Happy 2nd Easter!

    
    

Easter 2015

If we really "got" Easter, this world would be a different place! See my sermon for the 2nd Sunday of Easter here: Transformed by the Risen One?

 

Things Unseen: Courage

         
      

But You Can't Keep Me Down

Camellias - the South's blessed testimony to resilience and the beauty of woundedness!

Last Saturday morning I had a few minutes at St. Thomas' to wait for a friend to arrive for our trip to Camp Hardtner for a Congregational Vitality Institute day--a wonderful one, too, BTW!

The many camellias planted among the trees between the church and Bayou Dr. were clearly damaged by our icy weather, but blooming beautifully anyway.
  
 

Snow day!

        
           

Being

Today's question: How do you picture a day spent "being"--as opposed to "doing"?

 

Photographer's Journal: Camp Hardtner

     
      

Invitation to Stop

And I did. And took in the emerald water, the green grass, the golden brown of last summer's grass-like plant, and the balmy breeze coming across the lake. 

For Lent this year, I am following an online series by the Brothers of Saint John the Divine. It is about our relationship with time, which was the first thing in creation God called "holy." 

It has not been a surprise to me to learn already that my own relationship with time is pretty disordered.

Yesterday's lesson was about invitations to stop during the day. For the brothers, the monastery bells invite them to stop what they are doing for prayer four times a day. 

Scenes like the one above are my monastery bells. They are invitations from the universe to stop for a moment, drink in the beauty, give thanks. That I do so with a camera makes it no less prayer.
        

Camp Hardtner

    
    

Perfect Peace

Home from Happening 53! What a blessed experience in a beautiful place with some fine young people. The Spirit was with us.
   

Wildflowers: Arkansas

              
                

Blue Sage (Salvia azurea)

In October, I attended the Arkansas Native Plant Society annual meeting in Texarkana. One of our hikes was in the White Cliffs Natural Area of western Arkansas. It is situated on a large outcropping of chalk that overlooks the Little River and gives the area its name. We saw many interesting plant species. It was October, so only a few things were still blooming; this lovely little blue flower was surely one of the prettiest!
      

on a large outcrop of Annona Chalk, rising out of the Little River floodplain (now Millwood Lake) and includes a 100-foot high chalk bluff over the Little River, from which the area derives its name. - See more at: http://www.naturalheritage.com/natural-area/white-cliffs/#sthash.CLUb4sD0.dpuf

on a large outcrop of Annona Chalk, rising out of the Little River floodplain (now Millwood Lake) and includes a 100-foot high chalk bluff over the Little River, from which the area derives its name. - See more at: http://www.naturalheritage.com/natural-area/white-cliffs/#sthash.CLUb4sD0.dpuf

on a large outcrop of Annona Chalk, rising out of the Little River floodplain (now Millwood Lake) and includes a 100-foot high chalk bluff over the Little River, from which the area derives its name. - See more at: http://www.naturalheritage.com/natural-area/white-cliffs/#sthash.CLUb4sD0.dpuf

on a large outcrop of Annona Chalk, rising out of the Little River floodplain (now Millwood Lake) and includes a 100-foot high chalk bluff over the Little River, from which the area derives its name. - See more at: http://www.naturalheritage.com/natural-area/white-cliffs/#sthash.CLUb4sD0.dpuf

Kisatchie Splendors

She Walks in Beauty

I had just 30 minutes to spare when I arrived in the vicinity of Camp Hardtner this morning for a Congregational Vitality Institute day. So I turned west on FS 120, just across from the southern entrance to Camp Hardtner, drove about a mile and parked at the end of this old logging road.

Last summer I set out to find an area of the Kisatchie that was reasonably close to home, an area along Hwy 165 where I could easily stop en route to and from Alexandria and Camp Hardtner. This was my third visit and I love the place more each time.

This morning, after parking my car and getting out, my phone rang and it was an important call. I leaned against the back of my CRV facing the road, finished the phone call, then got my camera off the front seat and began walking down this road. I had gone no more than a few feet when a young deer--probably last year's fawn, based on size--bolted from a thick patch to my left.

I was still adjusting the camera, setting shutter speed and depth of field, checking white balance, deciding which lens to use, etc. But, you know, it didn't matter. I just stood there and watched the deer, all rimmed in morning light, bound across the path about 70-80 yards in front of me.

See it? Of course you do!