Eva-Maria Hogrefe: WE LEAP WITH JOY FOR GOD AND MAN

A photo of me from years ago

_________________I have learned early on that joy does not come from without ... that is, from people, even very dear people, loved-ones, it comes from within, as I could see, when their eyes sparkled because of some good they discerned. Their joy I would take in so deeply that I did not loose sight of the sparkle in their eyes, even so I knew it was more than an outer giving but an inner nurturing of a joy they could feel.

And at times when I walked through a blooming meadow, again I could feel a joy bubbling up, a feeling of belonging right there in the midst of the beauty of that field. Sometimes I would kneel in the grass and then stretch out in it and looking up into the blue of the sky, reaching beyond my vision higher and higher. As I would get up and walk to a brook gurgling along with its crystal clear water, there too I could feel the joy swelling in me and seeing the little fish swimming by, looking sideways up, as if to say, ”Why is she here?” Because of joy, I could say! Joy made me step into a shady cool forest, ah … the stillness. Only a few rays of sunlight sliding by the trees to make the stillness more delightful, joy was here --- and from within me it would brake forth, making me feel as if a deep well was springing up without ever loosing its power to flow outward.

Joy is the nectar of Love … and thus we leap with peace-generating joy for All of God and His beloved living things and beings, may it be a blade of grass or a singing bird in the bright blue sky. –Eva-Maria <>

Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.

― Thích Nhất Hạnh, Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life

When you do things from your soul,

you feel a river moving in you, a joy.

― Rumi

Jack, Zara, and Kris, walking on Pismo Beach California

Laughter is wine for the soul –

laughter soft, or loud and deep,

tinged through with seriousness –

the hilarious declaration

made by man that life is worth living.

― Seán O'Casey

One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.

― Helen Keller, The Story of My Life

Dare to love yourself

as if you were a rainbow

with gold at both ends.

― Aberjhani

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile,

but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

― Thích Nhất Hạnh

You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living.

My point is that you do not need me or anyone else around to bring this new kind of light in your life. It is simply waiting out there for you to grasp it, and all you have to do is reach for it. The only person you are fighting is yourself and your stubbornness to engage in new circumstances.

― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

Part of the problem with the word 'disabilities' is that it immediately suggests an inability to see or hear or walk or do other things that many of us take for granted. But what of people who can't feel? Or talk about their feelings? Or manage their feelings in constructive ways? What of people who aren't able to form close and strong relationships? And people who cannot find fulfillment in their lives, or those who have lost hope, who live in disappointment and bitterness and find in life no joy, no love? These, it seems to me, are the real disabilities.

― Fred Rogers, The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember