Photography

Whispers

Mokelumne River: Lodi, California

It’s the day after we celebrated Independence Day as a nation. I took a walk, noticed things like you don’t notice in a car or even on a bike with the world flashing by. The reason I walk is not really for the exercise, but to be connected to our one humanity. To see people outside doing ordinary things. Puttering in their yards, digging up broken sprinklers, walking dogs. There is a wonder in that. E. followed me on the bike and due to tracker on these phones, caught up on California street where I paused. 

I went by 615 West Locust where Grandma and Grandpa C lived. That’s how they always signed our Birthday and Christmas cards. I think about who lives there now. They don’t know or care what went on there before. They don’t care about the rock collection behind the garage that I liked to rummage through, or Mabel the solid gray cat of theirs, or the ancient stove in the kitchen. That’s as it should be, the way of life, I guess. 

Walking along, I saw a kindred spirit taking photos of clouds, another cloud watcher, phone toward sky. 

Last night the bombs were bursting everywhere. Neighbor cats were in one of their secret places tucked away. This morning they were both at the door ready for breakfast. It’s a blessedly cool and quiet morning. The last few years, I find myself almost enjoying the day after a holiday more than the holiday itself. The next day holds no obligation, just presents itself in all its glory, unmarred, unmoored. 

I immediately walked down to the river because I had to capture this reflection in the water. On the path down, the wind held a whisper of fall. It happens sometimes in mid to late summer. I know there will be many days to swelter yet, but for now, I enjoyed the promise the universe had to offer. That another season will come. 

Nature always helps me say, “Wake up!” Makes me think that maybe we can put away all the petty stuff and maybe find some common denominator. I think that’s why God gave us babies, and cute animals and sometimes a scene that is so majestic and magnificent that it takes your breath. 

I pray today that maybe we all can find something to take our breath away. Just temporarily. Look to the left or right, maybe it’s the precious familiar person beside you. Maybe it’s just the sky. (And it’s never just sky.) Maybe it’s the promise that God said He will never leave us.

More than we need for our manna today.

Blessings, Lori

Miscellaneous

Lassoing thoughts, figuring out what to keep

What to release

The writing process, even the phrase 

Taunts. “As if,” my own voice echoes 

Mocks. 

If no one is there to read, is it still a story? 

Because some things are too beautiful 

Not to share. 

Summer will always be 

The cool of the garden hose held over our heads

And “Let’s make skeletons!” 

Plopping down to feel the warmth of the driveway

Getting up to compare imprints

Purple Koolaid when it was still innocent

Remnants of powder on the cold metal rim.

Summer deliciousness. 

The hope of a warped chime from two blocks away

Rushing inside to get a thin dime

Missiles and Dreamsicles

Stubbed toes and hard-baked plastic flipflops

(Called thongs in those days)

All innocence must be kept like a treasure. 

And not forgotten. 

Writers are the guardians of recorded time.

It’s morning, and it’s God’s day.

I sip coffee and it tastes like gratitude.

I recognize for the umpteenth time

this is a sacred moment.

I stoop over the keyboard, the cat having stolen my chair.

I grant her a moment too.

Just like God has granted me so many over the years.

And this is present day and I summon the past in the form of a real

book. I know there are plenty of people like me,

who shun electronic readers.

Who know that reading is a feast for the senses.

The feel….smell….sound…..of a page.

The look of a particular font

even the thickness of the paper, all conjured up to make it

an experience.

Even before the first word is read.

Day Trip:

Luther Burbank’s Home and Gardens in Santa Rosa, California

Luther Burbank was a famed horticulturist who made his home in Santa Rosa for more than fifty years, and it was there that he conducted plant-breeding experiments that brought him world-wide fame. His personal friends and visitors to his home and gardens included Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. During his career, he introduced more than 800 new varieties of plants–including over 200 varieties fruits, vegetables, nuts and grains as well as hundreds of ornamental flowers.

