         Lewis -  by Joy's son
Wayside Tavern                  Nora Lofts                   do not remember this one
Dead Man's Ransom           Ellis Peters                   Cadfael Mysteries
The World as I Remember  Rich Mullins                 musical genius
The Sacred Romance          John Eldredge              inspiring as "Captivating"
Alias Grace                         Margaret Atwood        writing style marvel
The Handmaid's Tale          Margaret Atwood       wow! must read again
Going With the Grain          Susan Seligson              extremely interesting
Ruthless Trust                     Brennan Manning        speaks to my heart 
Thorpe                                Mary Dutton               similar "Kill a Mockingbird"
Daisy Miller & Others      Henry James              master story teller
Turn of the Screw                Henry James                short story
Poison                                 Maria V Snyder          believable fantasy
Five Languages of Love       Gary Chapman           guide for couples
Quiet Strength                      Rosa Parks                 inside glimpse
Lady Susan                          Jane Austin                 society glimpse
Wisdom of Tenderness        Brennan Manning         needful reminder