I love Erma Bombeck’s quote on the Fourth of July, “You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.” The flies die happy, love her humor. We Americans will consume 150 million hotdogs and 375 million hamburgers on America’s birthday. That’s enough hot dogs to stretch between Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles five times! I love trivia almost as much as I love quotes.

Another beautiful day today the Lord has made. The sun is burning down with Southern summer sultry heat. The sky is so blue this morning, it’s almost purple. Father Sky chose his pastels well as he sketched a summer sky. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.” That’s me as I gaze at the blue heavens. I sat in the swing a short while, before it got too hot, watching the purple finches and the faithful cardinals. The most beautiful dove has been prissing and preening around in my yard today. Her gray coloring matches the clouds in the sky. She’s an Eurasian dove, has a black scarf tied around her neck, dressed in a feather color chart of light grays and warm browns. I’ve been watching her jump around under the feeders in her pink high heels, her head bobbing with every step. The heat is keeping the birds in the shade of the brush around the old oak tree. I can hear their beautiful morning hymns being sung from their shady spots.

Sometimes on a beautiful day a storm comes out of nowhere, disrupting our day with thunder and lightning and rain. But there is always beauty in a storm. When these storms interrupt our lives the beauty is in the love and understanding we receive from our family and friends. Our lives can change in an instant. Our lives are as unpredictable as the weather. Storms can darken our horizon and make our days bleak. None of us want to go through a storm but God reveals himself to us during the storms. Reaching out to God in prayer can help the storms dissipate and bring beauty back in our lives. Douglas Adam’s wrote,“When you walk through the storm, hold your head high, and don’t be afraid of the dark! At the end of the storm is a golden sky and the sweet song of the lark. Walk on through the wind. Walk on through the rain. Though your dreams be tossed and blown walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart and you’ll never walk alone.”

I went outside after supper to perch in the porch swing and enjoy watching the joyous cavalcade of the setting sun. At the twilight hour Mother Nature rendered a magnificent watercolor painting of the sunset behind an overcast sky of steel gray clouds, a feast for my eyes as the sky burst into the purples and dark blues and heavy grays of a manifesting thunderstorm. Sadly, those clouds dropped no rain on my little slice of heaven. The sun had stood earlier, balanced and bright white, beaming on the crest of the horizon, waiting for Father Sky to take her hand and escort her down the runway. They made a handsome couple as they began their walk down the horizon, a benediction to the day’s light. Father Sky kissed the sun goodnight and the twilight came smoothly on the echoes of faint birdsongs, sighing softly as the kaleidoscope of the thunderstorm colors faded away into the quiet of the night.

Been reading Emerson’s poetry and lists of his quotes this afternoon. Can’t pick a favorite, I love the them all. Emerson wrote, “Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God’s handwriting… Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing.” Beauty is God’s handwriting. I love that thought!

I think Emerson saw nature as a manifestation of God. He writes how nature is connected with the divine, reminding us to be thankful for the beauty that surrounds us, “thankful for it as a cup of blessing.” I can pair an Emerson quote with all the things I enjoy in my world. About the magnificent watercolors of sunset he wrote, “The sky’s lullaby is sketched with the colors of dusk.” I could hear the sky’s colorful lullaby tonight sung in thunderstorm shades of blues and purples as dusk walked up my street.

As night fell and the day ended I read his quotes, “In the silence of the night sky, we find the heart’s symphony,” and “When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.” As I pondered on these quotes I understood the silence in the darkness calls to us to listen in the stillness of the night to our heart beating with a connection to nature and God. In the darkness of difficult times we can see the stars of hope through God’s grace. Even when we can’t see the stars they are still there just as God remains always with us guiding our travels. As Emerson says, “Hitch your wagon to a star.”

“Life is a journey, not a destination.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson