The firefly flickers of God's grace are enough to embrace the unknown. A surge of powerful surrender takes over all my looking back, and ever so gently and hopefully I risk the road of another new year.
~ from MAY I HAVE THIS DANCE? by Joyce Rupp
Barnaby was like a mood, a fragrance of the harmonious inner life, permeating everything with which he came into contact. He knew sorrow and he knew joy, and he held them in a delicate balance of serenity and peace. He knew how to respond equally joyfully to an invitation to walk or talk or sit together, which seems to me to be a particular kind of training in grace -- a willingness to respond easily and happily to even the most modest adventure together. Perhaps it could be said that within his framework of being a dog, he lived life as a spiritual exercise.