Quotes About Renewal

This world of ours is piled high with farewells and goodbyes of so many different kinds, like the evening sky renewing itself again and again from one instant to the next-and I didn't want to forget a single one.

Over and over, we begin again.

To live 'mongst lush and growing things Is like to give the spirit wings.

Of all the things we fashioned for them that they might be comforted, dawn is the one that works. When darkness sifts from the air like fine soft soot and light spreads slowly out of the east then all but the most wretched of humankind rally.

The notion haunts me that I am being given one last chance to redeem something of myself. I am not speaking of the soul, I am not that far gone in my dotage. But there may be some small, precious thing that I can buy back, as once I bought back Mama Vander's silver pill-box from the pawnbroker's.

She was like a green meadow after spring rains, as fragrant as the flowers in bloom waving against the horizon and waves of fresh grass rustling.

De la tristeza más oscura a la euforia más indescriptible. No sé cómo el cuerpo resiste estos excesos de adrenalina en tan poco tiempo, pero ahí estábamos, otra vez, construyendo desde cero la esperanza, porque cada esperanza lleva dentro todas las ilusiones anteriores intactas

I always wondered why it took "three days" for significant things to happen in the Bible--Jonah spent three days in the belly of the whale, Jesus spent three days in the tomb, Paul spent three days blind in Damascus--and now I know. From earliest times, people learned that was how long they had to wait in the dark before the sliver of the new moon appeared in the sky. For three days every month they practiced resurrection.

The faith that had sustained them through their middle years had gotten as tight as their old clothes. Their views of God, scripture, the church, and the world were all under renovation.

Stop for one whole day every week, and you will remember what it means to be created in the image of God, who rested on the seventh day not from weariness but from complete freedom. The clear promise is that those who rest like God find themselves free like God, no longer slaves to the thousand compulsions that send others rushing toward their graves.

All these years later, the way many of us are doing church is broken and we know it, even if we do not know what to do about it.

People heal, sweetheart. We feel things, and then feelings change. People change. All the time.

The beauty of it, to him, was that the routine was never the same. Bud break never occurred on the same date two years in a row. Waiting for it, watching for it, feeling the excitement when the vines suddenly burst into the palest of pale greens was … incredible. Same the critical few days when the buds burst into bloom.

Sitting at my kitten's grave, I forgave myself for the last ten years. Wrong turns? No. I had acted in good faith, doing what I thought was right. But what was right, now, was seeing that my needs had changed. One of those new needs had just surfaced. I wanted a pet. I didn't care what kind; James could choose. Or not. He would argue against it, but when I thought of my baby and the

bright May morning, with the

Here in the garden, she found an unexpected peace.

Searching for self implied either not liking who you are or wanting to escape who you've been.

Why be saddled with artifacts that no longer inspired me?

April is the cruelest month, T.S. Eliot wrote, by which I think he meant (among other things) that springtime makes people crazy. We expect too much, the world burgeons with promises it can't keep, all passion is really a setup, and we're doomed to get our hearts broken yet again. I agree, and would further add: Who cares? Every spring I go out there anyway, around the bend, unconditionally. ... Come the end of the dark days, I am more than joyful. I'm nuts.

Tomorrow, a new day dawns.

It was only sometimes, when a spring day came in the middle of winter, that one had a sudden feeling that nothing was really impossible.

If only one could clear out one's mind and heart as ruthlessly as one did one's wardrobe...

When you start using senses you've neglected, your reward is to see the world with completely fresh eyes.

If you're burned out, learning something new or doing something creative is the cure.