Luther Burbank’s greenhouse and home in the background. One interesting fact is that although the town of Santa Rosa was greatly damaged by the great earthquake of 1906 in California, Luther’s home and greenhouse were unscathed. This little pocket of beauty is surrounded by a very busy street in the heart of downtown Santa Rosa and surrounded by street noise and foot traffic. I was struck, however, by the quiet once we stepped into the house. Luther’s father was a brick-layer and he made the bricks himself. A sure testimony to how well this place was built, in addition to the aforementioned fact about the earthquake.

“Fourth of July” roses and trellis below:

Every child should have mud pies, grasshoppers, water bugs, tadpoles, frogs, mud turtles, elderberries, wild strawberries, acorns, chestnuts, trees to climb.

Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine to the mind.

Luther Burbank

Wandering around the grounds you can see the imprint of Luther’s second wife, Elizabeth who had a thing for unusual tiles. She and Luther married in 1916 when he was 67 and she was 28. That marriage lasted until Luther’s death in 1926. I didn’t snap any pictures of her tile collection since we were on a tour and I thought it might be rude to the sweet lady who was informing us of everything we were seeing.

Here is another angle of the greenhouse, which miraculously still has the original leaded glass. Only one pane has had to be replaced and that was because a rock was thrown through it.

I took many pictures but only selected a few here. It is a wonderful piece of American history come to life as you can see by the many photos on the grounds. As I wandered the gardens, it was incredible to think that I was walking where Helen Keller, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Jack London and so many others had set foot. People of all walks of life down throughout history have found peace in gardens.

After all, it’s where we all started……..

Isaiah 51:3

Indeed, the Lord will comfort Zion; He will comfort all her waste places. And her wilderness He will make like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and a sound of a melody.

A very peaceful and happy Sunday to all. Lori

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Fall at the lake

One train meanders…..

Another answers its call

Melancholy dawn.

 

Melancholy train

Early morning answered by

Another close by.

 

Slow rumble on tracks

I wait for melancholy

Whistle brings hope

 

Early morning train

Fills my heart with hopeful strains

Sadness and longing

 

The haiku is a Japanese poetic form that consists of three lines, with five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the third. The haiku developed from the hokku, the opening three lines of a longer poem known as a tanka. The haiku became a separate form of poetry in the 17th century.

Just One More

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Just one more moment of quiet as light fills the sky
One more to feel Your Presence, to know that You have never left
Never will.

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One more moment of Gratitude in this place not only feel Your peace
But know it.
Every “thank you” we breathe reaches you as Praise.

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In the quiet of the morning.
Piano hymns softly round out sharp edges to the harshness of life
Before it fully arrives.

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I step gingerly so as not to disturb the pond of worries that never quite
Go away.

One more cup of coffee, Oh to make it last.
Ready for the day.

Blessed beyond measure.

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Where Were You?

Nest

I walked down to the river’s edge this morning and quietly marveled as I watched the world wake up once again. I thought of other times, other places. The sky aflame in the Arizona desert, the forest floor at the bottom of towering granite monoliths of Yosemite, the call of jays echoing from tree to tree. And of course, waking up to see the Pacific Ocean in all its vastness. Nature calls us to God like nothing else.

Over and over again I have found a place for my faith to rest in what I observe all around me in the backdrop of nature. When we do that we are basically agreeing with God that what He made was indeed good. It’s praise without words, when all others fail.

Job had a lot of questions after all he lost and suffered. I would have too. And God had a lot of answers. When He finally answered Iyov (Job), the Creator Himself drew upon the world He created:

Then Adonai answered Iyov out of the storm: “Who is this, darkening my plans with his ignorant words? Stand up like a man, and brace yourself; I will ask questions; and you give the answers!

“Where were you when I founded the earth? Tell me if you know so much. Do you know who determined its dimensions or who stretched the measuring line across it?”

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“Who shut up the sea behind closed doors when it gushed forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its blanket and dense fog its swaddling cloth…..

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when I made the breakers its boundary set its gates and bars, and said, “You may come this far, but no farther; here your proud waves must stop.”

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Have you ever in your life called up the dawn and made the morning know its place so that it could take hold of the edges of the earth and shake the wicked out of it?

