The World is my Canvas

My eye is the brush. My camera phone is my pallet.

Here's another round of my favorite camera phone shots. Again, I have a pretty simple philosophy of shoot what I see. Years of reading graphic novels have given me an eye for juxtaposition.

At any rate, Gentlemen: BEHOLD!!!!

Give me eyes

The Ghost of Wet Weather Falls

Streetlight Rosetta

AHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Scivally Bridge

This is Josh Reeves' favorite, and he embodies sexy

"flowers growing out of the desert flowers out of parched ground

flowers coming right up through the cracks
of the pavement in your old town

flowering's not a science it's more like a fine art

flowers coming right up through the cracks of our broke up little hearts"

Bill Mallonee

Karl told me this reminded him of Fern Gully

To the Rescue

Speaking of ferns

My new house.

Raining light

"Stay by your stained glass window and I can tell you

of the Maker of the reds and the greens and blues and the yellows.

And I can show, just this point of light through this window

As the clouds roll away and the sun strikes the pane."

Ridgely

"Can you start walking me again?"

If You've Ever Wondered about that Giant Hole on the Outside of Town

I meant to post these some time ago. Jordan Duncan and I took a visit to the giant hole just out side of town.


Here's what the way up to the Giant Hole was like.

Here's a smaller hole on the way to the giant hole.

I wonder if this will give me an extra life?




Looking back on the way up






Here we are getting closer to the top





Here we are at the top, looking out.

This looks like a great spot for a barbeque.

Roxanne came with us too. She has the climbing skills of Spider-Man





Now here we are looking down from the inner rim of the Giant Hole. IN case you start to fall and you can't fly, grab on to this.

This could well be one of my favorite shrubberies in the world ever.

I highly recommend a visit to the Limestone Quarry.

Determined to Live

Last night some friends and I played in the rain-soaked streets, splashing through every puddle between the courthouse and river. I wish it would rain tonight as it's always helped me sleep; not that'd I'd be able to hear it from where I'm sleeping tonight, which is the hospital.

I'm back in the sleep lab for the follow up study on my apnea. I actually got decent sleep when I was down there, which many of you know is a rarity for me. I have a new found appreciation for oxygen, as I tend to not get enough when I sleep and Of all the crazy things I do, and as insanely busy as my life is, I take the greatest risk everytime I go to sleep.

Every time I go to sleep, there's a chance I won't wake up due to sleep apnea. Perhaps that's why I've averaged 5 hours for the past three years. I'm due in for another test later on this month, they won't rig me up with as many crazy wires and sensors as they did last time, they're going to fit me for a CPAP, that will give a burst of air when my apneas occur.

In my last test I had 0ver 40 apneas where I stopped breathing. It wasn't so bad that they had to wake me up to rig the CPAP to me, nor was it so bad that I actually woke up. I've been doing what I can to minimize the risk when I sleep by sleeping on my side and drinking less beer and coffee and not exercising late at night. If left untreated I run a higher risk of stroke, heart attack, or just falling asleep at the wheel, or what have you.

My doctor told me there's no quick fixes here. This doesn't fix itself suddenly but over time and with a great deal of work on my part.





A Star Wars Joke would be too easy.


Part of this work is my decision to complete a triathlon. I've given myself 8 weeks to train and am starting my third week. Its been intense, and a challenge. Just last week my dog Roxanne and I were sprinting up the terraces at SEMO after work after having swam 500 yards earlier that day.

On the drive over I found myself asking, "Why the hell am I going to do this?"

I certainly don't enjoy running, I never have. I thought of all the other people who I know don't work out regularly much less with the intensity that I do, and figured somehow at that moment they were much happier than I was going to be for the next hour or so.

I often have to play mind tricks with myself to get me to run, such as imagining I'm leading a group of survivors out of a burning building, or I'm being ordered to take a hill in the sound and fury of battle, or whatever scenarios my hyperactive imagination can invent. I've also started visualizing myself accomplishing the major life goals: such as going on tour with the record, having the books published, receiving my masters, the most recent one of standing at the altar waiting to get married. Such determination to live kept me at the hill. The realization that I was the only one sprinting terraces did help drive me upward.
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I ran into April, who was running herself, and she told me "I'm glad you can dominate those hills." I certainly didn't feel dominant as I drove my way up the hills battling gravity the entire time. Lifting my legs off the ground to propel myself up and out was a battle against gravity. The entire time, gravity kept pulling me back as I strove up and forward. On the way down, I still battled gravity. This time I was careful not to let it overwhelm me.

