The still dwelling upon God

Stillness and solitude do fill our souls, and gradually allow us to change.

"The still dwelling upon God is the quietest

but the most potent action of all"  Emmet Fox

"Solitude is the furnace of transformation....Solitude

is not a private therapeutic place, Rather, it is the 

place of conversion, the place where the old self

dies and the new self is born."  Henri Nouwen 

Amaya_Family_Cabins, Drake_Bay_CR, Osa_Peninsula

maya_Family_Cabins, Drake_Bay_CR, Osa_Peninsula

"…what finally matters is that our hearts become like quiet cells where God can dwell, wherever we go and whatever we do."  Henri Nouwen

When indeed I can quiet myself that deeply, somehow, from somewhere, peace sings and I can feel a deep love for all of Creation.

amaya_family_cabins, osa_peninsula, Costa_Rica_beaches

amaya_family_cabins,  corcovado_national_park

Where do we find the meaning in life?

Sing a new song to the Lord!
    Sing his praises from the ends of the earth!
Sing, all you who sail the seas,
    all you who live in distant coastlands.
Isaiah 42:10

Amaya, Osa_Peninsula

"It is no use being too clever about life. Only so far as we find God in it, do we find any meaning in it.  Without Him, it is a tissue of fugitive and untrustworthy pleasures, conflicts, ambitions, desires, frustrations, frequent pain."  Evelyn Underhill

Amaya, Osa_Peninsula


God, the Lord, created the heavens and stretched them out.
    He created the earth and everything in it.
He gives breath to everyone,
    life to everyone who walks the earth.
Isaiah 42:5

Birding with Michael and Sara

Meg and I spent twelve days in Costa Rica this Christmas.  We took our New Hampshire family--son Michael and daughter in law, Sara--with us.  The basic purpose of the trip was birding. However, knowing that our style of at age seventy would be far different from theirs, we asked them to plan the venues, the activities, the adventures. The places we stayed were not as basic as how we lived in a our Peace Corps days. However, they  were not the sipping of drinks on a well appointed porch looking out at the ocean of the Osa Peninsula on the Pacific ocean or at the cloud forest of Monte Verde.

So, here is a vignette that encapsulate this time together:

BIRDING WITH MICHAEL AND SARA

"OK, Sara, I have it spotted--black and blue head, blue and black by eye, sharp pointed beak, reddish breast"

As Michael--who had an uncanny ability to spot birds in the thick tropical forest and get his binoculars up on them--rattled off these characteristics, Sara was paging through their Costa Rican bird book coming up with birds that matched Michael's description.

He would continue to add to the description, and if Sara did not find a match, she followed Michael's directions on where to find the bird with her binoculars ("see that white spot on the dead part of the limb about one hundred feet away.  Follow that branch up about ten feet to where it branches to the left, and then find the horizontal dark branch that goes out about ten feet"  "OK, Michael, I've got it.  I also see blue on its tail")  Meanwhile, Meg and I are putzing around hoping maybe the bird will fly again so that we can spot its movement and maybe see it ourselves.

Much more important than seeing birds, what Meg and I enjoyed most was watching Michael and Sara share, collaborate, discuss what they were seeing and finding. Their cooperation/collaboration, their give and take, their patience with each other is the heart and soul of a good marriage.

Orange throated parakeet, Amaya

Birding_Costa_Rica, Amaya

Black_throated_trogan, Corcovado

Buff_throated_saltator

Birding_Costa_Rica, Amaya

Laughing_falcon, Corcovado

Blue_crowned_motmot, Curi_Cancha

Red_Crowned_woodpecker, Amaya, Corcovado