A letter to my father, June 7, 2009

Dear Daddy,

This afternoon I found myself digging through my linen closet in search of an old bed sheet that I might destroy. I have planted myself a little garden bed with six tomato plants in it, and they have reached that stage of needing to be tied up to stakes. In fact, I almost waited too long, as some of them were laying on the ground, toppled over from the rain storms of the last couple of days. But they are safely tied up now with the strips of cotton that I made from ripping the old bed sheet.

After 4 years of fallow ground in my garden I could stand it no longer and this spring I became, once again, a sod buster, and dug myself what promises to be the first of several beds where I intend to have a thriving garden, bursting with color, and nutritious, delectable fruits and vegetables. I owe this passion, of course, to you. You were the one who taught me to dig the bed from the sod, to plant the seeds and seedlings, to care for and cultivate them as they grew, and the joy of harvest, the fruits of the labor.

It was mostly you who taught me to love nature in general. All the trips to state parks, the walks through the woods and along the beaches, sitting outside on the porch during thunderstorms, the gardening, and the identifying and feeding of the birds (and our little chipmunk friends as they filled their cheeks to bursting). These things all became a big part of who I am and what I love, and gave me a grander picture of God. Certain sights and smells evoke memories of my childhood and remind me of how blessed I am and how good God has been to me. You enriched my life in ways that I am now passing on to my own children, and to others who are my friends and my students. I never get over the wonders of the seasons, the sights, sounds, colors, textures of the nature around me, even in my own little backyard.

And as I stood looking through my linen closet for a sheet to use, I could hardly believe it has been long enough for me to have a sheet that old, but the truth is, next month I will be entering my fiftieth year of life. However, it seems like just yesterday you and I were happily toting our harvest up the hill of our backyard where we would take it in the house to prepare it for supper.

Oh, and I might also mention that you taught me to draw, and gave me my first look through an SLR camera viewfinder, both of which I use to record the nature I love – but those are stories for another day. . . .

Thank you so much for this rich and wonderful gift.

I love you.

Rosanne

Small corners

“Our lives are small, our dreams are great. We live with faith and hope in the small corners of our days.” – Kent Nerburn in Small Graces

I love this image because when I look at it I can imagine myself standing at this window and daydreaming, bathing in the warmth of the sunlight, maybe looking out at a beautiful countryside….  I imagine all kinds of things while standing in this little corner of the world.  As I write this I am sitting in a little corner of my office where my computer is and next to me is a large window from which I look out on our backyard and watch the birds and butterflies and squirrels and rabbits (and our dog as she chases them), and I dream dreams.  From here I can go anywhere — sounds like an airline slogan — but that’s the way it feels when I’m dreaming my dreams.  But, of course, then the phone rings or one of the kids needs me or I have an errand to run, and my  daydreaming is shelved for awhile.  But not my dreams — they are with me all the time once I dream them.  I believe they are what God uses to accomplish His purposes in our lives.  Without them we don’t do anything or go anywhere.   Not many of my dreams have been accomplished, really.  But I can say that some of them have, and that in itself is a wonderful gift from God, and it gives me hope that He will bring more of my dreams to reality.

Everyone needs their own little corner — dreams are the stuff of life.  From these corners our lives our launched into new experiences, maybe new places, new opportunities to know God more deeply, and to love the people in our lives better.

Hello world!

Angelrays. . . .

The name that has come to be who I am on the internet. I saw angelrays in the sky at sunset just last night and I couldn’t resist stopping just to get an uninterrupted view. Of course, this is what I call them. I’m not sure anyone else would know what I meant if I were to speak of them in those terms without explanation. I first heard the name on a movie so it isn’t original with me, but I thought it was the perfect name for this phenomenon and so it stuck with me. I also have linked it to my photography as it is the art of capturing light. And finally, it is the metaphor for knowledge, insight, ideas, vision — the stuff that life is made of.

So, here, on this little space on the world wide web, I will attempt to record moments of my life, the rays of light and life as God grants them.

Went out on a walk this morning at about 8 a.m. an…

Went out on a walk this morning at about 8 a.m. and was overwhelmed by the sights and smells — the plants so green, the sky so blue, the air scented heavily with honeysuckle and laurel — oh my, it was a feast for the senses and compelled my heart to praise.
I thought of the following song by Rich Mullins…..

