Godliness is a human necessity

A garden in Germany, photo by Gisbert Rentmeister

"Godliness (goodness) is a human necessity: man cannot live without it; he has no intelligence, health, hope nor happiness without godliness. In the words of the Hebrew writers: 'Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.' "

Mary Baker Eddy

Tourists visiting Lake Michigan

photo by Gary Finn

A native American,  drawing by Eva-Maria

India--folk theatre - photo by Ashok Kumar

open market  in Boston, photos by Eva-Maria

A table descends to your tents

Each one of us touches one place

And understands the whole that way

Africa, birthday celebration, photo by Andre Mbousnoum

photo by Eva-Maria

On a lake boat-journey, in Switzerland

The rain-weeping and the sun-burning twine

together to make us grow

  "What you see, that you be..."

  --after Plato

 "Let the beauty we love be what we do."

  --Rumi

Del Mar, California - photo by Vincent

ice-rink in Bryant Park, NYC

Lake Thun, Switzerland

painting by Eva-Maria done in Spain

"Goodness is the only investment that never fails."

Henry David Thoreau

Edinburgh, Scotland

Bern, Switzerland

There is a way between voice and presence

where information flows.

In disciplined silence it opens.

With wandering talk it closes.

--Rumi

York, England

"to speak or not to speak,

to do or leave undone

the necessary things

at the necessary time;

to show the indispensable virtues,

prudence and firmness,

one for choosing a course,

the other for pursuing it

by the exercise of reason

checking mindless impulse..."

Gorgias (Greek poet) 

photo by Susannah West

photos by Vincent Hogrefe

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey of the stars.

--Walt Whitman--

Reality keeps the sky turned over like a cup above us,

revolving.  Who turns the sky-wheel?

The universal intelligence.

painting by Eva-Maria

shrimp with sweet potato & tomato

photo by Eva-Maria

Love’s unlabored motion

Spontaneous inspiration through
spiritual devotion

assures an atmosphere of

love-filled thought that

raises us above the

life-in-matter notion.

It frees us for sublime soaring

as on outstretched wings,

with dominion and full strength;

we are lifted, ascending

in new spiritual light,

in the beauty of

its warm glow,

in upward flight.

Effortlessly, divine Love stills

human will,

annuls fear’s petition, arouses

spiritual energy’s unfettered

healing motion, which

draws each one heavenward.

The ceaselessly, radiant,

loving, living Christ, Truth,

lifts each ready heart

from struggling.

Frustration forgotten, we are refreshed

with constant healing,

with potions of Truth, through

the splendor of Love’s perpetual

unlabored motion.

--Eva-Maria Hogrefe, published in the

The Christian Science Journal, January 1996--

The victory always remains with those who 
admire, rather than with those who deride, 

and the power of appreciating is worth 

any amount of the power of despising.

--Arthur Christopher Benson, English author in From a college Window (1906)--

photos by EM