Daffodil’s Return

What matter if the sun be lost?
What matter though the sky be gray?
There's joy enough about the house,
For Daffodil comes home to-day.

Bliss Carman
1921

New Year's Day 2021

Another year has roll'd away,
With all its sorrows, joys and fears,
But still the light of hope's glad ray,
Yet beams within our heart, and cheers.

One year, one span of time has pass'd,
So swift to some, to others slow;
But it has gone, and we should cast
Along with it, remorse and woe.

T.F. Young

Love Came Down One Night

Dear Visitor:

Surely, year 2020 is one annus horribilis. And yet, things come not by chance but from the Father, COVID-19 notwithstanding. As exemplified by the saints and sinners in the Bible, salvation and spiritual growth can come to His people through sickness and affliction. God's love never begins and never ends. He always sustains. Nevertheless, at this blog entry may all go well with you in the Lord, health as well as the soul.

The treasure of God’s wisdom and Word is for His people. Jesus’ birth, death, and resurrection is God’s will and promise to save His own. The ultimate salvation is accomplished by Christ who “delivers us from the wrath to come,”¹, and “reconcile to Himself all things.”²  Indeed, because of Christmas and later Christ’s victory over death, the redeemed can assuredly proclaim, “in Him we live and move and have our being.”³

For this Christmas and those that may later follow, let your soul magnify the Lord, and your spirit rejoice in God our Savior.

Grace, mercy, and peace be with you,

L'

¹1 Thessalonians 1:10
²Colossians 1:20
³Acts 17:28

In the Silent Pause Till You Hear

Where the world does not reach with its clamour and cry
And there in the silence pause, till you hear
Your innermost self and the God that is nigh.
-Gustav Melbey

The Shadows,  (2000 compilation)
- Night in White Satin
(Hayward)

Click or tap here to view this L'Envoi YouTube.

Last Month of the Year 2020

Here we are in December 2020. The last month of the second decade of the 21st century.

I suppose some of us at a certain age or a frame of mind, might recall once read Villon's words, “Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?”

Tempus fugit.

The Loss of Beauty Is Not Always Loss

Much have I spoken of the faded leaf; 
Long have I listened to the wailing wind, 
And watched it ploughing through the heavy clouds, 
For autumn charms my melancholy mind. 

When autumn comes, the poets sing a dirge: 
The year must perish; all the flowers are dead; 
The sheaves are gathered; and the mottled quail 
Runs in the stubble, but the lark has fled!

Still, autumn ushers in the Christmas cheer, 
The holly-berries and the ivy-tree: 
They weave a chaplet for the Old Year's bier 
These waiting mourners do not sing for me! 

I find sweet peace in depths of autumn woods, 
Where grow the ragged ferns and roughened moss; 
The naked, silent trees have taught me this,--
The loss of beauty is not always loss!

- Elizabeth Stoddard (1823-1902) - "November"

MP3 iOS Ringtone - Wild Thing

On the page link below, access Table 5 2020 ringtone-ready MP3 for ringtone creation. The prerequisite for ringtone creation is an already installed iPhone app GarageBand (free download at the App Store).

From the site menu bar labeled "iOS Ringtones", any MP3 can be downloaded and listened from the drop-down menu Table 3 and above.

If you like this posted ringtone, download and export the MP3 to the Apple iCloud Drive. Then use the GarageBand app 2.3.x and higher on the iPhone to convert this MP3 now stored on the iCloud Drive.

There are mobile apps for the iPhone which export files to the iCloud Drive, including the music and ringtone files created with the GarageBand.

No longer required is the GarageBand app to delete any ringtone saved in the iPhone running iOS 13.x and higher. Ringtone can be deleted from the iPhone by the familiar gesture. Select a file and swipe from right to delete.

The ringtone:



iOS Device Ringtone Download:

Ringtone #46

The Troggs  (1966)

- Wild Thing

MP3 iOS Ringtone - A Fifth of Beethoven

On the page link below, access Table 5 2020 ringtone-ready MP3 for ringtone creation. The prerequisite for ringtone creation is an already installed iPhone app GarageBand (free download at the App Store).

