To the Garden We Go

Both of my kids get to choose what they want in their garden.  Emma always chooses watermelon.  Sadly, hers did not make it this year.  Noah’s cantaloupe on the other hand has bore two full melons thus far.  While the fruit smelled fantastic, the taste was awful. 

Mirror Lake

Update on Southern

I am preparing for different seminars this fall.  I will finish up my last colloquium of my PhD career (things are starting to turn in the next chapter), which is both sad and exciting.  And I will finish up with two educational seminars that I am required to take in my fifth semester.  Other than one more seminar next spring, I will be complete with all my seminar work for PhD process, which is pretty amazing it has gone by that quick.  Lord willing, I will be setting my sights on comps in the spring, which many people believe to be the most difficult part of the PhD process.

He Liveth Long that Liveth Well”

He liveth long who liveth well;

All other life is short and vain;

He liveth longest who can tell

Of living most for heavenly gain.

He liveth long who liveth well;

All else is being flung away;

He liveth longest who can tell

Of true things truly done each day.

Be what thou seemest; live thy creed;

Hold up to earth the torch divine:

Be what thou prayest to be made;

Let the great Master’s steps be thine.

Fill up each hour with what will last;

Buy up the moments as they go;

The life above, when this is past,

Is the ripe fruit of life below.

Sow love, and taste its fruitage pure;

Sow peace, and reap its harvest bright;

Sow sunbeams on the rock and moor,

And find a harvest-home of light.

Twelfth Sunday After Trinity Prayer

Almighty and everlasting God, who is always more ready to hear than we to pray, and are likely to give more than either we desire or deserve, pour down upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things where our conscience is afraid and giving to us that which our prayer dare not presume to ask; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Nuts and Bolts

Violinist layer tracks

Thomas Watson on Glorifying God

We glorify God by walking cheerfully.  It brings glory to God, when the world sees a Christian has that within him that can make him cheerful in the worst times; that can enable him, with the nightingale, to sing with a thorn at his breast.  The people of God have ground for cheerfulness.  They are justified and adopted, and this creates inward peace; it makes music within, whatever the storms are without.  If we consider what Christ has wrought for us by his blood, and wrought in us by his Spirit, it is a ground of great cheerfulness, and this cheerfulness glorifies God.  It reflects upon a master when the servant is always drooping and sad…A Christian’s cheerful looks glorify God; religion does not take away our joy, but refines it; it does not break our viol, but tunes it, and makes the music sweeter.