Color Culture

Fairly soon after we moved here, I planted lots of tulips and daffodils out on the berm.  Although the berm often looks more like a weed garden than anything else, the tulips show up every spring, plugging away with steadfastness of spirit and a splash of color, undeterred by their ugly neighbors.   (I feel a blog post about weeds coming up.)   Incredibly, this is the first year that I cut some and brought them in to add color culture to our kitchen.  After putting them into the vase, I could hardly take my eyes off of them, which naturally  led to lots of photos, trying to capture in permanence what I see only temporarily.   I don't know about you, but beauty just makes me ache sometimes.  It's a good sort of aching, but an aching nevertheless.   This isn't a world that just came along by accident and stumbled into beauty.   I used to think that -- bought the whole evolution package and never thought to question it.  I mean, they taught it in the schools, it must be true, right?  I took a human physiology class in college and the doubts started creeping in...how it is possible that the evolutionary process made all of these complex systems that work together so harmoniously?  Think about it.

Meanwhile, back at the tulip vase I decided to try an experiment with black cloth which I had learned about in the first photography books that I bought, a trilogy by Scott Kelby (The Digital Photography Books 1, 2 and 3).  First of all, if you enjoy photography and haven't read Kelby's books, I recommend them, especially if you like to laugh.  I'm sorry I don't have a hyperlink to Scott's website here, but I'd have to ask my daughter (again) how to do it and it's too humiliating.  Anyway, Kelby recommended black velour cloth as a background, but I ended up having to get black felt.  Don't tell me if it's obvious that it's only cheap felt in the background - I'm pretty sure I won't believe you.  I actually used two tricks of Scott's on this one: the black cloth and the spray bottle to create a dewy look.  I tell you that in the interest of full disclosure and with the hopes that you are not saddened by having to discard your illusions that I cut these in the early morning dew.




I call this one Contemplation of Setting Sun Shining and Sparkling on the Translucent Petals of Apricot-Colored Tulips and their Leaves.  Just kidding.

O LORD, how manifold are your works! 

in wisdom have you made them all: 

the earth is full of your riches.

Psalm 104:24

Wishful Dreaming

Dreams were a frequent mode of divine messages in the Bible, which has always fascinated me, particularly because most of my dreams have a sort of "Dr. Seuss meets Salvador Dali" quality to them.  Here's a sample:  a friend was in trouble; suddenly he became a raw hamburger patty and I carried him around in my apron pocket to keep him safe.  Somehow I doubt that there's any sort of grand spiritual message in there.   When I was very young, I used to try to program my dreams.  In an avant garde pseudo-science kind of way, I thought perhaps that if I thought REALLY HARD about circuses (for example) before going to sleep, this would naturally produce dreams about circuses.  It never worked.

Two nights ago, my sister appeared in a dream.  After she died in 1987, dream appearances were common, but they come much less frequently now.  Less than a year after she died, I saw her (as it were) walking across the green grass on the corner of our church property.  She was radiant with health and possessed an other-worldly loveliness.  I ran to her and hugged her - so happy!  She remained in my arms for only a moment and then backed away.  "Can't you stay?"  I pleaded.  She shook her head, smiled, and left.   Two nights ago, I saw her again.  She looked just like I remember her, permanently frozen at 33 years of age (and yet always older than me, though I am now 53).   Again, I hugged her.  I kissed her cheek and said, "I love you."  And then she was gone.  I do miss her...

God is done with special revelation - it's all in His Book -  so I'm not going to wake up some day and say, "The Lord told me to put a raw hamburger patty in my apron pocket!"   However, God is sovereign over all things and this must include our dreams, as random as they sometime seem.  It makes sense to me that He can use our dreams to illumine things for us, using heavenly wisdom to weave something meaningful into the strange flotsam and jetsam of our subconscious.   So I don't immediately discard my dreams as mental rubbish, but neither do I count them as a promise of some sort of future reality.  Like everything else they must be examined in the light of Scripture.   God holds all the deep and secret things in His hand.

"He reveals deep and secret things; 

He knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with Him.

