sunset and memory

I’m rather inordinately proud of a couple of these shots I got yesterday at sunset.  Dandelion seedheads now remind me of a certain night back at college spent with some of the sweetest girls I know, blowing dandelions in the dark, giggling, and just enjoying that moment.

I’m sorely feeling the lack of community at the moment, though I’m enjoying my family very much.  I miss my church and friends from back there.  Visiting a new church, trying out a new knitting group, and slowly building up new connections here.

I’m not really sure what I’m doing anymore or what this path is supposed to be, the one the Lord has suddenly diverted my life down.  It’s lonely, for now, and a bit scary.  But the uncertainty is also rather exciting and certainly the testing of my faith has begun to produce patience, as my Lord promised.

St. Augustine and friends

I visited the lovely little town of St. Augustine, Florida this past weekend for my friend Valerie’s wedding.  Val and I have been friends since my freshman year of college and we’ve been through alot together.

We spent Friday exploring the St. George Street district, downtown — St. Augustine is the oldest town in America and many of the buildings are hundreds of years old!  That evening, we ate the rehearsal dinner at this charming restaurant right on the water.  Cappucino creme brulee, yum!

The day of the [outdoor] wedding itself was kinda stressful due to the fickle Florida weather.  It started to rain in the early afternoon so everyone was in a holding pattern once the decorations were up and the small number of guests arrived.  At about 5:30, we seized a brief gap in the clouds; shooed everyone outside and started the processional…  The ground was so squashy that the 3 inch heels on my shoes sank all the way in with every step.  Walking on tip-toe down an entire aisle is not a simple feat, believe me.  But we all made it.

I thought the wedding might be really hard for me, especially having to be in it.  And it was in some ways.  But in other ways, it reminded me of how grateful I am for the many blessings the Lord has graciously allowed in my life.  Even if the blessing of a relationship is not currently one of them.

Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Gregg.

[the right words]

I’ve been absent here a long time;  graduating from college, moving back to Kansas City, finding a job, trying to reconnect.  I’m committing to shoot more pictures, write more words, and to be more faithful about blogging.  Today, the only thing I want to share is this song by Sara Groves.  I first heard it five minutes ago and the words pierced my heart.  After reading the lyrics, you may understand:

Tuxedo in the closet, gold band in a box
Two days from the altar she went and called the whole thing off
What he thought he wanted, what he got instead
Leaves him broken and grateful

I passed understanding a long, long time ago
And the simple home of systems and answers we all know
What I thought I wanted, what I got instead
Leaves me broken and somehow peaceful

I keep wanting you to be fair
But that’s not what you said
I want certain answers to these prayers
But that’s not what you said

When I get to heaven I’m gonna go find Job
I want to ask a few hard questions, I want to know what he knows
About what it is he wanted and what he got instead
How to be broken and faithful

What I thought I wanted
What I thought I wanted
What I thought I wanted
What I thought I wanted

Staring in the water like Aesops foolish dog
I can’t help but reflect on what it was I almost lost
What it I thought I wanted, what I got instead
Leaves me broken and grateful

I’m broken and grateful
I want to be broken and grateful
I want to be broken, peaceful, faithful, grateful, grateful
I want to be broken, peaceful, faithful, grateful, grateful

You can listen to the entire song here. Or buy the CD and support Sara — I saw her in concert last summer and she’s an absolutely lovely person.

personality mosaic

Rules:

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search (http://www.flickr.com/).
b. Using ONLY the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into Mosaic Maker. Change rows to 3 and columns to 3 (http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/mosaic.php).

The Questions:

1. What is your name?  Sara
2. What is your favorite food?   avocados
3. What is your favorite color? green
4. Favorite drink?  grapefruit juice
5. Dream vacation?  Two weeks in Santorini & the Cyclades
6. Favorite hobby?  knitting
7. What you want to be when you grow up?  wife & mom
8. What’s one thing you call valuable on this earth?  hope
9. One word to describe you?  diverse

1. Sara’s orange singlespeed, 2. sexy stark, 3. I had to do it, too…:), 4. fresh vitamins, 5. [imerovigli], 6. Untitled, 7. He had a wife, humble, obedient and quiet and three children, 8. We are choosing hope over fear., 9. Dans la Rue!

on His Resurrection

[I posted this poem back in November, but the words remain more poignant than ever on this Easter Sunday.  See also this wonderful post on the DG blog that reminded me of it.]

