waiting

3-17-11

I don't feel all that creative taking picture of plants,(but at least I feel something: Cheesy! ) but it's almost spring, and all this expectation of things coming to life and being made new after the long slumber is making me think of all the waiting we seem to do when we're looking for redemption. .... and sometimes I can be a pretty impatient person. But those leaves will be coming out soon, and look, there's green poking through all that dead, dried up brown..... it's happening. It's transforming.

in the night

3-16-11


My eyes are brightening as the music is pounding it's way from my ears to my head.....to my soul. And it's changing me from the inside out; soon enough a smile sneaks out- and here I am, sitting here smiling. I have some confessions to make:
Sometimes I've let my hope get beaten up, black and blue, very hesitant to crawl back out into the sunlight for fear I would find it all darkness. So often that hope has proved to let me down, but that's because it was misplaced in my own selfish expectations, and I held it close and tight to my heart. Sometimes my hope was cast to the ground because it just didn't look far enough, or climb deep enough in.
I'm waking up, and words are echoing in my head, "none who place their hope in me will be disappointed"

I'm waking up and looking around me and wondering how I never saw all this with these eyes before.
I'm waking up and I'm a child again- looking into a pair of eyes and knowing that I can hope.

I'm waking up and it's spring. Everything is waking up. I'm looking through everything, all of the years built up into a translucent haze, and all I see through it is a face. In that gaze hangs the balance of all my hopes. And I know I won't be disappointed. I know I can't be disappointed- not when I see that face.
Not when I see that face.
Somehow all this connects to redemption. I've been thinking about things being reclaimed, but, redemption is our HOPE.

And so often it looks as though things are going badly, as though all our expectations and desires are crumbling around us.
Actually, it looks as though the entire world is crumbling around us.... and in fact it is. But remember, resurrection came after death. And our hope does not disappoint us. Redemption is happening all around us in this death, destruction, pain and brokenness. Jesus is putting on flesh and getting on a cross and dying and beating the hell out of death, and reclaiming.
He has given us hope that looks past the night and knows with a resolution that can't be shaken that dawn is coming, it's only hours away even though it may seem an eternity in this suffocating black.


Now when I look up at the stars at night I think of Abraham, of a promise, of a new name, of a story with many twists and turns, where it looks as though all is lost....but then the dawn rises and there is the best ending, the only ending.

I was reading in a magazine the other day that some photographers over the past few years have challenged themselves to take a photo every day for an entire year. Some just documented aspects of life- of their lives, others actually picked some sort of theme. I was juggling the idea around in my head, considering doing it myself, since I have really lacked some inspiration to go take pictures lately. Today I decided I would, and I was going to just do random photos for a year and see what I ended up with, when a friend suggested a theme might be better, or at least more interesting. I actually had one in mind, but at the time I was thinking it might be too vague. After more deliberation, I decided that I really wanted to do this theme anyway.

Everyday for a year I will be trying to take photos that are in some way representive of redemption.

This could be interesting in asheville.

As an afterthought, I realized that the more you look for something, the more you see it, everywhere that it's been all along. It's just putting on new eyes. I'm pretty excited about it, because I think a lot of the time I just get bogged down seeing all the destruction or waste, or abuse, or wronging going on around me... and those things definitely exist. But opening my eyes to redemption is like admitting that I actually believe God; that I actually believe that when he says he can, and does bring good out of a mess, he ain't kiddin'.
It's realizing that Jesus is, quite literally bigger than all of our problems, and when we look hard enough in any situation we will find redemption- ultimately in the face of Jesus.

But man, it doesn't get much more beautiful than opening your starving eyes to a reality that has always been there.
So, the death theme is on hold, not that it isn't important, but every so often I might share my photos and my thoughts on redemption. Seems like I'm gonna be looking for it for awhile. And I'm really hoping it starts changing my eyes and Jesus starts showing up everywhere. He's inescapable, you know.

From Dust

I have been meaning to change this blog around for quite sometime, basically the format, and well, most other things about it. I have this crazy idea of exploring different beliefs, vantage points, if you will, of certain things within our culture; How they affect the way we interact, think, see, and live. These things especially hold fascination for me because there are multiple ways of looking at things, and in doing so, we sometimes discover that our eyes don't see the way Jesus' would and our hearts don't react the way his would. All I intend (even if it happens in a round-a-bout sort-of way) to do with photography or the words I lay down is to point to Him- and hopefully that is what anyone who chances upon all this will be left with.

