Some days are about stopping, forced pauses and seeing. Life abounds. God, here.
On A Wednesday not so long ago, I felt walls closing in on questions I could not answer. I lacked sleep and perspective. Blinded to goodness, I staggered through the day, wallowing and grumpy. The sun shone, though, beckoning me outdoors. I leashed the dog and packed my camera. I walked. And I saw. It was a return to gratitude and perspective. Life abounds, God, here.
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Tagged beauty, God, grace, hope, life, perspective, photography, remember, today
He races his bicycle on the weekend, and he rides fast. He doesn’t always win, but sometimes he does well. And his pleasure in it is evident. He tells stories of racing weekends, face expressive and bright, relishing the fact that he gets to do this and that he does it well enough to be competitive. He knows that not everyone who has the desire to excel in a sport has the opportunity or ability to do what he does. He is passionate, and he is thankful. Collin was made, among other things, to ride a bike. It’s a window for him through which he sees how to live fully. I love this about him.
Getting to be with someone who has a grasp on what it is to live out of who he is moves me. Collin provokes me to want to live life alive in the way that he knows how to be alive. We aren’t perfect in our relationship by any stretch. In recent months, we’ve needed to learn how to disagree, fight and let go, and at times, we’ve both been exasperated and frustrated. I’ve needed to stare my selfishness in the face. It’s not always pretty. In the midst of growing a relationship, we find ourselves aware of our fragility and vulnerability, especially on the days that have been hard. And yet, that hunger to live so alive and so full, it drives us, both of us. These past months for me have been a process of learning to love and be loved right in the midst of life happening, good and bad, ugly and beautiful, allowing hope to trump fear.
Last night, we prepared dinner together and worked on our various tasks, chatting. He walked the dog to the mailbox. I made him a smoothie. The eve of Valentine’s Day was quiet and restorative. We are busy, separate and together. We wanted some quiet and normal before this week gives way to company and races and photo shoots and too lengthly to-do lists. We prayed before he went home, thankful for a great day and asking for good sleep and an awareness of God’s presence. I know that not everyone who wants someone to do life with has someone, and sometimes relationships break, fail, abuse, hurt or die. I looked at Collin last night, and I found my heart passionate and thankful that he is here and that he is mine. Collin is one reminder of God’s kindness in my life. He gives of his heart with confidence and grace, and he speaks words that welcome me into his story. He cultivates beauty in my life. He expects goodness.
I love that we are friends.
I love that we are taking our time.
I love that this is the page my life is on.
I love that he is my Valentine.
I was made, among other things, for this, here and now.
Thanks for indulging my need to record a little Valentine’s Day verbiage.
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Tagged grace, hope, life, love, photography, today, valentine, valentine's day
“The shared meal elevates eating from a mechanical process of fueling the body to a ritual of family and community, from the mere animal biology to an act of culture.”
-Michael Pollan
The year’s end arrives with unseasonably warm weather resulting in a respite of outdoor activity under a canopy of blue. Did Christmas really pass last week? The rush leading up to the holiday literally ended Christmas Eve, and I stood in church with a lit candle singing “Silent Night” trying to remember silence. My family gathered, we celebrated sans one brother and one sister, and by Boxing Day, all I wanted was my own heavenly peace to sleep in. I love the end of the year and the way it makes me want to reflect and daydream. I become a child awake to the wonder of possibility, infinite. It seems we are wired to ponder life on a grandiose scale when the first day of a new year stares us down.
I’ve never been the type to make resolutions, but tonight I sat around a dinner table with Collin, his sister and her beau, and I hoped for some things for 2012. We ate at a little place in Arlington that we love, Potager Cafe, an outside-the-box, hole-in-the-wall with real food and genuine community. You can eat as much as you like from the menu comprised of local fare. It changes based on what is available. You pay what you want to pay for your meal. Tonight a diner at another table offered Collin a glass of wine from the bottle on his table when Collin asked if it was good. Cynthia owns the place, and she hugged me when I left, wishing us a happy new year and promising to email me about an idea we’ve discussed the last few times I’ve eaten there. These things happen at Potager. We love it.
After dinner, we ran errands before Collin headed home so he could get to bed early, as a long ride owns the entirety of his Saturday morning. I kept thinking about Potager. The food is always good there (outstanding, really), but I’m not sure that’s all that keeps me going back. When I eat at Potager, I find myself invited to dinner at a place where conversation flows easy, and no one is a stranger. I don’t know how to explain the dynamic, but the uniqueness strikes me. And I hope to be the kind of person in 2012 who forgets the boxes that social norms create and who remembers that people matter and so does the way we interact with the world.
