This week’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge theme is “Fresh“. I’ve been spending a long four-day weekend at my girlfriend’s family dairy farm, where she grew up, for her birthday. We’ve had fresh raw milk (oh how I love thee!), fresh raspberry pies, fresh air, and enjoying these fresh blueberries we picked at her grandmother’s farm next door. It’s been an incredible weekend of love, celebration, and a good ol’ hymn sing (the highlight of my time).
It’s really amazing the difference that fresh can make in our lives.
I fully believe that poetry is one of the most powerful forces in our world today. When engaged with fully, it can get around our normal defenses and speak to our souls like few other things can. (It could even convert you to Christianity.) I also try my hand at it time to time.
Anyway, I just wanted to give you all two unexpected places you can find amazing poetry to brighten up your Friday and send you into the weekend right. Continue reading →
[Appropriately, this week’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge is the topic “Companionable“. I could think of no better picture to post and story to tell than this.]
That there is a picture of David and Elizabeth Jane. (They’re in the process of converting to the Orthodox family of the Church, where the ring is on the right hand.)
David here is my oldest friend. Being bad at keeping friends that don’t live near me, this means that our friendship is about five-and-a-half years old. Not a crazy long time, I know. But for what we lack on the front-end duration of our friendship, we definitely make up for it in our desire to stay friends for decades to come.
We’ve seen each other through spiritual darkness, relational pain, and dramatic theological changes. He’s an amazing drywaller, photographer, writer, farmer (as of recently), and general human being.
And he got engaged to an incredible woman this weekend. Continue reading →
When it comes to the politicalnews this week, I’ve felt a large range of emotions. I’ve felt just a little bit of “I told you so” vindication, joy over the attention the media is giving to it, anger at the government, pride in some brave politicians, and frustration over the fact that no one else in my life seems to be paying attention to this or even care.
I’ve also felt a certain futility in grasping all off this and being able to distill it in a concise, communicable way. I’m going to do my best next week on this blog, but in the end, I don’t think I could do better than these three shows in doing so.
First, nothing helps ease the shock of learning that your government is storing your entire digital life than a little laughter. And to that end, there’s no place better for that than The Daily Show. Jon Stewart is gone for the summer, but he is being ably covered by John Oliver. This clip below is Oliver’s first night hosting:
This week’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge theme is “Fleeting“. I’ll be posting a more meaningful “photo sermon” based on this theme later in the week, but I saw something last night I wanted to share.
This blog has not shied away from its concern over the civil liberties and privacy issues that have been exposed this week. I hope to post some more in-depth thoughts on these specific revelations later today or tomorrow. For this photo post, though, I ran across a couple of images that show just how fleeting any American societal anger, attention, or protest really is.
This week’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge theme is “The Sign Says” (okay, as of today, this technically last week’s theme). Anyway, the prompt was to post pictures of signs that we’ve taken and why we picked them. So here a few signs I’ve taken pictures of over the years. This post is just a fun one. Nothing profound here. Enjoy.
Now, even in spite of my coffee snobbery, I really do love Starbucks coffee and (some of) their espresso drinks. So this isn’t a knock on them–I just thought this sign was hilarious. Continue reading →
It’s always difficult to talk about one’s own fear of one’s own death. It usually comes across as a little melodramatic and seems to carry with it the appearance that somehow your fear of your death is somehow felt more deeply, analyzed more fully, or experienced more truly.
In short, when people start whining about their fear of death. It can be annoying. I acknowledge this. And yet, here I am, telling you all that I am really, really scared of death.
When I mention this to people that know me as the guy who writes a lot about faith and seems to believe these things pretty deeply, people are (for some reason) shocked to hear me explain just how deep my fear of death goes. I know it’s not logical, but I somehow find the past works of God more easily believable than the future acts of God. I know you can’t have one without the other, but the human heart is a storm of contradiction and paradox.
“Whisky, I find, helps clarity of thought. And reduces pain. It has the additional virtue of making you drunk or, if taken in sufficient quantity, very drunk.”
Each night as we writers sat down to blog, he’d show us the pictures he took for the day, and we’d fight over which ones we got to use in our posts. He took some amazing pictures, and shared many of the raw, untouched photos with us.
Well, now that he’s had time to dedicate more time and resources to focusing his creative eye on the pictures, he has now released his official photo documentary from the trip, as part of the site Visual Peacemakers.