So onto Death, most feared of foes.... or so it seems. You can call me morbid. It's ok. Some preliminary questions to juggle around in your head:

Why do we attempt so hard to avoid death?
How does our denial and avoidance of the reality of death manifest itself?
How do our beliefs about what death is cause us to react?
What is the correlation between life and death ?
How does our fear of death affect life?

hunger pains and crimson stains

I came to a coffee shop, bought the cheapest thing I could (tea)(hey, rent's due soon) and sat down, took a deep sigh and prepared to start learning more photoshop. And then I came across this while checking email. Perhaps I should summarize. Someone is selling a mansion for 75 million dollars..... with 23 bathrooms, 13 bedrooms, a bowling alley, movie theater.............
Is your jaw dropping, have you gone into a coma yet?
This is definitely an extreme case, I'm not implying that the majority of Americans walk around with millions of dollars in their pockets, and bathrooms enough to use a different one every day for more than three weeks, But to me, these are the implications of a starving nation, and really, of a starving humanity(as much as we have helped the idea along, it's not just americans chasing their own prosperity). I've heard of such things, but today I am sitting here shell-shocked because I don't understand how someone could come to the conclusion that they should build something like this. I don't understand it. What could inspire you to be so bored, what could inspire you to hoard so much? These are the signs of a starving nation,and it outrages me that we live in such poverty that people hedge themselves in with all the greed and comfort and safety they can muster in the hopes that they will allude life, and maybe death too.....
And somehow the same thought I have been having lately is connected. We are hungry for something else. It's as though we have this giant tapeworm living inside us, eating everything in sight, demanding more and more, and yet we are still hungry......and we are either still unaware of our tapeworm, or are left asking the question, 'how do we get rid of it?' and 'how do we get rid of this persistent hunger?'
I also look around and see a church full of people, containing a huge amount of love, and generally speaking we can be pretty good sometimes at lavishing it upon each other, at loving those who love us (sometimes). But I'm left wondering there as well, if we have something that destroys the tapeworm and satisfies the hunger.....why aren't we giving it to the people that are hungry?

What are we doing, Body of Christ??? Are we building our own invisible mansions full of other things that hold no value? Are we really seeking out those whom Jesus seeks, are we really looking with his eyes? Are we really loving with his love? Or are we building our own half-hearted, self-imploding time bomb?
I guess I want to see impossible perfection, in the sense that it actually is possible. Jesus broke a few loaves of bread and fed people who were really hungry-thousands. So why is it that we are so unsure of the love he has given us? Is it a small thing that he did this? We are unsure of ourselves, when we should be sure of him. Is it a small thing that he covered us with his own crimson stains? Is it a small thing?
Or is it a big enough thing that we have faith and love, from him, to love others, to feed the hungry, to comfort the sick and dying and lonely in the smallest ways (and just maybe those are the big ways)? to love those who spite us, and annoy us, and reject us.....and know that it is multiplying just like the bread and fish? Is it a big enough thing that we have faith that he is multiplying the love he has given us inside of us to amounts we can't even imagine?
Jesus told his disciples to feed the crowds. He would not give them an impossible command, he doesn't toy with people that way. It was possible because they had Jesus with them. It is possible because we have Jesus with us.
I'm not advocating a faith based on works, or our justification based on works. I don't believe in that at all. What I am sick of is a bunch of unmotivated, lazy people sitting around talking about theology and arguing and debating and getting all 'intellectual' about things. (I'm not isolating myself from this group, by the way) What I am sick of is a gospel that says Jesus loves you exactly like you are and you don't have to do anything to earn it and ends there. I think that statement is true, but I don't think it ends there.
What I am advocating is a love that actually has power and compels, because I am sick, really, really, sick and tired of myself, and others who have made this blood into something weak and fluffy.
What I am saying is that if we really know Jesus, if we really know the Father, we should look more and more like him the longer we know him. We should have works, only because there is simply nothing else a love of this magnitude can do except produce more love of the same kind. Anything less is taking away from the power of what has been done for us, and the love that has blanketed us.
Are we living like these crimson stains are a small thing?

If we are, we shouldn't go looking for works or signs or power.........
We should go find Jesus....or go be found by him,
and then see what happens.

I don't think I want 23 bathrooms. And I don't think I want the disillusion that I am as far removed from that tapeworm as I would like to think I am.
I want to walk beside Jesus and watch as he brings light and love everywhere my feet carry me. I've only got a tiny crust of bread, but I've got Jesus.

These are the hunger pangs of a bored nation:
WE MUST BE STARVING....

If we spent more time running around loving people like Jesus, and living things like Is. 58 or Matt. 5 & 6, I doubt we'd have time to sit around on our butts all day arguing over petty theology. Somethin' to think about.