I think that’s the appeal of Potager. The business model isn’t the type to attract investors: no set prices and an environment that beckons patrons to want to stay long after they’ve finished eating. But I don’t think Cynthia measures the success of her business in profits (though I think she’s paying her bills). I suspect she understands something about the nature of community and the importance of stewarding the earth. She’s created a unique space in the middle of Arlington that resembles a hodge podge family dining room. When you’re at Potager, you’re in the midst of a better story than the typical American eatery.
Real food grown in a garden out back or procured from local farmers prepared simply with real ingredients? Do people eat like that any more? And while eating like that we slow down and learn the names of the people around us and rub shoulders with their stories, if only for a few minutes. We leave full and refreshed- every single time we eat there. Did I mention we love it?
“It feels like church,” I told Collin when we left tonight. He countered that it is better than church, because you don’t have to keep up an appearance to experience a good meal at Potager. Though that’s a post for another day, I say that to say this: in 2012, I hope to be the kind of person who imagines and creates unique spaces that allow genuine community to exist and thrive. I hope to take the kind of photographs that invoke emotion and start conversation. I hope to write the kind of words that provoke the telling of a better story. I hope to live in such a way that heavenly peace is never far off, because the reality of the presence of God holds my attention day in and day out, leaving me full and refreshed and able to fill and refresh others.
I am a child awake to possibility, infinite. Yes.
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Tagged hope, life, new year, photography, potager cafe, prose, resolution, today
“Wonder is the basis of worship”
-Thomas Carlyle
No matter where, no matter where, no matter where my story- or your story- takes me or you, the deep breath yielded by a few minutes outside really looking at creation provokes wonder. It steadies me to see flowers and trees, sun and sky, and the cycle of life. Seasons shift and change. Transformation occurs. The world retains so much of the good God saw when he made it. In the midst of war and failing economies and broken relationships and sickness, even in the midst of death, a walk outside reveals new life. Some days that’s the grace to regroup and calm the heart and slow the pace.
God is here, everywhere. And we are his, loved and capable of loving. I’m captivated.
It’s outside that I most often find myself beckoned into his kingdom and story. I know I am small in the midst of a great grand scheme that is the world. That humbling reality- that very revelation- invites participation into the story of God’s great plan of redemption. I’m certain that truth ought to be taken literally and metaphorically.
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Tagged God, hope, life, musings, photography, prose, story, today, wonder
“Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.”
-Emily Dickinson
I’m a slow blogger of late. Hoping to remedy that soon.
wide-eyed with revelation, this
oh but life is joy, and here
we are alive, very
the wonder burrows deep, these
oh and roots cling deep, and here
we cling to life, desperate
oh taste and see the goodness, the goodness
oh hear and speak the fullness, the fullness
oh but life is joy, and here
we are alive, very
bright and bold, the beauty rectifies and redeems
the broken
life is joy, and here
we are alive, very
“Each morning when I awake, I experience again a supreme pleasure-that of being Salvador Dali”
-Salvador Dali
Sunday morning and coffee and prayers
a walk with the dog canopied under cool and blue
quiet is the early
grateful is the heart
awakening, awakening, awakening
this: grace
Sunday morning and hope and wonder
a recognition of new mercies this morning
steady is the faithfulness
grateful is the heart
awakened, awakened, awakened
life: gift
This I know: God is near.
Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
-Mary Oliver
Saturday morning and hours before the alarm wakes me flashes of white and rumblings of sky. Months of drought mean that I wake fully at 4 am before recognizing this: it rains. Return to sleep then the alarm rings at 7; there are photos to create. But with the rain, the sky greyed. A text to client to reschedule, but in the early I am wide awake.
Breakfast with coffee and prayers. I lace up my runners then I drag the dog on a drizzly walk. All summer long we survive our morning routine: I sweat; she pants. The rain, so wanted and so needed, she hates it. We return home. The dog runs crazy through the apartment then slumbers beside my desk. I grab a water bottle, blast Pandora through my i-Phone as I strap it to my arm and head out the door.
It drizzles still, and it is August, and in a summer that we’ve had many days over a hundred and severe drought, 75 degrees feels like grace massaging weariness out of my bones. I run hard, muddying shoes and drenching shirt- with rain and sweat cooling skin. I’m smiling, and it’s been months since a run produced a smile during my efforts. I double the length of typical pre-photo session Saturday run, and I feel I am in the presence of God alone.
