Daily Signet

Years ago, when we first gathered at the Boast’s house, you never, never, ever, ever left the gathering without receiving a word of exhortation or cheer from Bill “Blessings!” he cried to us, usually from the front porch, as we made our way to our cars to drive away.   “Blessings! Blessings! Blessings!” he’d call as he waved to us until we were out of sight….Sent on your way, sent on your quest with Joy! Joy! Joy! I know the word Bill cried out was “blessings” but “Joy!  Joy!  Joy!” is what I always heard.  

What did we learn from Bill on all those Sunday nights? At the very least, Bill taught us to create a rich life no matter how impoverished the time. At the very highest, he taught us the secret of the fiery quest and its boon—the birth of the human soul within each of us.  Years ago, many of us made our way into a womblike canyon following the glow of Bill’s porchlight and there…his tables never failed to be laden with soul-nourishing riches, the air filled with joyous anticipation. Bill, wherever you are, whatever quest you are currently fulfilling, I hope you know that this merry band has ever been and is still grateful to you for all the “Blessings of  Joy!”—you bestowed upon us from the front porch of your omnific journey.                  

Teri H Martin

On This Day…

St. David (1084-1153): king of Scotland and spreader of Christianity

Joseph Brodsky born 1940 in Russia, died 1996: poet and essayist
Works: Watermark, On Grief and Reason, So Forth
Quotes: “Life – the way it really is – is a battle not between Bad and Good, but between Bad and Worse.” “After all, it is hard to master both life and work equally well. So if you are bound to fake one of them, it had better be life.” “For a writer only one form of patriotism exists: his attitude toward language.”

Daily Signet

I am living in the best of both worlds right now. While I find joy working in the field of real estate management—the buildings I have helped create and manage on a daily basis, and coming to know and work with owners and tenants—I get even more joy from creating and talking about the music for our Christuman High Services. What books are for some, music recordings are to me. The quest for me is hunting for those absolutely perfect pieces of music for a service. The jackpot is watching the expressions on the listeners’ faces and seeing how they become utterly absorbed. The power and joy of music, what it is capable of generating, is not to be underestimated.

Earl Behnke

Daily Signet

I thrill to the nuance of light as it plays in my valley and dances in the trees and explodes clumps of snow that sift through the evergreen needles and fall like flour onto the dough of the ground below. For I live in a Taj Mahal, an edifice of forest created out of love, for the sheer love of creation, the light of life. I want to snapshot the light as it streams from seasonal directions - north to south, high to low, wide and hot to narrow and intense.

Why so much joy in light? Because it reveals what I did not see before and it unveils a mystery that expounds into a greater mystery only now veiled in light. In the “ah ha” of the creation, the light magnifies what the darkness can no longer hide - beauty to behold but not to be understood, beauty to marvel but not to grasp. An expounded-upon mystery revealed in light to be a greater mystery than the mystery hidden in the dark.                                               

Benjamin H Martin

On This Day…

Declaration of the Bab: Baha’i remembrance of the fore-runner of Baha’u’llah

Jane Kenyon born 1947 in Michigan, died 1995: poet and translator
Works: Let Evening Come, A Hundred White Daffodils, The Boat of Quiet Hours
Quotes: “Be a good steward of your gifts. Protect your time. Feed your inner life. Avoid too much noise. Read good books, have good sentences in your ears. Be by yourself as often as you can. Walk. Take the phone off the hook. Work regular hours.” “If it’s darkness we’re having, let it be        extravagant.” “The poet’s job is to put into words those feelings we all have           that are so deep, so important, and yet so difficult to name, to tell the truth in such a beautiful way, that people cannot live without it.”

Daily Signet

Ride out your storms with joy. Sacred journey. These riches never depend only on what you have been given, but just as much on what you make of what you have been given. I dance the moment and make it live.                                                              

William M Boast

On This Day…

Alexander Pope born 1688 in England, died 1744: satirical poet, translator of Homer
Works: The Rape of the Lock, An Essay on Man, The Dunciad
Quotes: “How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. Each pray’r  accepted and each wish resign’d.” “To err is human; to forgive, divine.”

Daily Signet

How is joy different from happiness? I believe that joy is an attitude or a condition of the heart that we carry with us throughout life even through tragedy, crisis, sorrow and pain. It is a stabilizer when we feel we are losing our balance. This does not mean that we don’t experience fully the sorrows and struggles of life; however, dancing through life with joy in our hearts makes the journey easier and allows us to awaken to beauty and wisdom. On the other hand, happiness seems to be dependent upon happening or expectations of what we would like to have happen. Knowing joy is endlessly more important than knowing about joy.  

Barbara Dalberg