Up the Sunbeam

I haven't decided whether it was a good idea or not. I looked back through all of my posts for 2011. I want to hang my head and hide. Am I ashamed of the pictures I've taken or the words I've written? No. But I AM painfully ashamed that so little of what I have written has produced real change in me. Conviction is darned uncomfortable.  The Holy Spirit is doing His work to refine my stubborn heart, but oh how I squirm and chafe at the feel of it.  His quiet and steady hand is more gentle on the reins than I deserve.  I wanted to be better than this by this New Year's Day and it hurts and makes me sad and sorry and angry with myself for this disappointing result. Why is it so easy to know things and so hard to be changed by them? Where is the disconnect between what I deeply believe and what I actually do? Father, how do I take all the bits and pieces of truth, the collected lessons I've learned, written, tucked away and cataloged, and keep them...

-- The seasons are changing, as much as they ever do in this part of Northern California. The changes are subtle here, slow, surreptitious, easy to miss if you're not paying attention. The light changes color before the leaves do; it slopes in at a different angle and whispers of changes to come. The overnight lows are lower, as are the daytime highs, climbing 'only' to the mid seventies, and the Californians hunch their shoulders and hug themselves for warmth. They start looking for their sweaters and dig out their supply of words like COLD and FREEZING! I chuckle at their hyperbole and tell them I'm just finally getting comfortable--I will allow the occasional use of COOL, perhaps even CHILLY if I'm feeling especially generous, but COLD?  Um, NO! I do not miss the high, flat, smoggy, metallic skies of our hot Contra Costa summers, and I always thrill to see the splashes of color the trees don in autumnal celebration of cooler weather. The natural changes around...

-- Change is inevitable. Times change, seasons change, people change, ways of doing things change, we change. Many changes are good ones as we constantly try to improve our way of life, and the desire for change is what lies at the root of countless innovations and brilliant ideas. Change can be a good thing, but change can also be dizzying, frightening and unsettling, even dangerous. Sometimes in the midst of so much that is changeable, we really need to have some things that never change. It had been five LOOOOONNNGGGG years since I had been home to British Columbia--the longest I've ever been away. I knew about some of the things that have changed in that time--the high school I graduated from has almost completely been replaced with shiny new buildings--I didn't even have the heart to ask Daddy to drive down Main Street to see it. I loved it the way it was. Out on the wide open Indian Reserve I used to know as untouched grassland where I spent untold thousands of happy...

-- I've been away. I've been away, and I've been wondering how I would wrap words around where I've been and what I've seen, and how I could possibly hope to write down this heart-full of wonder I've brought back with me. It sounds a cliche, but I truly don't know where to begin . . . there's so much . . . What began as a phone call a few months ago, offering me a gift of thoughtfulness in proportions I cannot describe, has just culminated in a week I will never forget! This gift . . . 7 days in the mountains to breathe . . . to revive . . . to refresh . . . and to take pictures to my heart's content . . . Oh! Such a gift!!! Maybe for the first time since I was their only child (my first six years), it was just me, my mom and dad, and the mountains we all are crazy about!! For this country/mountain girl living her life in the city, I couldn't have asked for anything more!! Before I left, as excited as I was (I was VERY excited), the th...

The first thing any photographer learns is that taking pictures is all about capturing light. To the youngest child with his first camera it quickly becomes obvious that without light, you can't take a picture. George Eastman once said, "Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography. " There are many things to know about light and the shadows created by its angle and intensity, and I feel like I'll always have more to learn. One thing you discover early is that light changes constantly. From one moment to the next the scene in front of you can change dramatically and is affected by many variables. If you aren't ready to capture that moment when it happens, it may never look exactly like that again. We are living in an extremely changeable time in history. It feels as though nothing is as it appears; what we think we see turns out frequently to ...