The Color Green
“And the moon is a sliver of silver
Like a shaving that fell on the floor of a Carpenter’s shop
And every house must have it’s builder
And I awoke in the house of God
Where the windows are mornings and evenings
Stretched from the sun
Across the sky north to south
And on my way to early meeting
I heard the rocks crying out
I heard the rocks crying out

Be praised for all Your tenderness by these works of Your hands
Suns that rise and rains that fall to bless and bring to life Your land
Look down upon this winter wheat and be glad that You have made
Blue for the sky and the color green that fills these fields with praise

And the wrens have returned and they’re nesting
In the hollow of that oak where his heart once had been
And he lifts up his arms in a blessing for being born again
And the streams are all swollen with winter
Winter unfrozen and free to run away now
And I’m amazed when I remember
Who it was that built this house
And with the rocks I cry out

Be praised for all Your tenderness by these works of Your hands
Suns that rise and rains that fall to bless and bring to life Your land
Look down upon this winter wheat and be glad that You have made
Blue for the sky and the color green

Be praised for all Your tenderness by these works of Your hands
Suns that rise and rains that fall to bless and bring to life Your land
Look down upon this winter wheat and be glad that You have made
Blue for the sky and the color green that fills these fields with praise”

I’m back, finally, I think….

It has been a while since I last posted here because for so long I could not seem to get past a stubborn sign in system that just didn’t want to cooperate with my computer’s setup. Then, about two months ago my computer crashed and I lost tons of information and photos, as well as the sound device on my computer — most of which has not been recovered — but I have hope since it was all backed up on an external hard drive. The data is there, we think, we just need some capable person with more techno savvy than us to help us pull it off of there.
Anyway, I’ve been keeping up with my Flickr site all this time and glad I did because I have a few hundred of my favorite images stored there and accessible should I need them — but, of course, not in the RAW form which I originally shot them and stored them — but nonetheless still available for printing at least in 8 x 10 size.
I’ve been trying new things with my images, trying to “paint” with textures and layers — trying to evoke certain feelings, moods, atmosphere and/or story. The image I’m posting here is a recent example, the result of which I was really pleased. (Click on the image to see it in Flickr, and you can look at it in the large size as well.)
Summer is approaching and I will have more time for this once school lets out, so maybe I’ll actually be able to make something of it again with this new start!

Standing out in the crowd

When I returned from a walk this morning I noticed a bright red leaf lying on our driveway. It stood out so beautifully amidst the mass of shriveled brown leaves that have been there for a few days. I thought it must have fallen recently since I hadn’t noticed it on my way out, and it was still so supple and brilliant in color. I immediately bent down and picked it up to examine it more closely and it didn’t take but a second for me to decide that I wanted to take it inside and try to photograph it. I wanted to preserve this beauty, knowing that its color would soon fade and it would succumb to decay. This is the resulting image (click on the image to view it larger).
As I was walking this morning I thought about an email message that I had received a day ago from a friend that I had met a few months ago through her blog site. I haven’t been posting anything here lately and she wrote to tell me that she had visited several times, hoping to find new musings, only to find that I had been absent. She wanted to let me know that I was missed and asked how I am doing. When we take the time to create and relate, it’s nice to know that someone notices. Often it seems that what we do makes little or no ripple in the lives of others, that our work and our words drift out into vast space and float about aimlessly. A message like this one from my friend suddenly reminds us that we have significance, that we can be a channel of grace in the lives of others, even when we aren’t aware of it. And that, after all, is what we are all searching for, isn’t it?
So I’m thankful for my friend who, standing out among the hundreds of contacts I’ve made through the internet, took the time to let me know that my words and images have made some ripples in her life, enough to be missed when I didn’t show up for a while. What a wonderful act of kindness.
Bless you, my friend. You’re one in a million… :o) 

It’s all about the light

(Click on images to see larger version)
Without light we don’t have photography, and the image of the magnolia leaves wouldn’t exist if my camera had not functioned so that the shutter opened and allowed the light to pass through the lens which focused it on the sensor which recorded the information — or simply, if I had forgotten to remove the lens cap. But even if I and the camera had functioned correctly but the light had not been there, there would be no image of the leaves.
The light outside changes constantly, and the way we see things is affected greatly by the amount of light and the color of the light. I remember walking around the grounds of the Hermitage on the afternoon when I took this photograph, looking at all the unfamiliar sights, taking in everything and making decisions about what I wanted to shoot. I was in a hurry because I had gotten there just before sunset and the light was changing quickly. As the red light waves from the sun became more intense, so did the colors of everything around me. I was walking by the magnolia tree when I looked up and was struck by how the brown undersides of the leaves had taken on this beautiful amber glow, and how blue the sky looked as it peeked through the branches of the tree, reflecting on the shiny dark green side of the leaves. There were places on the leaves that looked like they had been painted with splashes of color, reds, oranges and blues. I’ve seen this happen in water before but had never really noticed it in a setting like this. It had become a beautiful abstract painting right before my eyes — and all because of the light, both direct light and reflected light.
At this point the romantic in me wants to come up with some profound spiritual analogy about how God is light, and so on and so forth.
But the practical side of me just wants to thank God for the light, just enjoy the fact that we have it and I have eyes to see it. 