From the site menu bar labeled "iOS Ringtones", any MP3 can be downloaded and listened from the drop-down menu Table 3 and above.

If you like this posted ringtone, download and export the MP3 to the Apple iCloud Drive. Then use the GarageBand app 2.3.x on the iPhone to convert this MP3 now stored on the iCloud Drive to a ringtone onto your device.

There are mobile apps for the iPhone which export files to the iCloud Drive, including the music and ringtone files created with the GarageBand.

No longer required is the GarageBand app to delete any ringtone saved in the iPhone running iOS 13.x. Ringtone can be deleted from the iPhone by the familiar select a file and swipe from right to left.

The ringtone:



iOS Device Ringtone Download:

Ringtone #45

Walter Murphey & The Big Appble Band (1976)

- A Fith of Beethoven
(after Beethoven's 5th Symphony)

Year 2020: Celebrating Beethoven's 250th Birthday

Tab 1 Feature:

11 November 2020 Beethoven's 250th Birthday in Year 2020 Celebration

Bagatelle No.25, in A Minor (Fűr Elise) 2:31
(Beethoven)

In a Classical Mood - Tranquility (1996)

~*~

Tab 2 Feature:

11 November 2020 Beethoven's 250th Birthday in Year 2020 Celebration

Midnight Blue En Irlande (French) 3:19
(after Beethoven "Piano Sonata No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 13, 2nd Movement")

Michèle Torr (1995)

♫ Play L'envoi Music Features ♫

A Better Country for S_

“Send out your light and truth...
let them bring me to your holy hill”
- Psalm 43:3

Dear E_:

Autumn has arrived. Every year this time, I harvest the fruits and clean the garden. Indian summers in October with temperature in the 80s. Now with the morning temperature in the 40s, I moved some cold-temperature intolerant potted plants inside the house last week. The furnace turned on two weeks ago.

Because of the numerous forest fires and associated debris fallouts, the air quality has been poor in this area. The annual October almond and walnut harvesting in nearby orchards stirred up even more dust in the air. For these reasons, I did not use the patio at all this year. Over the weekend, the final patio cleaning and covering up the furniture were done. The patio is now closed until next spring.

Seasonal house maintenance chores are a minuscule representation of God’s ordained truth. There is a beginning and an end to all things created. Mortal life is foretasting beginnings and ends in pairs of: life and death, sow and harvest, spring and autumn, war and peace (Ecclesiastes 3:1-11). To date by His mercy, God still provides the underlying stability world order in our turbulent tottering world (Psalm 75:3). In an undisclosed final end time, Christ will come again. He will hand over the kingdom to God the Father when every ruler, authority, and power are demolished, including the very last enemy - death. (I Corinthians 15:24-26).

It has been 14 years then since our foregathering at the Savannah-Charleston trip. For several seasons after said trip, you and S_ traveled to the Standing Rock Reservation to do short-term missionary works. What you both did in this area was unknown to me. Your gifts of talent, time, and treasure in this field would have pleased God, and to “whom [He] will look” (Isaiah 66:2).

In our mortal minds, S_’s death has saddened and lingered. Her passing is like a pleasing melancholy of an Indian summer. That our present sadness is blended with the joyful hues of a by-gone summer memory. (As you will recall, it was ten summers ago I visited you two in Roanoke. The blitheness of that visit-fellowship still vividly etched in our collective minds). All of us are much comforted, nothwithstanding our mortal lamentation. S_ is ever precious to the LORD even in death (Psalm 116:15). As an heir to God’s inheritance, she has gone home to “a better country” which the Father already prepared (Hebrews 11:16; 1 Peter 1:4).

So it is, “to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). For Christ has given to His people, His church, “rest by His sorrow, and life by His death”.

God’s grace and mercy abiding with you, and the Lord Jesus be with your spirit.

L’