An Excerpt From the Eternal Goodness by John Greenleaf Whittier

This is just an excerpt of a poem that touched my heart dearly during some of the most intense dark days of our wait to bring Million home.

You can read the whole of it here.


from The Eternal Goodness

I know not what the future hath

Of marvel or surprise,

Assured alone that life and death

His mercy underlies.

And if my heart and flesh are weak

To bear an untried pain,

The bruised reed he will not break,

But strengthen and sustain.

No offering of my own I have,

Nor works my faith to prove;

I can but give the gifts he gave,

And plead his love for love.

And so beside the silent sea

I wait the muffled oar;

No harm from him can come to me

On ocean or on shore.

I know not where his islands lift

Their fronded palms in air;

I only know I cannot drift

Beyond his love and care.

The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life. ~Robert Louis Stevenson

Our Next Big Adventure

At times like these, it seems there should usually be an appropriate or somber-sounding beginning.

And we are in a "beginning" of sorts.

But we're also at a very long-anticipated end.

The "we" I refer to is a little family which is, for now, comprised of three humans, Wynken, Blynken, and Nod, who are about to sail off....

I'm sailing away
Set an open course for the Virgin Sea
'Cause I've got to be free
Free to face the life that's ahead of me

On board, I'm the captain
So climb aboard
We'll search for tomorrow on every shore
And I'll try, oh Lord, I'll try to carry on

I look to the sea
Reflections in the waves spark my memory
Some happy, some sad
I think of childhood friends and the dreams we had

We lived happily forever
So the story goes
But somehow we missed out on the pot of gold
But we'll try best that we can to carry on...

Okay. We just broke out into Styx amidst our first post on this new blog.

This is looking promising, isn't it?

Anyway, as I was saying, we're about to sail off into soporific and snore-inducing adventures.

Daily life.

While I wish our names were as sonorous as "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod", our names are actually, Michael, Heather, and Million.

And we are accompanied on our journey by a politically ambivalent and somewhat disillusioned dog, named BonAmi.

However, because we've made some rather large changes in our life in the last few months, and because we found friends wanted to keep up with us, we thought we'd allow you a peek into our voyage.

Thanks for joining us!

Come sail away with us.