In His Image

My chains are gone ...

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... I have been set free.

Do not be ...

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... a stumbling block.

He wants to save ...

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the fallen ...

Even in the darkest times,

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He is a lamp for your feet.

The cross

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is where you find it.

Only He ...

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... is the Tree of Life.

Cancer: A story of Contentment

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Say what? Contentment?

Yeah, but it was long time getting here. So let’s begin at the beginning, some 23 years ago. My wife and I took a mini-vacation at a Tennessee campground while our two sons stayed with my dad. I made a flat, racing type dive into the campground pool. A freak hydraulic concussion during the dive crashed into my right testicle. The pain was exquisite.
A doctor gave me a little blow-up ring to sit on while it healed itself and insinuated the testicle was not damaged by the dive, but was a manifestation of an STD. The exquisite pain gradually subsided to nagging pain, then aggravating pain, and finally to no pain at all. Scar tissue could be felt, but apparently there were no other issues. STD, my eye.

Flash forward to three years ago when it took several months of diagnosis - including repeated nerve conduction studies, a nerve biopsy and a lumbar puncture - to show I have an immune system disorder called chronic inflammatory demyelating polyneuropathy, or CIDP. The bottom line for the acronym is this: My white cells like to eat the coverings of my nerves, particularly those in my extremities. This makes my nervous system misfire, causing pain, tremors, impairment of motor skills and micro-motor skills, fingertip numbness, sudden lunges in my legs, hyper hiccups and other such novelties.

CIDP cannot be cured, but it can come and go, wax and wane, and it can be suppressed after a fashion. Prednisone is the usual treatment, but it makes me fat and crabby. Last autumn, my neurologist suggested I try Imuran. He warned me that it could cause liver damage, and that I would have to be monitored with monthly blood tests for six months to see if my body could handle it without damage. If I proved tolerant, he would wean me off the Prednisone, and leave me with Imuran, which does not cause weight gain and crabbiness.

So there I was, peddling along with two strong immune system suppressants, with no apparent issues, looking forward to the possibility of dropping Prednisone. Then came winter, and I started feeling something, a slight presence if you will, just under my left short ribs. There was no pain, mind you, just a localized feeling that something wasn’t quite right. I was seldom hungry, which was truly strange. A bad cold led to some congestion a few weeks later, so I decided a trip to my internist was in order.

My doctor pushed, prodded and kneaded, trying to feel anything that might be causing this presence. He could not find anything, but sent me to X-ray, he said, “just for kicks.” He wanted to be sure I was free of pneumonia. He said he’d let me know soonest if the X-ray showed anything of interest. I got a call that afternoon. The X-ray showed I was pneumonia-free, but it also showed two nodes on the upper right lobe of my lungs, far from my left short ribs. This led to a CT scan of my chest. It confirmed the two nodes. But because the CT technician mistakenly included a small portion of my abdomen, it also showed an apparent shadow on my pancreas.

This led to another set of CT scans, with and without contrast, that verified a spot on my pancreas, and inflamed lymph nodes nearby. Now then, how are these CT scan results and the CIDP and a freak diving injury connected? Please bear with me. The findings set off a series of procedures. First came an endoscopy with a needle biopsy of the lymph nodes. Biopsy showed presence of poorly differentiated cancer cells in two lymph nodes, which are located very near the pancreas. My wife got the call from our internist, who said, “I’m sorry; it doesn’t look good.” She called her father, who is a retired surgeon. “What does he mean when he says, ‘It doesn’t look good’?” she asked.

“It means it doesn’t look good,” her dad replied. “I had a friend who managed to live two years after that diagnosis but I have never known anyone else to last that long.” This conversation my bride did not share with me until just now. But I felt at the time she and her dad might be holding something back. A colonoscopy followed, that showed no apparent signs of cancer in lower tract.

Then came the first trip to the oncologist - the same man who successfully treated my bride, Katie, for breast cancer eight years ago. He scheduled a PET scan of my trunk. It showed the lymph node hot spots, the as-yet-unidentified spot on my pancreas, and the two warm spots in my upper right lung lobe. I e-mailed my neurologist with the news, and he told me to stop the Prednisone and Imuran immediately so my immune system could get back to normal.