This photo essay beautifully captures the essence of our time and the people there as well as (if not better) than the words of us writers. I encourage you to spend some time with these pictures and let their weight and beauty affect you. Then, would you consider joining with Lemonade International in their continuing work in the La Limonada community of Guatemala? Continue reading →
Grant, we pray, Almighty God, that as we believe your only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ to have ascended into heaven, so we may also in heart and mind there ascend, and with him continually dwell; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
In preparation for our Blogger’s Trip to Guatemala in April, Lemonade International is spending each week leading up to the trip profiling each of the bloggers that will be participating. Recently, they profiled our official trip photographer Scott Bennett.
Scott calls himself a “humanitarian photographer”. I know, I know. You’re probably thinking (accompanied by an eye-roll) “Everybody’s a photographer now”. And yes, some of us like to think we have an eye for this stuff (MySpace profile shots and Instagram pictures excluded), but Scott is different on many levels.
First, I can’t tell you how refreshing it was to open up his blog and his online portfolio page and not see any pictures with filters and major edits done to them. Like a true photo artist, he seems to consider the camera and the subject as his primary tools of his craft, not Photoshop. If he uses it, he uses it as any artist uses any aid: he doesn’t so you can’t tell.
Secondly, any real photographer can tell you that there is far more to truly beautiful and meaningful photo art than mere “composition” or simply “capturing an image.” There has to be movement, narrative, and/or dimensionality. Continue reading →
This week’s WordPress Photo theme is “Color“. Rather than simply writing about different pictures I’ve taken, I’m instead trying to write “photo sermons” based on these topics. In these posts, I want to try and use the photo itself as my “text”–trying to see how God reveals himself in his “other” book, in addition to the Bible.
In our last photo sermon, I talked about how I love that Easter comes around Spring time and so the natural world beautifully reflects the spiritual truth being celebrated. Also in line with this truth is the fact that Easter–just like Spring–is not just one day–it’s an entire season in the Church calendar.
It takes time for beauty and truth to get into and blossom within our souls. It takes preparation and anticipation for the roots of our hearts to quicken like the trees around us–to feel life coursing in them once more.
This is beautiful. And it doesn’t need to be this way. Continue reading →
Today, I’m really proud to make available the all new Easter Mixtape for this year. It’s a completely new batch of songs, none of which have been on any of my past mixtapes. I’ve been working on this one for a while. I hope it’s able to help you engage in this Easter season. Just like the past Mixtapes, it’s free to stream, download, and share.
To also serve you in this time, be sure to check out last year’s Easter Volume 1 Mixtape, the Easter readings in my church’s Lent 2013 Prayerbook (pdf), as well as other Lent posts on this site.
[I wrote this after my grandfather died in 2010 after a long battle with throat cancer. It really affected me, and I wrote this to redeem this moment for him and me. You’ll find a recording of the song below. It’s simply a piece of cathartic lament in light of pain, and is not meant to be “high art”.]
I here your footsteps coming
The floorboards they scream
I pray to my Father
to wake from this dream
I’m tired, so tired
when will this end?
I’m tired, so tired
Your strength, won’t you lend?
Oh Death, here is your sting Oh Death, I hear your voice ring Through echoes and ages and days gone past
Oh Death, here is your sting
This breath, you can take it
This body, is yours
This voice you have stolen
My eyes are now dim.
Oh this sweetness you’ve taken
I taste life no more
This life, I release now
But this love you can’t have!
But I’ll rise….
But I’ll rise…
I’ll awake from this nightmare as daylight draws nigh
The tension of ages breaks before my eye
This breath I’ll take back. This life will be His.
That body, you can keep; I’ll get a new one from him
Like daybreak it’s new and as strong as fired steel
The demon like dew is gone, ’cause I am healed.
His vict’ry now better: of this conquest we’ll sing
Your vict’ry now bitter:you will taste it’s last sting.
Because…
Oh Death, you’ll taste your last sting Oh Death, I’ll hear your voice scream Through echoes and ages and days gone past
Oh Death, here is your sting.
Oh Death….
taste it and weep,
for oh Death,
I no longer sleep.
Because, Oh Death,
I’m no longer thine;
And, Oh Death,
The vic’try’s now mine.
[read my other Holy Day poetry here] all writings licensed:
the long way home 