The Camera is My Brush

So it occurred to me I'm overdue to post a photoblog this year. I meant to before my last art show, but was unable. At anyrate, enjoy.

Locations include: Table Rock Lake, Niagara Falls, Cape County North Park, Fredricksburg National Cemetary and Battlefield and Parts Unknown

Table Rock Sunset

Shut-Ins

Duskstrokes

Table Rock Dawn

Midday

Crown of Daylight

Blinking Dusk

Niagara

Fallen LImb on the Falls

Of Sunset and Water

Peace

The Climber

Spring Falls

"...Maybe there's hope for this man."

"Try to take on the weight of everyday freigtht

You'll find you're too weak to stand."

--Mark Heard, Rise from the Ruins

I can say with gratitude from the safety of my desk that I've longed to play a pivotal role in a historic battle. I would have loved to have walked next to MacArthur on the beaches of Lyete rather than walked back to my classroom, or manned a cannon on the HMS Victory rather than sit at my desk, or gone on a run at the Death Star rather than driven to another meeting.

But I've learned in living and reading history that greatness is not found in watershed moments, but in the everyday humdrum. I've found myself taking jobs no one wants, working with people who have been rejected by everyone; their own families in many cases. While on the surface it may be that I toil in obscure places and that my best work goes unseen, with little if anything to show for it, nothing can be further from the truth.

Francis Schaeffer once wrote that with God there are no little places, there are no little people. Teaching special needs homebound students in a four car classroom is every bit as significant as lecturing at Harvard. Playing baby to a roomful of special needs teenagers is every bit as important as playing Mozart in Carnegie Hall. I've learned there's greatness in the small places because that's where God has me. Much of what I've taught, I've needed to be reminded of myself.

I remember reading this beautiful story about an artist who's doing portraits at Disneyland when a boy sits down to have his portrait painted who is missing an eye. The artist is faced with the decision to either paint the child as he appears to him or to paint him another way. The artist decided to draw the boy with two perfect eyes; for his parents saw him not for his flaws, but through the eyes of love.

I was reminded by this episode that God sees us as we are, not for what we have. I tend to see myself for what I don't have, or I'll look back and see my grand trilogy of failures, or my mid-twenties crisis and feel insignificant and insecure. I have been imputed with significance by the very Creator of everything, and am held secure by the eternal King. We are His children, loved and created by Him. I've learned that burned bridges mean nothing to one who walks on water. God has all ready mended the widest rift that laid between us, and He can certainly carry us across the gaps we've made between us and those we've wronged in the past. I've learned scorched, salted earth means nothing to the great farmer who can bring any seed to purchase regardless of the soil conditions.

I had three careers collapse on me in a 2.5 year span. All of which fell apart in violent, traumatic ways, that I would not want anyone to experience. Yet I've found myself re-established in each, where if I had my way at the time I would've washed my hands of each. But each comeback has been better than the original in ways I could not have ever conceived. Each comeback has come by no effort of my own, nor have they come in sudden blinding flashes from heaven, but in quietly committing to the heroic humdrum, working through the every day epic, and being shown the splendour of the ordinary.

There are no little moments either. Each second has been crafted and set in motion, and is entirely unique. I did not have to hold Lahaye Saint against L'Enfente Terribles, when I'm held by the hand who crafted time. I did not have to March to the Sea when God invites me to walk beside Him every day.

I've learned there is glory in the ruins, and someday we will rise from them. Just like spring's verdancy blossoms after the barren blankness of winter, while we still have breath, we can still comeback.

"And the salmon's swimming again the stream

And the coyote's running in these hills

And the trees are returning to the mountainside,

If they could comeback, maybe there's hope for this man."

Brooks Williams, Seven Sisters.

"Dare I Believe..."

“Since that day it has never been quite enough to say that’ God is in His Heaven and all is right with the world;’ since the rumour that God had left his heavens to set it right.”

G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

Upon a recent trip to Niagara, I am convinced no man can stand before the falls and believe that he is great and powerful. In much the same way as I reflect upon the Easter season, I am even more convinced no man can stand before God and not be overwhelmed.

God is working every moment of our lives in our past, present and future, and is using every atom throughout all of creation, to demonstrate the glory of His being so that we become more like His Son. It is God who created us so that our significance, our purpose, our security and identity would all be met by Him.

Ephesians 1:7-8 states, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished upon us in all His wisdom and insight.” This perfectly summarizes what God has done for us. When God revealed His perfect qualities and sovereign attributes to the world at the Cross it broke the bond that held the world in its grasp and satisfied our every need.

Because of God’s limitless goodness, He knew through His perfect wisdom exactly what to do to amend our situation. That is He used His perfect freedom to exercise His absolute authority over sin and death. God being the ultimate in power, overcame sin’s power over us by paying our debt through His blood spilled on the Cross in the form of Christ. He did all this out of His love for us. God would have been perfectly right to leave us in our sinful condition because He is a God of perfect justice and holiness. And it’s not that God’s love and grace overruled His holiness and justice by redeeming us and adopting us. ON the contrary all of God’s perfect qualities, his unconditional love, His righteous justice, His all sufficient grace and His unapproachable holiness all intersected each other at the Cross with God’s sovereign attributes of power, wisdom, freedom and goodness to meet all our needs break our bondages to bring us from our depraved condition into His divine presence.