Meantime, we had the needle-biopsy samples sent from UAB to Trinity, where my oncologist is based, and where any further surgeries would be performed. We requested Trinity do its own analysis on the cells. With the results, the oncologist made a preliminary diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, using all of the data available at the moment. But the first surgery was biopsy of the lung warm spots to remove them as a cause of the cancer cells.

It was a relatively simple surgery that required only three incisions. One of those incisions was for a half-inch-diameter drain tube that rattled against a rib whenever I moved. The busted testicle provided an exquisite pain. The drain tube provided an exquisite pain with teeth.

The nodes were sent to the lab. It was time for another surprise: the nodes were caused by a common fungus found in river bottoms all over the world. It only becomes a threat to anyone with a compromised immune system, which I had, thanks to the CIDP treatment. My bride and I have lived on the Warrior River for several years, and is where we still live. I started a 12-week treatment with Diflucan, the standard for the fungus and yeast infections worldwide, while the cancer diagnosis process continued.

As the nodes were removed, a port was installed near my right collarbone, going on the assumption that chemotherapy would be required. While recovering in the hospital, an infectious diseases specialist scheduled a lumbar puncture to check spinal fluid for any sign the fungus had gotten that far (it can be lethal, if so). No one told me after this puncture that I needed to lie still for a couple of hours before going home.

Uh-oh. Here came a lumbar headache on a Friday. There would be no chance for a lumbar patch to cure it until Monday. There was no cancer fungus in the spinal fluid, but all I cared about was the headache. Let me insist that no one should have to undergo a headache like that, for a whole weekend no less. So, under anesthesia again, this time for the patch.

Another, but more dangerous, surgery was scheduled as soon as I felt up to it, which was in about three weeks. This time, a specialist in pancreas surgery would do the work. He warned that surgery on and around the pancreas is delicate work, and that removal of the hot lymph nodes would be especially dangerous because they sit so close to the superior vena cava. At this point, we all believed I was going to have a full or partial Whipple procedure to take a hunk of the pancreas because there was some question of whether I had poorly differentiated carcinoma or sarcoma, or adenocarcinoma, along with pancreatic cancer. The surgeon also warned that if his scope showed my liver to be involved, he’d just close me up, and chemo might or might not be scheduled.

He made his first small incisions, and the scope showed the liver itself was clear. The plan at this point was to do what was normal: make a massive incision to open me up for a good look at the pancreas. By God’s grace, the surgeon said afterwards, he never had to make that incision. For the first time in his career - a career that included hundreds of such surgeries - he performed the delicate feat with five small incisions. He took a small piece of the cyst for biopsy. The cyst proved to be cancer-free, and the lymph nodes proved to be infected by very small carcinoma cells - and lots of fungus. But what kind of cancer? Where was it located? What was the source?

UAB and Trinity pathology reports were sent to the University of Maryland at our request to a pathologist who was said to be a bit of a young gun, and eager to solve the mystery. We knew of him through my daughter. One of her best friends from Sewanee is married to the pathologist. The friend knew of my mysterious bout with cancer through my daughter’s e-mails requesting prayer from friends and family.

While I was at Trinity waiting on an appointment with my oncologist a couple of weeks after the pancreas surgery, my oncologist appeared, grinning. He had just come from a meeting of my ad hoc tumor board (the oncologist, pancreas surgeon and others). They had received a call from the Maryland pathologist. My cancer finally had been identified - as pure seminoma, a kind of testicular cancer that is easily treatable nowadays with chemotherapy.

But this pointed to the probability of a third surgery to verify the source of the seminoma, so an appointment was made with a urology surgeon and his ultrasound technician. I told the technician that I was absolutely sure her equipment would show a beat-up, scarred right testicle whether it was the source of cancer or not. Sure enough, the tech confirmed what I predicted. Next came the bare-naked examination by the urologist and an assistant surgeon - who was, of course, a woman like the ultrasound technician. This is when any remaining dignity dissipated, by the way.

Yes, the surgeon agreed, the testicle looked to be in bad shape, but it would have to be removed to determine if were, indeed, the source of the seminoma. A needle biopsy through the scrotum cannot be done in such cases because it might very well set loose more cancer cells. So here came another surgery, this time an incision in my right groin that would allow the surgery to pull out the offending testicle, remove it, then tie off various tubes and put them back in place sans testicle. Let me tell you right now, the edema and discoloration that resulted should not be visited on any man. A biopsy showed the banged and battered testicle was not the cancer source, but as Occam’s Razor would dictate, it was covered in scar tissue.