Daniel 2:22

Conversion

I came to it late in life - so many years wasted!  And I was amazed that something so wonderful could have been completely distasteful to me before.  I am, of course, speaking of my conversion to asparagus, which happened in my 50th year.  It actually began some years earlier when my oldest son (then 11 or 12) asked for asparagus to be part of his birthday meal.   I tried in vain to talk him out of it.  "Pete, it's HORRIBLE stuff!  It always made me gag when I was growing up.  Seriously, you'll hate it and you definitely don't want to have it with your birthday meal."   I really thought I was doing him a favor, and would have done a similar kindness if he'd asked for (shudder) lima beans.  However, the laddie insisted and I, having always granted the birthday meal requests, gave in with a sort of "you'll be sorry" kind of sigh.  I bought fresh asparagus, steamed it, buttered and salted it and, just to show my exalted state of maturity, tried it too.  Hmm...not bad.  In fact, it wasn't nearly as disgusting as I remembered.  I assumed it was a fluke and let it go for 8 or so  more years, at which point the lingering memory prompted me to agree to grow it in our back yard.  After tasting the first harvest, the conversion was complete.  Now I await the first appearance of asparagus spears each spring with joyful anticipation and haven't been disappointed yet.  I'm always ready to extol its goodness (try it!  what have you got to lose?).

And so it is with Jesus.  I came to Him late, as well - in my 25th year.   Throughout most of my growing years I found Jesus distasteful.  I didn't even want to say His name.  The concept of sin was unpalatable.  Don't make me eat that stuff!  Then one day, like a fresh breeze blowing, the thought occurred to me "What if it's all true?  What if there is a God who made the world, who made me?  What if Jesus really was who He said He was?"  If you knew the state of my heart, you'd know without a doubt that a breeze of that nature did not originate from within - it was Holy Spirit driven, all the way.  Still, I tarried and fussed over all sorts of objections - things that seem silly in retrospect.   And what's all this about sin?  Really?  Not me - I certainly was a very nice, kind and altogether good sort of person.  I'm not saying I lived in a continual state of happiness and peace, but I just didn't think the charges fit.  I blush to think about that first prayer in which I challenged God: "Okay, if I've sinned, you'll have to show it to me - I just don't see it."

I'm not sure I've ever since had a prayer that was so swiftly and penetratingly answered.

Over the next 24 hours I saw it all, the soul full of deceit, selfishness and pride, packed in a general mud sauce.  Yuck.  That fresh breeze blew up into a massive humbling whirlwind.   But after all my tarrying, there was grace, mercy and forgiveness, and when I said yes to Jesus, an unquenchable joy.  He has never disappointed me and I will forever extol His goodness.

O taste and see that the Lord is good

Psalm 34:8

Welcome (But Don't Look at the Dirt)

I don't know about you, but this photo says to me, "Welcome!"  His arms are outstretched and his face (such as it is) is bent toward you with anticipation.  I made the mistake of looking at this photo in a much larger format and guess what I saw instead of the welcome?  The dirt on the window.  Yup, I just ruined it for you, too.

Have you ever welcomed an unexpected guest in your home with an immediate apology for the mess?    It's an absurd impulse at best, for it communicates a whole host of things that you may not have intended.  For one thing, it's hard to think of a better way to shine a neon light on the state of your house.  "Look here!  My mess!  No, don't look at it!"   It also communicates to your guest that perhaps an unexpected visit is an unwanted visit.   Rather than feeling truly welcomed, your guest now must spend time reassuring you.  Guess where the focus is now?  You and your dirt.  You and your mess.  You and your obsessive desire to make sure that no one ever sees the mess in your life, or at least that they see the current mess as an aberration of sorts.  You.  Okay, I'm being somewhat hard on "you," since it's really me that I'm talking about.  

So what that the laundry baskets are on the living room floor, surrounded by folded clothes?  So what that there are books and magazines strewn about?  So what that you didn't clean the dishes and wash the counter right away after lunch?  Is there dust on the furniture?  Are shoes cluttering the entryway?  Big deal!  I'm not against cleanliness; in fact, I love a clean house.  But even more, I love a welcoming, hospitable house.  Those who visit are not coming by with a white glove to inspect the house (and if they are, they probably won't be back).   Hospitality, true hospitality, seeks to encourage, edify, nourish and welcome those who visit.   Don't shift the focus to the dirt on the window.  

Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, 

for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it.

Hebrews 13:2 

Thirsty

Behold, my rosemary plant.

I brought it in last fall, knowing a Minnesota winter would kill it, but alas, it did not fare much better under my regime of general neglect punctuated with panic-stricken waterings now and again.  My indoor plants are definitely "out of sight, out of mind."  The divide between green thumb and black thumb is at the water faucet in our house.   How hard is it, really, to water a plant faithfully when it needs it?   I have never forgotten to feed and water myself or my family, but these green living things don't make enough of a fuss.  If only I could hear their little green voices crying out thinly, "we're thirstyyyyyyyyy."  But no, they just quietly suffer, droop, dry out and (sometimes) die.  Oh the guilt!