Chesterton described how the old world’s pagan beliefs could not contain the Cross. The symbol of paganism is a perfect circle formed by a serpent eating it’s own tail. When the cross was placed at the center of the pagan circle, it extended out in each direction, breaking paganism’s constricting grip of superstitions, falsehood, idolatry and ignorance. Imagine now instead of a pagan circle, a four-link chain that surrounds the world. God broke through the chains that enslave us by exercising His sovereign attributes and revealing His perfect qualities at the Cross. Just like the archaic pagan belief systems were overwhelmed by the cross, the bondages of the world are completely shattered by God’s sovereignty and perfection.

We have been given all that we need to be free and that is Christ Himself. When we realize that we are free to be loved and have the freedom to love. By forgiving us, He freed us from sin’s penalty and through His grace we need not be enslaved to sin any longer.

God allows us to exchange the shackles of this world that is the bondage of conformity, the curse of superficiality, the crushing pressure of self-indulgence and identity crisis for His goodness, His freedom, His power and His liberty. This will give us purpose for our life will not be our own but will be given to God for His glory and our benefit. When we do He will provide our security by meeting our every need and allow us to realize our significance because we are made in His image and are loved and treasured by Him. And God will transform our fallen identity to the perfect likeness of His Son.

"Morning rolled, that stone away, calls a man out from his grave. Lifts my soul upon your wing, Oh my Lord, Dare I believe."

Billy Cerveny.

Of Oak Trees

Of Oak Trees

The Missouri White Oak Tree shows very little noticeable growth for the first twenty to thirty years of its life. What it in fact is doing is developing it's root system, sending them down deep into the Earth where the nutrients are found and where there is water. It also interlocks its roots with other trees. When it matures it becomes one of the strongest, tallest and most beautiful trees in the forest and provides a home for many kinds of life. It is also one of the most profitable trees and is used around the world for furniture, buildings, homes, even barrels to age French wines champagnes or Scotch whiskey as well several other uses. By spending so many years developing the root systems, these oak trees can survive times of drought and withstand the fiercest storms and harshest winters. There are oak trees that have lived for several hundred years because they have such deep roots.

In much the same way, I've spent the past few years developing my roots. While on the outside, (especially to people like my parents and others) I have not seemed to show much growth financially, career-wise, or whatever, this time has been very valuable for me as I've spent a great deal of this time learning about who God is, what sort of relationship He wants from me, experiencing His character and presence in my life.

This period has also given me time to work on my creative talents of music and writing and photography. I have also been able to cultivate great relationships with so many people and opportunities to serve, more than I can begin to name. I've seen too many people achieve success after success who never develop their roots so when hardship comes, they come toppling down. When the droughts will inevitably come, when the storms will most certainly strike, I will be able to stand because, not because of what I have done God has used time for my roots to grow deeper in Him.

When we are rooted we can escape the cycle of demoralization as we are being attended to by the great Gardener. And at some point we decide, by God’s grace with His leading to no longer believe the lies of the world of who we are and embrace the truth that we are His children.

When the adoption of Christ comes upon us, He gives us everything we need to live as He wants us to, and that is Himself. And as He shares more and more of who He is with us, His thoughts, actions, attitudes, and words will be His rather than the deadness and sin that is our flesh. Thinking about the oak trees, a tree can only grow as tall as it’s root systems are deep. Christ is to be the soil and bedrock giving us our foundation and sustenance that our roots are to dig into. The Spirit provides us with air and water that we need and as we grow toward the light of the Father.

And as oak trees also need the other trees in glade to share nutrients and lock roots together so the storms do not topple us, so too we need the other believers in the church. For Christ has called us all to be rooted in Him, the Spirit surrounds us all and together we are to grow together toward the Father. And our only response is humble gratitude for what He does through us. For we have been planted here not because of our own virtue and merit, for we have none, but for God that we may glorify Him and enjoy Him forever.

Adventurous Pancakes

So for Rachel Huebel's birthday, I made her pancakes after we finished wrangling children at church. We've had a great deal of success in our pancake adventures of late: cinnamon and Clif Bar pancakes, walnut and toffee pancakes, Reese's peanut butter cup pancakes, and so far her personal favorite strawberry and chocolate chip pancakes.

I had the idea to take one of her other favorite foods and mix it into pancakes. Rachel loves cheesecake, so I took a recipe of healthy cheesecake that I found from Fuel the Fighter and folded that into the pancake batter.

Marketing genius Seth Godin warns business owners and marketers about making meatball sundaes. That is, a lot of time, we'll take two things that we really like and mix them together and end up with something that is completely inedible. This certainly had meatball sundae potential.

Pancake batter on the left, cheesecake on the right.

Two pancakes, wondering how they'd taste.

So they kinda turned out more like crepes than pancakes

Rachel, posing happily as requested

Me enjoying the results of the experiment.