So what, then? The urologist explained that after we are conceived and the fetus develops, the kidneys and gonads - whether testicles or ovaries - are part of the same ridge of flesh. Therefore, testicular cancer also can occur anywhere between the kidneys and testicles. Well, my kidneys, liver and pancreas were cancer free, and so was my newly invaded nether regions. What now?

Chemotherapy. This was necessary even though it was possible that the seminoma found in the offending lymph nodes was the only cancer in my body, that the cells had spontaneously appeared only there, and that the cells were entirely removed with the lymph nodes. The oncologist did not want to take any chances, and neither did we. Chemo was scheduled. BEP was used: Bleomycin, Etoposide, and Cisplatin, which contains platinum, the source of the P in the acronym. B causes high fever, E causes nausea, and P causes hair loss. The plan set a three-day regimen for each of two rounds: BEP on Monday, EP on Tuesday, and P on Wednesday, then on Thursday, a shot to enhance white cell production.

On the Thursday evening of the first round, I made a scene at the local Mexican restaurant. My bride declared it a seizure. My son declared it a seizure. The nurse who happened by declared it a seizure with ventricular tachycardia. The ER doctor declared it absolutely not a seizure and especially not a seizure with tachycardia. With the seizure/not-seizure in mind, my oncologist decided to go with a five-day regimen for the next round just in case, to spread out any effects.

The rest of my treatment was no more exciting than an occasional episode of syncope and a whole lot of fatigue. Chemo ended on June 20. A PET scan in September showed no cancer or hot spots anywhere. I will have to undergo a PET scan in six months and yearly after that to check the spot on my pancreas. OK. So where does contentment come into this rollercoaster cancer/fungus/surgery/procedure ride? Was it the six times I was under anesthesia?

I was content, almost blissfully peaceful, through this ordeal, no matter what the news from any appointment or scan or lab result. With the pancreatic cancer diagnosis, I never got alarmed, anxious, or even slightly nervous. I did set about making lists of stuff that I needed to get done should I be told I had six months or a year to live. And whenever someone asked me how I was doing, on Facebook or in person, or when I posted my own updates on Facebook or in my photography forums, I always noted that I was content, followed by a smiley face.

I knew people were praying for me; the pancreas surgeon prayed before my surgery. I prayed always for courage, strength, wisdom, grace and, yes, for miraculous healing. I also prayed continually my Father’s will be done, and that my ordeal somehow glorify His name. Hey, how else could I have photographed rides on the gurney to surgery, my children and grandchildren in my hospital rooms, my trips to chemotherapy?

What a ride it has been. I suppose some people might point to this roller coaster as a series of coincidences, that many of the surgeries and procedures were not even necessary, and that the immune suppressants allowed the fungus and perhaps the cancer as well. But I have to say, if not for the fungus nodes, the cancer might not have been discovered for months, if not years, when treatment would have been too late. Everything was necessary for this story to happen, and I am content to have felt every ounce of pain, every shred of fatigue, every hour in the hospital.

You know, that little presence is still there. It can’t be the lymph nodes; they are gone. The cyst on the pancreas is in the wrong place. I feel it usually when I eat a little too much. I also feel it at other times, out of blue, hungry or full. Maybe it is something like what the Apostle Paul called the thorn in his flesh; a humility check, you might say.

Well, I figure the presence is there to remind me that I do not belong to me.

And that I do belong to Him.

"Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes ...

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and see that the fields are white for harvest." - John 4:35.

Seen and unseen

2011-10-04T12:54:00.000-07:00

"Art does not reproduce the visible; it makes visible." - Paul Klee.
The Swiss/German Klee is my favorite artist. As an adult, he put aside his Christian upbringing and chose theosophy for his life's religion. This saddens me because unless he secretly renounced this heresy before he died, I will not get to meet him some day.
Yet his simple sentence profoundly sums up what art is. I have struggled for many years to find a concrete place for art in the Father's creation. Then I recently came across this quotation from Klee. The line immediately reminded of something. But what? Was it something in the New Testament? Indeed, it was:
"... For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal." - apostle Paul, 2 Corinthians, 4:18.
The Father made us in His image. He is the ultimate Creator. And if we are made in His image, then we also have a desire - and ability - to create. Each of us can make visible through art, whether it is writing or painting or sculpting or architecture or making photographs or coloring with crayons. The urge is there. Let us be thankful for it whenever our art glorifies His Name ...