One of the first Bible verses I memorized was from Psalm 63:1:

Oh God,

Thou art my God

I shall seek You earnestly

My soul thirsts for you,

My flesh yearns for you

In a dry and weary land

Where there is no water.

This is the country in which my plants live much of the time:  A Dry and Weary Land Where There Is No Water.  I have lived in this same land, on and off.  I have known the soul thirstiness of the psalmist, and unlike my little green friends, I do not tend to suffer in silence.  How grateful I am that my God is not a fickle or forgetful gardener (like me) but knows just when and how much life-giving water to give me.  Are you thirsty?

 Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life. Revelation 22:17

Whirl

This photo was taken after the Focusing Eureka Moment, but before the ISO Eureka Moment (see previous post).   I had discovered that my camera has two focus modes, one being focus priority and the other being capture priority.  I think for the entire 3 years I've had the camera, it's been on focus priority, the result being that if the camera was experiencing focus confusion, it would resolutely refuse to snap the photo.  I really think the camera was just as frustrated as I was: I would tell it to capture, and it would try in vain to tell me that it just couldn't do it (turns out that's what the blinking green hexagon meant).   We'd be at a stalemate and just call the whole thing off.  Ignorance was definitely not bliss!

I took about 10 whirling dress photos and this one is my favorite.  It says everything I wanted to say, i.e. the skirt portion has just the right amount of lift, the hair is delightfully akimbo and it looks as though some funky Spanish dance music might just be playing in the background - can't you almost hear the castanets?   In the debit column, the ISO level is a mite too high (remember, this was before the ISOEM) and in retrospect it looks as though I ought to have bounced the flash off the ceiling instead of the white shower curtain behind me (check out the shadow!).   Baby steps, baby steps.  I'll take any progress I can get.

This is the first dress my daughter made for herself and without bias I can say it's a stunner.  I remember the first sewing project I did in 7th grade.  It was a simple skirt: 2 seams, an elastic waistband and a hem.  I hated it intensely, both the sewing and the final product.  At the time I made lots of mental notes, most of which consisted of various ways of expressing that I would nevermore do any garment sewing.  Here I stand!  When Ruth turned 7, it became apparent that I either had to start sewing or resign myself to buying dresses for her that looked vaguely like she'd be in training for a lifetime of overexposure.  Never say never, people.  God picked me up, gave me a whirl and set me down in a new place and suddenly JoAnn Fabrics was my new best friend. He's always teaching me a new song - hallelujah!  And now I happily pass the torch on to my lovely and talented daughter - may she ever be willing to let the Lord whirl her around and teach her a new song.

He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; 

Many will see and fear and will trust in the LORD.

Psalm 40:3

Before and After

I finally had a breakthrough in understanding why my camera was using 1600 ISO every time my back was turned.  It was an unbelievably simple correction to make and while I appreciated the "eureka" moment, it does tend to make me wonder if technology and I can ever really be friends.  Here are the before and after photos.  Of course it would have been nice if they had been of the same subject, but cats are funny that way - if they don't feel like sticking around for another pose, they don't (particularly when the two photos are taken 20 minutes apart while the photographer reads a camera book and mutters constantly while trying to figure things out).   You have to see the larger versions of these photos to appreciate the change in sharpness.  

BEFORE - Luna

AFTER - towels

Sometimes all of life feels like a "before and after" story.  Before and after I met the Lord.  Before and after I got married.  Before and after I had children.  Before and after my convictions on things changed.  The Before side of the story is always dark and smudgy, sometimes only in retrospect.  I remember what Pete told me about trying to learn Advanced Physics: "It's like trying to see through a windshield covered in mud - the windshield wipers just move the stuff around and you never get a clear view through the glass."   I didn't know that I was looking through mud before I met Jesus.  I didn't know how my life would change as a result of meeting that young man in the Public Speaking class.   Mud obscured my understanding of being a mother until I held that first baby in my arms.  I still remember the day my convictions about abortion changed; there was a great deal of mud to be removed and it all got swept away in one incredible moment when I saw photos of aborted babies.  The Holy Spirit gave me a clean windshield that day.  Sometimes clarity of vision hurts.

For now we see through a glass, darkly...true that.