Author Archives: david brazzeal

About david brazzeal

....encouraging those who are creative toward deeper spirituality and those who are spiritual toward heightened creativity

Seeing the Beauty and Goodness in Front of Us

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dew1“We don’t have to go far to find the treasure we are seeking. There is beauty and goodness right where we are. And only when we can see the beauty and goodness that are close by can we recognize beauty and goodness on our travels far and wide. There are trees and flowers to enjoy, paintings and sculptures to admire; most of all there are people who smile, play, and show kindness and gentleness. They are all around us, to be recognized as free gifts to receive in gratitude.

Our temptation is to collect all the beauty and goodness surrounding us as helpful information we can use for our projects. But then we cannot enjoy it, and we soon find that we need a vacation to restore ourselves. Let’s try to see the beauty and goodness in front of us before we go elsewhere to look for it.”

– Henri Nouwen The Return of the Prodigal Son

A Cache-Cache Moment

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sagrada-familia-cathedrale-concue-par-gaudi-pendant-la-nuit-barcelone-espagneA very good friend just texted me from Barcelona while visiting Gaudi church:  Sagrada Familia.

She says, “Holà, …La Sagrada Familia is so meaningful, so Jesus centered that I can not help the tears welling up in my eyes. My husband must think the pregnancy has truly gotten to me, but it is only the beauty and strength of the Holy Spirit that has refreshed and revived the way I feel about the blessing of architecture.”

Isn’t it amazing, this ability of art to zap us with transcendent moments like this? That we can be so profoundly and deeply inspired to tears….not by words from a sermon or from a holy book, but by stones and mortar? I’m not sure how it works, nor why, nor when…..but I’m so very glad it does happens….even vicariously through a friend.

God in the routine

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cupworld“The discovery of God lies in the daily and the ordinary, not in the spectacular and the heroic. If we cannot find God in the routines of home and shop, then we will not find him at all. Ours is to be a symphonic peity in which all the activities of work and play and family and worship and sex and sleep are the holy habitats of the eternal.”

– Richard Foster in Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home, p. 171

Cache Cache in the Jardin Luxembourg

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Yesterday, we played “hide & seek” in one of the world’s most amazing gardens….Le Jardin Luxembourg à Paris. It was an afternoon “intro” to our cache cache concept for about 10 people from Boston. They really “got it”….only a shame we didn’t have 2-3 days together.

Do think about joining in on our fun this summer. We have a special “Bastille Day” edition in Paris around the July 14th weekend. And later in August we are trying to organize a cache cache to fit with the Greenbelt Festival in England….either before or afterward.