My mind wanders to the words the writer of Hebrews penned in the New Testament: she urges that we seek level paths for our feet so that what is lame might not be put out of joint. I ponder those words. I have been busy and short-tempered, and my dad has been sick, and I have lacked patience, perspective, grace. I am broken. And yet mornings like this are healing: I rediscover a level path for my feet, literally, yes but in the work of my run and the cool of the air, my heart craves the God whose kindness leads to repentance.
A long few weeks, and I consider something Hebrews alludes to. Healing is often participatory. “Use it or lose it,” my boyfriend tells people when urging them towards a healthier lifestyle and better fitness. A lame foot unused will never regain strength. And sometimes there are moments of big dramatic miracles and wholeness comes instantaneously. Oftentimes, though, healing and the return to wholeness is a process. And that’s beautiful, because trust is required and that trust transforms not just what is broken but also the character of the one being healed.
This morning I return from my run, feeling muscles and reminded that they work. The rain slows by the time I finish, but the air remains cool. I settle into the rest of my day wide-eyed and hopeful, aware of a good God who ran with me this morning and awakened, once again, to faith. And to think I was just excited about the possibility of a long run in the rain…
God’s intention? To return me to patience, to perspective, to grace.
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Tagged faith, God, grace, hebrews, hope, life, photography, running, today
Thursday last, and I photograph children whose faces will not grace my website or even this blog post. I photograph children whose stories are hard, sad, broken. They, wards of the state, stare into my camera wearing stories too big for years too few to have seen so much of life. Some smile, resilience written by hope searing through pain, shining. Some barely hold eye contact, the shutter’s clicks unable to coax anything close to a grin. They range in age from infant to sixteen. The state hopes these photographs will help them find a home. For me these photographs mean I have a face, a name for my evening prayers. I photograph these children, foster kids, because it’s what I know I can do for them now.
In telling you this brief story of my Thursday, I hope it provokes your heart to pray for the little ones whose stories are bigger than them and whose hardships just might suffocate the life out of them if we don’t step in and look at their stories, their faces- and validate them. They are here, alive. They are here, alive, which means God dreams something more for them than a story of sixteen homes in three short years. I photograph 27 kids in a few hours as the sun blazes. In between photos we eat cookies and drink lemonade, and some tell stories and some mention dreams and some don’t say a word. A few are bright, and one wonders how they maintain that disposition as CPS navigates them through the foster care system. Some are slow and struggle, and whether it was by birth or circumstance, I do not know. Most seem resigned to their story.
A couple of the foster moms move me to tears- an African American woman, middle-aged, mother to two she’s already adopted. She ushers five Mexican kids, ranging in age from 1-12, into the University Park home where the photo shoot takes place. The baby on her hip looks nothing like her but clings to the only mom she’d ever known, so clearly wanted. She clucks at the kids to smile when it is their turn. She urges them to pick out a book from the pile stacked on a dining room table, a collection from the neighborhood’s castoffs. I feel her love- fierce, determined- as she tells me she wants to adopt all five. Will I take their picture when they become a real family? I think they are already a real family. I am staring in the face of a real live superhero, and she holds that baby and wipes a runny-nosed toddler’s face, and the older children help her strap the younger ones into car seats. And then I don’t just think they are a family; I know it. I hope the state agrees soon.
Another woman leads in six kids, all of them clearly special needs, a parade of temper tantrums by children far too old for such behavior and toddler minds forced to grow into teenaged bodies. I only photograph one of her kids, and she tells us she’d adopted five of the eleven who live with her. She wants to adopt the girl I photograph too. She’s 11, and her mannerisms match a three-year-old, innocent and volatile. I wonder how her foster mom has the time, the strength to keep giving love to so many who need so much. She takes all the hand-me-down clothing the host offers as she guides her crew back to their car. She chooses those kids- the ones who look funny and act strangely- and she wants them. In choosing those kids she too chooses a superhero identity: selfless compassion and endless grace.
The last child is a girl, ten. She chirps her way through her photos, her freckled face expectant as she tells me she hopes to be adopted. She pets the dogs and watches the fish and moves from kitchen counter to piano and back while her foster mom talks of life in the country and horses and acres of land that is good for kids. After they leave, I feel tired- all those kids and all those stories in so little time.
And tonight I’m editing those photos, staring at the faces of little ones you cannot see here. In some of their eyes I see my own reflection. The light of the sun hits the camera just so sometimes and reflects in the subject’s eye, and the image created bears a picture within it of the one who takes the photo. All those kids, when I photographed them, I told them that. I showed them on the camera screen. “I’ll remember you,” I told them. “And when you look at the picture, you can remember me, because you’ll be able to see me.”