There is a personal gravity that I have to battle day in and day out. It's the gravity that keeps me in bed 5 minutes before I have to be at work. It's the gravity that keeps me on the couch rather than working out. It's the gravity that keeps me on youtube and facebook though I need to be writing. It's the gravity that keeps me from picking up the phone and booking concerts, or scheduling meetings with my clients. It's not until I focus that I can break out of Gravity's tyrannical grasp.

Three time UFC Middleweight World Champion Rich Franklin says this, "Breaking away from our everyday world requires us to expend extraordinary energy - to achieve lift off and create a new trajectory. When accomplished, we are free."

I have the tendency to put my head down as I sprint. It doesn't actually make me run faster, it only makes me think I'm working harder and is in fact slowing me down. I realize while I have my dad's work ethic, I also have some of his bad habits, as neither one of us believe in the 'work smarter, not harder.' But by keeping my head down restricts my air, bends my spine, both of which hinder running. Finishing my workout made me appreciate air all the more.

Last night before I met up with the friends, Roxanne and I went on our run. As I climbed up the longest hill, the setting sun was at my back, and as I reached the apex, I could see just beyond the trees the rising shadow of twilight spreading into the sky and above it the full moon hung like a newly minted coin. Suddenly the dryness in my throat was forgotten, the pounding of my lower limbs softened, the sweat no longer stung in my eyes and I just ran. The sky filled with dark clouds like a black tide and the rain fell upon us just as we made the turn at the first mile and headed back. IT was refreshing, invigorating.

I told myself, "I will live."

Scars

"If I were to tell you, a tale of no tomorrows, of suffering and sorrow would you stay with me?"

Billy Cerveny--Harmony

My arms and legs are littered with scars. Like most men, years of yard work, athletics, outdoor activities, and whatever else have left more than their shares of impressions on me, and I suppose I never outgrew that childish habit at irritating these abrasions. We wear scars on our hearts for constantly living in this fallen world. And we find it is very easy to dwell on all the falls, all the scrapes, and all the bruises that we will inevitably accumulate by simply being human. It is easy for us to irritate these wounds with feelings of bitterness, animosity, bearing unforgivable grudges, blaming others, sentiments of self-pity and be as Mike Schmid sings, "Left to swim a lonely sea, complaining in hyperbole, why me? It's just not fair!"

Of course none of these actions can actually heal, rather such attitudes only cause our wounds to bleed more. Eventually two things can happen; either they will become hard, calloused and numb as ice and impenetrable to anything or anyone else. Or these scars will become seething and infected, becoming a very accessible port of entry for other nasty sicknesses to enter into our hearts and infect every aspect of our lives throughout all our time.

Much of what I am do as I write is examining old scars. Some I have had for a long time now, and can still recall exactly how they were inflicted upon me as vividly as the day I first acquired them. Others are some that I have forgotten about. Others still are very raw and tender. And just like a wound will foment and sting when antiseptic is applied, I expect the same to happen as I write. And there are two directions that I can take.

One is to write from the calloused scars on the outside, and let the hardness of these old inflictions dictate my writing. In which case this treatise will be everything I didn't want it to be: bitter, spiteful, hateful, festering, seething, and worse. While it may feel cathartic at the moment, all I will do is cause more division among those I am writing about, and cause more animosity to grow in myself. THe other approach I can take, is to realize as Nouwen describes, that I am, "called to recognize the sufferings of his time in his own heart and make that recognition the starting point of his service."

If I write from the open wound, and not the hardened scar, that can be used to bring healing and reconciliation. There's something to be said for being wounded. One thing I've noticed about the church these days is there is a lot of emphasis on healing. I've attended a couple healing services, where people claim to have the power of God to give healing. I've heard claims that if we don't receive healing from communion or worship or prayer or whatever it's our own fault because we don't have enough faith. While these ideas may be well intentioned, I don't believe they're entirely right.


