Graceful Elegance-Traditions of the Past

 

About four posts ago, I told everyone that my grandmother was ready to transition from this life to the next. Shortly after that post, she did. The original photo I had on that post was a rose but I changed it to the black and white of her above and I was so taken by the photo, I wanted to do a whole blog on it.

As Thanksgiving is tomorrow and this will be my first one without her, her passing has left a void in the traditional Thanksgiving in my family. When my grandfather passed, we were all sad at our feasting table yet we moved on. Then my mother and now my grandmother are all gone and Thanksgiving will never be the same. The mantle of Thanksgiving in my family was steeped in old traditions like most families. Specific foods were always on the table and we looked forward to them each year. Most of them, my grandmother's recipes she knew from heart. They were long and arduous to make but the time and effort paid off as we moaned and groaned and loosened our belts afterwards. 

This year, my surviving and dwindling family, consisting of my dad, step mom, aunt and cousins are all I have left. None are having a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. I remember the old days, back when there was no divorce, which was the first blow to my families traditional meals, and my parents, aunt, uncle, cousins, and grandparents would all gather for those holiday gatherings. You'd walk in and the smells of turkey, potatoes and stuffing would smack you straight in the face and the salivary glands would go into overdrive. Of course the kitchen was off limits to us kids and we were banished to the living room until called. Remember the kids table? Ours was a fold up square card table as there was only three kids. I frequently enjoy the memory of those days around the holidays.

As for the pictures above, it was taken at my grandmother's house last year on Thanksgiving. She was 95 years old, in a wheel chair because of a stroke and she always wanted to help clean up after dinner. She would wash dishes from her chair and at this frozen moment in time, I was in the dinning area and I turned to see her bathed in bright sunlight from the window above the sink. As cameras often do, they choose to expose for the bright light or the shadows when they are in auto mode, which I had it in. I zoomed in a bit so the highlights were all you could see and snapped it. I shelved this pic for a year and haven't really done anything with it till today. One year later exactly, editing it and cropping it further, I do so with a heavy heart knowing that our traditional Thanksgiving is gone. The smells, the food, the time together, the fun...... 

This is why I love photography, this one moment, this 1/320th of one second in my life will always bring me back to that day, Thanksgiving at my grandmothers. 

Cherish the memories, build the traditions and love one another. 

May we all be thankful in what we have in each other and in God. To God be the Glory!

Transitions

 

There are times in my life where I go through seasons. Just like our regular seasons on Earth, changes happen and transitions take place. Since I was Baptized at the ripe old age of 30, I have had multiple ebbs and flows. Seasons where I'm hot as fire for God and other times where I'm so cold I wondered if my Winter would ever end. I've gotten into a season of Fall, much like our current season outdoors, I'm experiencing some cool days and some warm days but my days are never full on hot as the desert sands. 

I'd say I'm confident in where I'm at in Him. I've written about it before and I'll do it again, God loves me. He loves me because He is love and I can either except His love through Jesus or I deny it. I except the fact that I can have hot on fire seasons and I can have warm ones but I doubt I'll ever swing into Winter again for the simple fact that Winter is death and gloom and hopelessness. I will forever feel God's love in my life no matter my current situation because it's not my situation that dictates my status with Him it's my faith. 

My faith in who God is and what He has done for me makes my existence what it is, which is confident. With confidence and faith I can say, I'm loved. With that same note I can wait till God has something else for me to do. 

With the people in the Bible, we only see highlights, cliff notes as you will, of their accomplishments. Take Moses for example, we don't see an every day or week or monthly run down during his time in the wilderness away from his people. He lived as a nomad sheep herder under his father-in-law. For thirty years God waited until Moses was ready to be used. When Moses came to the point where he didn't want to reign, God said now is the time to reign. 

God uses life to prepare us for His uses. We, so many times, force are way into serving God on our terms and in our way, style and comfort. When we do that we are not the empty vessel He requires, nope, instead we hold onto our control. Moses heard he was supposed to lead his people. He knew his purpose and he was going to carry it out his way. When he failed in his way, God set him on the stove of life to simmer in his juices till he was tender and usable. Take a tough piece of meat and cook it all day in a crock pot and you'll know what I'm talking about. 

So, I'm stewing and simmering and waiting to see what's next. I'm not reading or watching videos or praying or much of anything. I'm letting God be God for a change. He knows what He's doing and if He so chooses to use me in a mighty way, then so be it. 

For the foreseeable future, I am transitioning into more of a photography role. I've loved photography for a long while and recently have made it more serious in my life. Each of my blogs begin with a photo that I took. I'll probably mix descriptions and what I was doing to get the photo along with religion and my personal walk. So again a transition. 

The photo above was taken in the Greenbrier area of the Smoky Mountains National Park. If you've not visited that area of the Smokies, I highly recommend it. This little river was coming down to join another at my feet. The two prongs are the primary rivers in the Greenbrier area. It's been so dry in East TN that I wasn't too sure of the water actually flowing. I have just learned to do these types of photos by using an ND or Neutral Density filter on the lens of the camera. It blocks light a varying degrees depending on the strength of the filter. The reason you use them is so you can take a bright scene and darken it so you can get a long exposure shot without making it too bright. 

I wanted about a three to five second shot to give the water a smooth texture. However, without the filter, the longer you hold open the shutter to do that, the more light you let in. If there's too much light, then your picture will be way too overexposed. So, a filter is needed if it's too bright. Now, if the scene is dark, no filter is needed. 