I wanted them to know they are remembered. I hope that they know they will not be forgotten. I pray that they’ll find their ways into families. And I trust a God who redeems stories no matter how broken. He who made them, he really remembers, and they bear his image on their little souls. No amount of brokenness or hurt can take that away. I understand the resilience hope writes on some of their faces: redemption writes a better story.
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Tagged foster care, God, hope, orphans, photography, redemption, today
Our friendship really took off when we went to Mazatlan several years ago, Heather and I. Little did we know that one short-term mission trip to Mexico would spur a dozen or so more, shaping the contours of our lives for several years. Little did we know that the ongoing planning of those trips would lead to the ever-growing constancy of a friendship needed and wanted.
Now Heather is one of my best friends. Then she someone I knew slightly and admired. Then she was pregnant with her sixth child. Now Emily is five years old. Heather and her husband, Lee, both turned 40 this year. I took some photographs to be a part of their birthday gift. It’s still a work in progress.
This morning on my run I found myself thinking about Heather and Lee and their family and wanted to write some words about them. The world needs families shaped by moms and dads like these two. They love well: each other and their kids. They parent uniquely. They believe the best about their kids and are unapologetic about calling that out of them. They’re not concerned with convention or status quo; they are concerned about relationship and raising whole children.
I can’t help but think when God dreamed up marriage and family as an answer to the it’s not good for man to be alone problem, he envisioned a family like this one. They are not perfect; but they are beautifully human and life is celebrated and love is the greatest wealth in their inheritance.
In their house there is real food and family around the table at meals. There is laughter spilling from the piano room and filling the whole house as the girls write a song. There are piles of worn books beside a television that I’ve never seen turned on. There are smiles and there are hugs. There is listening. There is learning It’s not that there aren’t fights or disagreements, but when they happen, apologies are the norm and trust is rebuilt. Little children are not intimidated into proper behavior, and older children’s dreams and desires are valued and discussed. It’s not always possible to do everything, but it is always possible to see a child, right where they are and meet them. I think this is the gift Lee and Heather give their kids: they are fully present parents. It’s not that they are perfect, but it is that they choose to show up, time and again. They choose each other. They choose their kids. And then they find ways to choose others too.
In the midst of all this kid-loving, life-celebrating goodness, Heather and Lee both pursue interest and passions of their own too. If your life is focused on the others around you, somehow time finds ways to stretch and make room for music lessons and long runs and date nights. I don’t know how it works, but it does. I think some intentionality might be required and some help from a God who’s way is to discipline the ones he loves. Because in so living, fullness is found.
When I spend time with Heather, I’m reminded that people are gifts and that some of life’s greatest treasures and most beautiful moments are found- and shared- when you encounter someone who lives fully and entrusts and empowers others to do the same. This is the way Lee and Heather illustrate love and life and friendship and family and beauty to their kids and to the world.
I thought about this today and thanked God for my friends. I wanted to write this down to remember and to share, because when you realize you’ve recognized something beautiful you want others to see as well. Because lives like these? They make me hope in a world where families struggle and break all too often. Lives like these are beacons of something different, something more.
They compel hunger while illustrating the way to living full. I love that.
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Tagged beauty, birthday, family, friends, fullness, God, hope, inheritance, life, love, photography, today
“Tell us a story from before we can remember.”
“The nuns taught us that no one who loves the way of grace ever comes to a bad end.”
–Tree of Life
This day, the day that started brand new with breakfast and coffee? I ran miles and played with the dog minutes. I wrote words and worked on photos. I prayed and tried (a little) to listen to God. Words were read, clothes were folded, dishes were done. What is Jesus like? Conversations and emails and text messages exchanged: the stuff of life, relationships. Photographs and books and notes and screens. So much of the mundane lacks shine and yet life is beautiful. I go to bed every night and promise to get there earlier the next day, and tomorrow comes, a brand new day and the routine cycles on and on.
Some days I wonder if this is enough.
Some days I wonder. Period.
Most days grace awakens me to more. I hunger.
Today I’m tired and that’s why I need to remember the more, to remember that today started brand new, and tomorrow? It will too. And that newness seems like everything tonight, like the world gets clothed anew every day, and the pockets of redemption, they run deep. This I hope; this I believe.
(P.S. Thank you for journeying with me, and I promise to write something less cryptic soon).
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Tagged cryptic, grace, hope, musings, photography, prose, redemption, story, today, tree of life
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