Up the Sunbeam

"Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil." Ephesians 5:15-16   NIV 2010 " . . . because the days are evil." Evil is a strong word. Evil is a word some are afraid to say, thinking it "intolerant," which no one wants to be in a world where TOLERANCE is seen as the greatest good. But evil is real. We are well acquainted with the symptoms of evil, but it's "nicer" to call someone "misunderstood" rather than evil.  It's more politically correct to speak in societally acceptable postmodern gobbledygook about "my truth" or "doing what's right for me." Then something happens that is so glaring, so stark in its evil that most of us have no qualms about saying the word and applying it where it fits.   The shooting in Tucson is such an event.  While less widely publicized, there are murders and other violent crimes ...

 -- "What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet." William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2) "Stories are able to help us to become more whole, to become Named. And Naming is one of the impulses behind all art; to give a name to the cosmos we see despite all the chaos." Madeleine L'Engle , Walking On Water   What does it mean to be Named?  Have you ever thought about what your Name is?  I don't necessarily mean the one your parents gave you, but the Name that is you? I've been thinking about it a lot. God loves names.  He has always set great importance on names, from teaching us how to revere His Name, to the curious way He has of changing a name to reflect His transformation of the person who wears it.  We are told that at the Name of Jesus Christ, one day, every knee will bow to His authority--that's a powerful Name!  God graciously reveals His personality and c...

My camera is one of my favorite teachers. When I look through my viewfinder, there is a useful little rectangle in the center called the focus area. As I decide how I want to frame my picture, I can place that focus area indicator on specific parts of the scene and lock in the focus, which will help me make some important decisions. One decision I have to make is to choose the subject of my pictur e. What am I trying to capture? What does the scene in my viewfinder say to me? What best conveys the beauty I see? Is the whole scene important, or is there one detail that I want to highlight. I can dramatically change the way a picture looks just by picking different focal points in the same scene. Another decision is how much of the picture I want to be in sharp focus. For some kinds of photography I may want the whole scene to be uniformly as sharp as possible. For other shots, I may want only one aspect of the scene to be in crystal clear sharpness and leave the re...