Such people believe that we are supposed to live our lives free of pain, free of suffering and sorrow. And if there is pain in our lives, then there something wrong with us because God doesn't want us to experience pain.

This isn't true, for God Himself is in pain, and when we suffer, He brings us closer to Him. I have learned that sharing in sufferings and sorrows are the most important things for us to share. It has often been my wounds that have driven me closer to God; that is true healing. That is as we bow before God as our Lord in all things, He will use our wounds to bring us closer to Him. These simply are a part of life, and if I ignore them as I write, I ignore a great part of being human.
God is sovereign and will heal us as He sees to, when He sees fit to. If God wants to leave me wounded because it makes me depend upon Him more He will, and I will be better for it. Someday God will call us to Him, and He will not only mend our scars and cracks, but will make all things new. Until then, God will use these scars to bring us closer to Him. Paul knew what this meant. God left Him wounded with a thorn in the flesh. Three times, Paul prayed for God to remove it, but God did not. As Paul himself writes:

Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me--to keep me from exalting myself!
Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me.
And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness " Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.
Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.


Human weakness is the perfect platform for God's divine power to shine forth.

Christ understood this as well. As it was written of Him:


He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.


Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted.


But He was pierced through for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,
And by His scourging we are healed.

God used Christ's wounds to bring us closer to Him, to realize how desperately dependent we are to be upon Him at all times for all things. Nouwen continues, "When we become aware that we do not have to escape our pains, but that we can mobilize them into a common search for life, those very pains are transformed from expressions of despair into signs of hope"

"Into the Middle of the Storm, I AM"

"there’s nothing like the rain to make you feel alone

there’s nothing like loneliness to make you long for home
there’s something in the weather that leaves us broken men

to hold you like a storm, I am"

Eric Peters, Scarce

The last time I saw the sun was somewhere around 5:45pm.

The sun was soon swallowed as the clouds rushed upon us like a gathering of wolves.

I pushed the pedal over 80 in an attempt to make it back before the pack fell upon me.

Five miles beyond where I shot this is one of the steepest hills in the area. I figured the rain would hit just as I got over it, so I sped up.

Above the hill and beneath the storm. Just a couple of weeks ago, I took a very pleasant walk with Robyn and our dogs. We went for 8 miles, for three and a half hours. The setting sun painted an blazing orange sky, and to the side hung the crescent moon like a claw mark in the night's cloak. In the distance ahead of us was a thunderhead that stretched across the horizon where the lightning danced a dazzling waltz.

Tonight wouldn't be so serene.

I was lucky to see even this much through the windshield. Yes, I am aware of the dangers of taking photos while driving through an intense storm. The rain fell in patterns like drumrolls, and the thunder drowned out the stereo.

I slowed to 20mph and found myself singing "How Great Thou Art"

"...I hear the rolling thunder, Thou power throughout

The Universe displayed..."

And I wondered if I would find a cliff to shelter myself in like when Augustus Toplady was inspired to write "Rock of Ages"

"...As I soar to worlds unknown, see Thee on Thine Judgement Throne

Rock of Ages cleft for me,

Let me hide myself in Thee."

The view on the way back into town. I remembered last spring when I drove up to St. Louis for a meeting at the Francis Schaeffer institute and getting hammered by a storm then. It rained for an entire 24 hours straight, causing massive flooding throughout the area. I remember singing to myself:

"I know life is quite a ride,

There's someone at my side

For all the times

I can't drive.

When I feel like giving up, give me grace

Give me love, and it's all,

All I can do,

Is bring it back to you."

by Mike Schmid

Here we are back in the neighborhood. I was glad to be off the highway, and still sung to myself, glad to be off the highway.

It kept raining, but I didn't feel like sitting around all night, so what did I do? I ventured back into the storm. My dog Roxanne and I hiked out to Wet Weather Falls so I could take pictures. It eased up long enough for just to get out there.

"drenched in mercy and dripping holy tears

I’m dressed in kingly garments from my toes to my ears

it’s a holy embrace
it’s the feeling of grace
oh (it’s a holy embrace)
oh (it’s the feeling of grace)
oh (we cast all our doubts)
into the middle of the storm, I am"

Eric Peters: Scarce