Descending Theology: The Resurrection

by Mary Karr

From the far star points of his pinned extremities,
cold inched in—black ice and squid ink—
till the hung flesh was empty.
Lonely in that void even for pain,
he missed his splintered feet,
the human stare buried in his face.
He ached for two hands made of meat
he could reach to the end of.
In the corpse’s core, the stone fist
of his heart began to bang
on the stiff chest’s door, and breath spilled
back into that battered shape. Now

it’s your limbs he comes to fill, as warm water
shatters at birth, rivering every way.

some inspiration

An aggregation of some recent Flickr faves.  How I wish I could capture beauty the way these photographers do…

1. Untitled, 2. Little Shoes, 3. I wish you could smell this, 4. Order and precision, 5. Untitled, 6. Sunlit grass, 7. jane’s eye, 8. Untitled, 9. Meditation

Stuff Christians Like: Subtly finding out if you drink beer, too.

This blog post on Stuff Christians Like is just a little too hilarious and spot-on to be overlooked.  Beer-drinking and -appreciating Christians, unite.

[photo credit: my sister]

on creative genius

I just listened to this extraordinary talk by Elizabeth Gilbert at TED 2009 for the second time.  If you have a spare 20 minutes, you will not regret taking the time to listen to it as well — she is quite funny & articulate and speaks on a fascinating topic, the nature of creativity.

Gilbert gives a whirlwind tour through the history of Western thought on creativity and its origins – from the daemons of the Ancient Greeks to the moment when humanists began ascribing genius to a particular person (‘he is a genius’ as opposed to ‘he has a genius’).  She believes that ever since beginning to place the weight of genius upon the shoulders of individuals, the creative community has suffered under this heavy load of responsibility.  Noting the otherworldly power that visits ‘works of genius’, she argues that genius is not in fact owned by any person, but on loan for a brief time, like a train rushing through a station.

Gilbert expresses her ideas far better than I can.  And she gets in a Harry Potter reference to boot.  Some favorite quotes:

“I am afraid of many things that people don’t know about – like seaweed.”

“The meddling capriciousness of the creative process can feel paranormal.”

As the Moors entered Southern Spain, the ovation of “Allah, Allah!” became “Olé, Olé!”

…

…

Do you not know, have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God

The Creator of the ends of the earth

He will not grow tired or weary

His understanding no one can fathom

He gives strength to the weary

And increases the power of the weak

Even youths grow tired and weary

And young men stumble and fall

But those who hope in the Lord

Will renew their strength

They will soar on wings like eagles

they will run and not get weary

They will walk and not be faint.

on knitting

I found this article today and wanted to share a quote, as I think it sums up very well some of the reasons I enjoy knitting as much as I do.  Not only is it enjoyable creative, it is curiously cathartic.  Read on:

“

One day, it occurred to me to try knitting. It worked! The repetitive motions of my hands were the perfect substitute for the repetitive motions of my body while walking. The knitting kept me busy and centered but freed my mind and heart to dance around whatever issues or problems were currently bothering me. I say “dance around,” and not “think about,” because while the needles were in my hands, I found that they provided a certain distance between me and the problems of my daily life-even those problems that had seemed so huge, so all-encompassing just hours or minutes before.

I soon learned that this distance gave me more than just a blessed reprieve from worry. As I sat quietly and knit, my mind would slowly calm. Soon, ideas and worries would start to bubble up to the surface one by one, slowly, instead of all together in a furious boil. I found that if I simply acknowledged them and then let them simmer, rather than try to actively concentrate on them, amazing things would happen. Vague hints of solutions would begin to appear in my subconscious. By refusing to think too hard, I could open my mind to all sorts of answers that I would never have considered otherwise.

Most importantly, I would gradually come to a feeling of peace, of hope or anticipation or contentment. My mood after a knitting session is virtually always drastically improved over how I was feeling before I picked up the needles that day. Even when the problems that worried me were essentially out of my control-war, for example-or insoluble, such as grief for the loss of a loved one, after knitting for a while, they would seem less horrible, less terrifying. Quite simply, knitting made me feel better.”

-Katherine Welsh, Knitty.com

Curious, but true.  Read the rest of the article if you don’t believe me.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I should get back to that sweater I’m knitting…