As we ate the pancakes, each bite was an experience. Some started out tasting like uncooked pancake with a little cream cheese to only a few chews later tasting like peanut butter cup. While I certainly would not be able to defeat the Iron Chef with my cheesecake pancakes, It was the most fun I've had cooking in a long time. I haven't made a cheesecake from scratch in over 11 years. These didn't quite have the fluffiness of pancakes, nor the creaminess of cheesecake. But it was a fun experiment.

The cheesecake pancakes didn't quite turn out like I thought they would. The same can be said of my life.

I was hoping to take that "next step" with my life and start on masters, but instead have stepped into a limbo wide and broad, a limbo I thought I left four years ago. I went from making $20 an hour to $8 an hour, by no fault of my own. To say it's caused me to readjust my budget a bit is an understatement.

Rachel finished college a semester early and is entering into the same post-college/pre-career limbo that I have been drifting in and out of. She's weighing choices, completing applications, scheduling interviews, and all that crap that I hated and still hate to this day.

We spend far too much time wondering if we're making the right decisions, and end up too afraid to do anything. Tim Keller once said, if we knew the entire consequences of our actions, we'd just lie on the couch all day. Free will is the most crushing burden we could ever have. Keller went onto illustrate with his own life. If not for one door left three inches a jar in the Watergate Hotel, the circumstances would not have unfolded for him to eventually plant Redeemer, a church of 5000 in New York.

I considered a culinary career once. The circumstances did not unfold that would have allowed me to go that route. Based on tonight's culinary experiment, that's likely for the best. And honestly, I'm grateful that I live in a country with enough food that I am able to experiment and I don't have to worry about where my next meal is coming from. And even though last year didn't turn out the way I hoped it would with me going back to school, that opened up an opportunity to deepen a long running friendship that is blossoming into something that will be truly beautiful.

With the freedom and opportunities that we have, experiment. Explore. Challenge yourself. Move. Dance. Get off the sidelines. Fight. Dare. Dream. Create.

Even though tonight's culinary adventure didn't turn out the way I expected, it was okay. They were still pretty tasty, really filling, and I got to celebrate another year with someone special. It was a learning experience and that alone was worth it.

The Lepers and Blindmen of our Day

"The whole life of the Christian is to be a work of art. We are to speak beauty and truth into a lost and dying world."--Francis Schaeffer

One of the easiest and most threatening dangers to fall victim to is to isolate ourselves, and begin to think that our world is the world. We very often seal ourselves in our bubbles and deafen ourselves to what's going on out there.

Odds are, if you're reading this, you've got a pretty good life. I'll admit that I do. My biggest problem today was that my coffee got a little cold, and I was tired from framing an internal wall at the Francis Schaeffer Institute yesterday. Those were the worst things about today, so I really have no problems. Not to say life is perfect and all.

Odds are if you're reading this, you know where your next meal is coming from. Odds are if you're reading this, you don't have to worry about mosquitos infecting you with Malaria as you sleep. Odds are you haven't lost a family member to HIV/AIDS.

We have it good, while many others do not. For example:

• 33.4 Million people are Living with HIV/AIDS. That's more than the population of the states of Illinois and New York combined.

• Every 15 Seconds someone dies of diseases due to HIV/AIDS

• 14 Million Children are orphaned due to HIV/AIDS. That's the equivalent of the states of Nebraska, Idaho, New Hampshire, Maine, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, Alaska, DC, Vermont, and North Dakota.

A virus doesn't care about who you voted for. Poverty doesn't follow party lines. Injustice doesn't discriminate according to skin colour.

Christ cleansed the lepers and gave sight to the blind while He was here. People who have suffered from AIDS, injustice, poverty are the blindmen and lepers of our day. To help and share the Gospel is to bring light into our fallen world.

But there's hope as you'll see at the end of this post. Some of the good news is that the number of HIV infections has dropped 17% since 2001. In the past 12 years over 200,000 lives have been saved by preventing the transmission of HIV from mothers to their children.

At church this past Wed, Dec. 1, our youth learned about some of the people who have been infected with HIV/AIDS and what their lives are like. They have far more to worry about other than their coffee being cold. Their lives are on the line, and we cannot back down now.

Close up of the display

Petition cards

Lives are on the Line display

Another close up

Our youth learning the stories of those whose lives are on the line.

Rachel, taking a break from working on the display

for more information, or to take action, please go to

http://worldvisionacts.org

http://one.org

Aside from learning about some of the lives that are on the line, we got to see how progress is being made. There is hope to live a vibrant life though infected, and HIV/AIDS is no longer the death sentence it was a few years ago. Still, now is the time to keep pushing through.

See lives that were on the line return from the dead by watching The Lazarus Effect Film from (RED) and HBO

Within my Gaze

Simplicity

So it's occurred to me I haven't done a photo blog this year. So its time to amend that. All of these were taken with the mobile.

Beautiful Distortion

Sea and Sky

Advent of the Day

Loft

Edge of Light

Every Sunny Day

White Oak Creek

Apple Creek

Castor River

Wings

Monet by Roadside

As Ignites the Autumn

Keyhole Falls

Indian Creek