For instance, I took the below picture without a filter yet it was a cloudy day, in the woods and early in the day.

One other thing, you've got to use a tripod and a timer. Any movement during the 3-5 second or more photo could ruin it and make things look out of focus. Most cameras have a timer on them, use that to take the photo, 10 sec, so you can back away from the tripod and let the camera do it's magic. I say back away for one reason. I tapped the tripod with my foot one time during one and well, it was ruined. Thank the Lord for digital film, mistakes don't cost you like they did with real film. 

I've rejoined a local photography club, one I used to be a part of but had a less than great camera at that time. Now that I've upgraded, I have rejoined with my Dad and I won first place at our last meeting with the one at the top of this post from Greenbrier. I don't say it to brag as I know I'm not a top photographer by any means but I was impressed by the simplicity of the shot. I drove 30 minutes on a last minute decision because I wanted to try the long exposure shot. It was mainly practice shooting. However, tweaking the shots in Lightroom I quickly fell in love with them. So, I submitted them for judging during our monthly meeting and viola! 

All this to say, try. Just try. It's my issue that I've dealt with for so long now, trying. I don't try because of that self defeating voice saying you're not good enough. It'll turn out to look like garbage or it'll not function right if you try to fix it. It applies across the board with all our lives. Lack of trying keeps our butts on the couch and not seeing the world. Lack of trying keeps us complacent and in a world of regret. I am now beginning to try more and I must look at failure as the thing it is, which is practice and a journey. 

I think I'm done for now but I wanted to leave with this. Transitions to anything that is unfamiliar is scary. Just try and ignore the voice and keep trying. A child doesn't learn to walk in a day.

To God be the Glory!

If God is Real....

 

It's been a long time since I posted.....so busy isn't even the word. However, I had this random thought pop into my mind yesterday and it stems from a quote I heard from a random video clip I saw. The person asked, "Why does God let men, women and children get murdered and He does nothing about it." This is in lieu of the senseless attacks Hamas has done against Israel lately and the question has resonated throughout history every time atrocities take place in society. When wars, public shootings, genocides, accidents and anything involving innocent people captures the medias attention, we rally and sympathize and try and make sense of the whole situation. When senseless death happens, naturally we look to the one in command. Some hit their knees and pray, others wag their fingers to the skies and blame God for not stepping in. 

We hear it every time when stuff like this happens, "If God is real then why did He allow those kids to be murdered?" With a person that doesn't understand God, that question is valid. You see, to be God, you must create rules and abide by those rules. Here on Earth, we see rules made and we see those rules broken everyday. If the speed limit is 60 and we do 65, most of the time there are no consequences. However, if in a trial where our lives are judged by whether or not we followed speed limit signs, then we would be guilty and be sentenced accordingly. Even if we broke it by 1 mile per hour over, we still broke the limit. 

What if the judge broke the same limits set by the law he is supposed to up hold? Can he be a valid judge if he is involved in the same crime you have been in? This is the crux of the situation. For God to be all good, He cannot break a single rule set by Himself. Can we say God allows free will? Is this a rule of His? If it is a rule, then He cannot break it. He cannot step in and stop anything without permission from that person. Of course this is only a simple example and we can argue the far reaching implications till the end of time. 

Who can say they know how God works? Who can judge the judge and be correct in their assessments? We only see bits and pieces of the whole puzzle. We see tragedy but we never see victory and in tragedy we blame yet in victory we take the credit. We are like the judge that speeds. We look down upon those that do bad yet we do bad as well which makes us all hypocrites. Can we then blame God for not stepping in to save lives when we curse people for cutting us off in traffic. Words kill just as swiftly as a gun or a sword. 

God is not worried about our bodies and what happens to it. You might find that appalling but time and time again, the Bible states that God is after a man's heart. His heart resides in his soul not in his body. Therefore, the body is of no consequence when it comes to our eternal lives. God knows our soul lives forever and that forever is a long time to be bitter or sad or mad or filled with hate or the hundreds of maladies that can infect our souls and damn us forever in darkness. Hell is not a place of torture from demons, Hell is a place where our unsatisfied souls dwell torturing itself forever. If you have an addiction without a body to feed it, then you can crave that addiction but never satisfy it. If you are nervous and stressed, then you stay that way forever. Earth points out your issues and you have a choice to make. Continue your torture or draw near to the one who can quench your thirsts and hunger. 

If we are consumed with the worry of how our bodies are treated, then we've missed the point of the cross. Our bodies will die yet our souls live on. Why worship the body when it is at best around for 75-100 years? So when we see people killed, we must wonder, did they know God before they fell asleep? If not, there's the real tragedy. If they did, pain only last for a moment, then they are with Him. Can we not be tortured over the hearts of those doing the killing? They are lost and they are full of hate. They will die and continue with their hate forever. 

Like the judge of those speeding, can a judge truly judge those killing with weapons when he uses words to kill their souls. A murderer judging a murderer, yet we don't see it as such, so we bend God's rules and we fall farther from Him and justify our actions by judging the judge. When we assume the role of a corrupted judge we feel we can judge the God of all. 

How can we stand so arrogantly and fly in the face of the Almighty by prosecuting him from our darkened hearts. We have no right to judge Him from our minuet perspective as it never provides the true and full picture of what is going on in Heaven and Earth.