None of us is promised tomorrow. Today, in all its beauty, is all we have.

I’m not sure who the author of that quote is, but I was moved to deep thought by it today. We’ve probably all, at one time or another, heard something like it. The Proverb says, “do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.” A stern warning not to take anything for granted — life is fragile and uncertain.
However, I particularly appreciate the second part of this newfound quote, because of that prepositional phrase stuck in there between “Today” and “is all we have” — “in all its beauty.” It stood out to me as a blunt reminder that I let so many days go by without seeing the beauty they hold, living a joyless, survival-mentality-type of existence. Then I think on my past entries to this blog and find a recurring theme — stop and smell the roses.
Hmmm…..
The photograph in this entry was taken this spring in a park where my children and I had met some friends one day for a trail walk and a picnic. The trees were freshly clothed in their new spring-green garb, and the critters (including masses of gnats) were not scarce. It was, after all, that time of year, you know (coming out of hibernation, hungry, looking for love…).
Anyway, I was especially delighted by the presence of several Eastern bluebirds that came close enough to get a good shot of one of them. They are shy birds, and for one to stay put in one place long enough to shoot several frames is a rare opportunity that I relish with delight. The tree’s new growth was bright green and delicate, and though it deserved attention all its own, it made a fine backdrop for the photograph of the bluebird.
The Eastern Bluebird was my favorite bird all through my growing up years and remains so to this day. Who could resist the bright blue flash as it flies from tree to ground and back again while gathering the next meal? I’ve watched them for so many years that I can spot them just from their silhouette as they sit on a tree limb or fence post. I have learned to rejoice in that kind of beauty when I come across it in a day.
But there are so many other beautiful treasures and small graces in each day that I miss, or do not see the value in them. I’m too busy getting through the day so that I can get to tomorrow’s agenda, all the while overlooking the beauty in a moment with one of my children, or the way God has orchestrated the day just perfectly with so much that is good and beautiful thrown in. There is so much I miss as I grumble my way along the path of this journey, always thinking that there must be something better or more important just over the next rise.
Father God, plant the truth deep in my heart that today, in all its beauty, is all I have, and I should rejoice and be glad in it.

Sunrise and shadows on the sand

I awoke early the morning I shot this photograph in eager anticipation of the sunrise, believing that there would be a few gems to be discovered in my camera after I finished shooting. When I walked out onto the beach the wind was chillly and blowing stoutly, carrying sand and seafoam with it. The water fowl seemed to be enjoying playing and gliding on the air currents, often looking as if they were having contests to see which of them could stay in one place in mid-air the longest. The sky was glowing pale blue on the horizon as the sun was making it’s way to its debut. I planted myself as close to the surf as I dare and waited. . . . Suddenly, there it was! One second it wasn’t, the next it was. It never ceases to amaze me. This time I tried to imagine the earth moving instead of the sun, just to try to get a sense of our place in the solar system — I wanted to feel small, sitting on a huge rolling ball as it flies around the sun in the vastness of space. I wanted to sense God’s bigness, to get goosebumps at the thought of it.
I started snapping photographs as soon as the sun made its appearance, and I didn’t stop for another forty minutes. I watched the seafoam blowing on the beach, and the birds, first chasing the surf and then running from it. I watched the pelicans flying in a line and gliding into a landing on the water, a few of them diving into the ocean after a fresh catch for breakfast. I looked at the way the sun shown on the water and the sand, making the water sparkle and glow fluorescent blue and orange, and casting long shadows on the tiniest ripples in the sand. The sand fences and dunes in this photograph caught my attention just as I was walking back to the house and I reached the top of the deck stairs. I looked down over the railing and was captivated by all the different shadows that were being cast. I captured a few different angles and then shut down the camera, hoping that I didn’t get too much sand blown into my lens.
When I looked at the photos later I was stunned by the way this one turned out. It looks like a desolate place, almost like it could be desert land instead of the shoreline of the Atlantic Ocean. The shadows all showed up and created patterns and shapes of all sizes and kinds.

I love being a photographer in part because of the way it helps to emblazon certain memories like this particular morning and all of its sights, sounds and smells on my memory.
I was revelling in the Creator’s glory that morning and I won’t soon forget how awesome it was!

(photograph taken at Sandbridge Beach in Virginia Beach, VA — April 2006) 

Wonderful Power

There is wonderful power in the Cross of Christ. It has power to wake the dullest conscience and melt the hardest heart, to cleanse the unclean, to reconcile him who is afar off and restore him to fellowship with God, to redeem the prisoner from his bondage and lift the pauper from the dunghill, to break down the barriers which divide people from one another, to transform our wayward characters into the image of Christ and finally make us fit to stand in white robes before the throne of God.

~ John Stott