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Which way leads to where light has its home? And darkness, where does it dwell? If you knew, you could take each to its place and set it on its homeward path. You know, of course, because you were born then; by now you must be very old!!!

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When it’s all said and done, Job replies basically “I will zip my lips now, I had no clue what I was talking about. There is nothing more I can say, other than to repent in dust and ashes.”

And when I look deeply into the night sky and realize I can only see a small fraction of what’s out there, there is nothing more I can say except:

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Thank you……I get it.

The Shroud of Grace

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Yesterday I awoke to a gloriously foggy morning. I am one of those that can’t resist bundling up and chasing it as it shrouds and swallows up everything and fills the air with silence. I joyfully walked down to the river to find 3 misty ghost like figures floating on top of the water; their fishing poles angled hopefully. Every now and again I would hear the plop as they recasted their lines, their hushed voices echoing across the water,

Further down I saw 2 ducks making a v-line barely visible through the misty air. I only heard a flock of Canadian geese honking above. I shot a few pictures with my camera and then decided to venture on down to the lake. My Sunday peace was only disturbed when my camera wouldn’t focus on a particular shot and I had to ask forgiveness for my foul words.

I wasn’t enjoying communion with fellow believers and yet I was at church. I have always found God in the fog, for two very emotional moments of my life happened in the fog long ago. The first was when I was driving around grief-stricken, my eyes blurred with tears after the loss of my husband.  I turned a corner and through the fog, I saw hopeful little candles in each window of a charming little cottage. Something about it gripped me and at once my spirit was calmed and brightened. It was God’s  way of letting me know I was going to make it.

The other time, I was alone in my room. Everyone had left and “Oh Holy Night” was playing on my record player (yes, it was that long ago) All I can say is that the Holy Spirit came to me in that room and I can remember every detail. In that room God came to me and revealed the awful, beautiful truth of what Jesus did to save me, us.

Wherever you find yourself this Christmas let me tell you that there is hope. I can say this with perfect confidence and clarity because there is simply nothing you or I are going through that is bigger than God. I know this. Jesus came so that we could always have real hope to fall back on in the darkest times of our lives.

Allow me to close with a quote from a wonderful book I read by Beldan C. Lane as he went through his own journey through the valley of the Shadow of Alzheimer’s in the nursing home with his Mom:

I met a woman by the elevator each day whose mouth was always open wide, as if uttering a silent scream. In a bed down the hall lay a scarcely recognizable body, twisted by crippling arthritis–a man or woman I’d never met. Another woman cried out every few moments, desperately calling for help in an “emergency” that never ebbed. Who were these people?

They represented the God from whom I repeatedly flee. Hidden in the grave-clothes of death, this God remains unavailable to me in my anxious denial of aging and pain. He is good news only to those who are broken. But to them he’s the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, lurking in the shadows beyond the nurses desk, promising life in the presence of death. The Solace of Fierce Landscapes, Beldan C. Lane

This is the paradox of the message of Christmas. Innocent life with a bitter twist at the end but that ultimately gives us Glorious freedom from that same death. Sometimes I think this is why we rush to buy and give during this season. We know there is something about Christmas that is joy but we can’t quite place our finger on it. We do our hopeful best to be cheerful and join in only to find ourselves worn out from the effort.

That’s because the Gift He gives us is so much bigger than everything else in this world. It’s Himself. We are free, all of us this Christmas. We have to only reach out and accept the gracious offer He gives.

Merry Christmas from my Prayer Closet. May His peace find you today, and every day.

The God of Everything

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God is never complacent, or nonchalant, or middle of the road like I am. I look out at the world and His creation and I see that nothing ever stays the same. God is always doing something miraculous. Recently I went back to Yosemite again, the place where I spent so much time as a kid and young adult. I missed it as I missed an old friend and it was a bit emotional with all the memories tied up together with it.

Yosemite is one of those places with WOW factor and even though the falls were just a trickle compared to the tumbling cascades of summer, the leaves made up for it. They were shouting. On the way into the park we gasped at the bright yellow and red splashes at every turn. In all my time there I had never seen it quite so brilliant.

