15 Things we can learn from dogs...
1. Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joy ride.
2. Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind
in your face to be pure ecstasy.
3. When loved ones come home, always run to
greet them.
4. Let others know when they've invaded your
territory.
5. Take naps and always stretch before rising.
6. Run, romp, and play daily.
7. Eat with gusto and enthusiasm.
8. Be loyal.
9. Never pretend to be something you're not.
10. If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.
11. When someone is having a bad day, be silent,
sit close by and nuzzle them gently.
12. Delight in the simple joy of a long walk.
13. Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.
14. On hot days, drink lots of water and lie
under a shady tree.
15. No matter how often you are criticized,
don't buy into the guilt thing and pout.
Run right back and make friends.
This is the picture that hangs in pride of position
in my sitting-
I recently found this poem and it seems
to go so well with the picture.
He has a shepherd's heart,
beating with pure and generous love
that counted not His life-
to pay for our ransom. He has a shepherd's eye,
that takes in the whole flock,
and misses not even the poor sheep
wandering away on the mountains cold.
He has a shepherd's faithfulness,
which will never fail nor forsake,
nor leave us comfortless,
nor flee when He sees the wolf coming.
He has a shepherd's strength,
so that He is well able to deliver us
from the jaw of the lion or the paw of the bear.
He has a shepherd's tenderness-
that He will not carry it;
no saint so weak that He will not gently lead;
no soul so faint that He will not give it rest.
He pities as a father.
He comforts as a mother.
His gentleness makes great.
He covers us with His feathers,
soft and warm and downy;
and under His wings do we trust.
-
Priceless Package
The day is a jewel,
Uncut and unpolished as yet
Set in the box of the morning,
Against the plush background of nature
Reflecting the colours of the universe.
Gift-
Unfolding in their pastel beauty.
Marked with a tag from the heavens,
Presented to mankind in general
To be worn in good taste.
Without merit of carat
But weighed in the memory of the heart
According to the care taken in
handling the merchandise.
Never to be returned or exchanged
for something better.
Thread on the chain of eternity.
Dorothy Cameron Smith
The Dragonfly
Today I saw the dragonfly
Come from the wells where he did lie.
An inner impulse rent the veil
Of his old husk; from head to tail.
He dried his wings; like gauze they grew,
Thro’ crofts and pastures wet with dew,
A living flash of light he flew.
Tennyson
The Way Through the Woods
They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.
Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-
Where the otter whistles his mate.
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because they see so few)
You will hear the beat of a horse's feet,
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods. . . .
But there is no road through the woods.
Rudyard Kipling
Favourite Poems 1