KCT Thought of the Week, October 21, 2016

“The more often we see the things around us - even the beautiful and wonderful things - the more they become invisible to us. That is why we often take for granted the beauty of this world: the flowers, the trees, the birds, the clouds - even those we love. Because we see things so often, we see them less and less.” ~ Joseph B. Wirthin

Appreciating the Beauty of Fall in Cape Porpoise: Photo by Robert Dennis

KCT Thought of the Week, October 7, 2016

“Those fleeting but sacred moments immersed in nature help us see our small lives in much larger context. They remind us—in poet Mary Oliver’s words—of our ‘place in the family of things.’ All of our work to protect significant lands and care for them is part of a continuum of giving and receiving that extends across generations and among species. We do this work because we recognize the need to sustain this reciprocity, to keep that greater whole thriving.” ~ Tim Glidden, President of Maine Coast Heritage Trust

A View from the Learning Trail at the Emmons Preserve: Photo by Lisa Linehan

KCT Thought of the Week, September 30, 2016

To laugh often and love much:

to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children:

to earn the approbation of honest citizens and endure the betrayal of false friends:

to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition:

to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation:

to know one life has breathed easier because you have lived. . .

this is to have succeeded.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Beauty at the End of the Day: Photo by Robert Dennis

KCT Thought of the Week, July 29, 2016

"It was as though grace and peace were bestowed on them out of the sanctity of marriage itself, which simply furnished them to one another, free and sufficient as rain to leaf.  It was as if they were not making marriage but being made by it, and, while it held them, time and their lives flowed over them, like swift water over stones, rubbing them together, grinding off their edges, making them fit together, fit to be together, in the only way that fragments can be rejoined."  Wendell Berry in "Remembering: A Novel (Port William)" 

The Wedding of Erik & Nicole Benham at the Emmons Preserve Receives a Blessing:  Photo by Christina Smith

KCT Thought of the Week, July 22, 2016

"With your child, look at objects you take for granted as commonplace or uninteresting.  A sprinkling of sand grains may appear as gleaming jewels of rose or crystal hue, or as glittering jet beads, or as a mélange of Lilliputian rocks, spines of sea urchins, and bits of snail shells." ~ Rachel Carson"The Sense of Wonder"  "A Place Called Maine"

Searching for Treasures in Stage Harbor:  Photo by Tom Bradbury

 

 

KCT Thought of the Week, July 8, 2016

"Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there. It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said." ~ Ray Bradbury in "Fahrenheit 451: A Novel"


Summer’s Beauty in Kennebunkport: Photo by Robert Dennis

KCT Thought of the Week, July 1, 2016

"Stand firm, ye boys from Maine, for not once in a century are men permitted to bear such responsibility for freedom and justice, for God and humanity as are now placed upon you." Private Theodore Gerrish, 1882, Thomas A. Desjardin in "Stand Firm Ye Boys from Maine: The 20th Maine and the Gettysburg Campaign"
Battle of Gettysburg, July 1 – 3, 1863

Celebrating the 4th of July: Photo by Robert Dennis