I remembered when my Mom used to send me leaves from there in the fall when they would go and so I collected some for her to place on her table. Yes, we are leaf crazy.

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It was a great day and I was awestruck once again by the grandeur of those granite peaks that rise from the floor. I found myself praising God for His marvelous works, for creating all this beauty for us to enjoy. When you look at nature as an extension of God, you see that He is never not doing anything. The earth is a stage and no matter what we create as humans, we can never match the ocean, or the moon, or a place like Yosemite.

Do you ever feel complacent? Like you are just not doing enough big things for God? Ever sensed you are outside the circle? That somewhere out there in the world of faith is a ring of fiery people doing wonderful things for God and for others and here you are doing nothing in particular but trying to live your life the best way you know how? I know exactly how you feel.

But here is what I have learned from nature:

God is God of the big and the grand, but He’s also the God of the tiny and minuscule. No act or creation or person is too small to escape His notice.

Yesterday I found a little leaf. I almost sat on it it was so small, but there it was. A perfect replica of the big oak leaves that are fluttering to the earth right now. I think He let me find it to remind me that I am just as big a miracle as that big oak standing in the middle of my Aunt’s yard.

He whispers things like that to me.

And when we praise Him and thank Him for being fearfully and wonderfully made, something is set right within myself and the world me. My perspective changes. I find that gratitude and praise are the steps that bring us close to a God who has already proven how much He loves us; a God who has always had His arms open to us.

He accepts stumbling, halting, half-hoping words, in fact He loves them. Prayer can be a cracked window in our hearts that reaches all the way to Heaven. “If you are there” prayers, can sometimes start the mountains moving. He is waiting to hear from you!

Blessings on your Sunday today, friends.

 

 

Hard Stop

house in reflection

Funny how things can come into focus when you’re still. When you’re quiet enough to let that stillness wrap itself around you and you start to believe that it really will be okay. There are those today reeling from loss, whose homes are no longer a reality, but only a reflection. I identify a little bit. I miss my home and the security that went with it every day. And yet I know that my true security lies in God and nothing else. Homes will come and go but He stays forever.

Last Friday I sat by the river and thought great and wondrous things. At least five of them. Later when I tried to capture them I couldn’t remember one, but the feeling of peace stayed behind. I was so grateful for that because there have been times this year when scenes of great beauty bounced off my soul like teflon and that troubled me. For I’ve always been able to find my way back to God through His beauty in creation.

We slip and fall headlong into our worries and problems and then He wakes our soul once again and I think it’s because He wants us to feel the gift of Gratefulness again.

All around us, nature is enfolded in a great drama and it never stops. She invites us to partake and be more than a bit player, and the rules are simple. We have to do a “hard stop”

curly leaf on water

A hard stop is when we allow our worries and cares drift away like this leaf who fell twisting in the wind. It didn’t think of falling, it didn’t even try to fall, it just fell. And in that simple act it had a power it didn’t even know it had. Its little presence announced that a change is coming, the first of many reds and golds and browns that will rain down in the coming months.

taking flight

Psalm 55:6 says: “Oh that I had wings of a dove! I would fly away and be at rest.”

I have a friend who used to say that when he flew, his problems seemed smaller. They weren’t really, but from the air his perspective changed. My flying usually involves driving to the beach. We all need a place where we can see clearer, feel calmer. But we can do that from anywhere with prayer.  Jesus has the peace we so deeply crave. It’s His free gift…….though it cost Him plenty He was happy to do it.

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And when we accept it by stopping our striving and wrestling and open our hearts to His love He is honored. When we do that, It makes Him feel like it was all worth it. Like a parent who has had to sacrifice so many times they feel their battered ripped to shreds heart may just give way this time. Then the child realises he or she is not the only one in the world, that someone loved until it hurt for them. When that love is released, hearts can start to mend.

Do you see a heart here, or just a dead tree?

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Accept the invitation that God sends through His nature friends. I can assure you of a reward. A wise man named John Muir said this:

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.