I know ...

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... my Redeemer lives ...

the Light ...

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... has come into the world.

He makes his face ...

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... to shine upon us.

Yes, indeed,

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in His image ...

He loves us ...

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... across generations.

He is the Master.

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I am His vessel.

His goodness

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is there for all to see, hear, touch.

Reach for Him.

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He is waiting, now ...

He is with us ...

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... day or night.

The Lord is risen!

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The Lord is risen indeed!

In the shadow of Your cross

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I will live for all my days. - Joel Engle.

"He knows my name;

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He knows my every thought ..."

To whom do you listen?

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Whom do you seek? For whom do you watch?

I once was lost ...

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... but now am found; was blind, but now I see ...

He is there ...

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... no matter where.

He leads me beside the still waters ...

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... He restores my soul ...

Knitted by the Father:

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Aaron and Ginger's new son, William Shepard Foreman, and our new grandson.

and listen to Him ...

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"... He will rejoice over you with gladness;

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... He will quiet you by His love; He will exult over you with loud singing." Zephaniah 3:17

He has given us so much ...

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... and we deserve none of it.

He is the Light ...

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Do you follow Him?

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Nothing is too heavy for Him to bear

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A living hope

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Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to His mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith - more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire - may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. Though you do not now see Him, you belive in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexplicable and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. - 1 Peter 1: 3-9

Be still, and know Him ...

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Me

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Addicted to doing

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This is a word to preachers of the Word.

Do you often wonder why the faces of so many in your congregations are slack-jawed during worship on Sunday mornings? Do you often wonder why so few come back on Sunday evenings?

Here is the answer: most of your congregants are addicted to doing, and in that addiction, their minds and bodies are exhausted every week by Sunday morning.

There are your standard, by-definition addictions: tobacco, pain-killers, anti-depressants, alcohol, gambling, 'net pornography.

Then there are these: TV, internet social networks, cyber games, children's athletics, high-school football, band, college football, Monday night football, cheerleading, cheer competition, winter guard competition, church-league softball and basketball, fall girls softball, springs girls softball, fall and spring baseball, year-around training for any serious high school sport, wrestling, athletics booster club, band booster club, work, shopping, texting, drama club, math club, Spanish club, society this/society that, hunting club, fishing, yard work (yes, it can be an addiction) ...

I could go on. So could you, because many of you preachers are as addicted to doing as the people to whom you preach.

This addiction to doing is only 50 years or so old, roughly two generations. When I was a child, baseball for boys was the only non-school youth sport readily available. It started at age 7. Now, there are youth soccer, baseball, football, wrestling, basketball and volleyball. Soccer starts at 4. So does youth wrestling. T-ball starts at about the same age, doesn't it?

For serious participants there are year-around club versions of wrestling, soccer, volleyball, baseball, basketball, cheering and gymnastics. And if your kid is really serious about a non-football/basketball/baseball sport (translated, this means mom and dad hoping for a college scholarship), club ball is necessary to get your kid noticed by college small-sport scouts. When children are involved in these highly organized activities, so are their parents: back and forth to practice, fund-raising, weekend tournaments and summer camps ...

You know what is going on. Yet you wonder why your congregants sit on their hands during preaching, why so few adults volunteer their time. They are addicted to doing, and Sunday is their day of rest from almost everything, including serious study of the Gospel. They are so tired they hear instead of listen, they look instead of see, they feel instead of think.

Idle hands and an idle mind are the devil's workshops, as the old sayings go; so, too, are an exhausted mind and body. Be still and know God. Stay too busy, and know Satan ...

The love of family

2010-08-23T05:42:00.000-07:00

A matter of vision

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The art of photography is not a matter of resolution, focal length, or depth of field, or film speed, or grain, or lighting, or shutter speed, or color, or black and white; it is a matter of vision, a matter of seeing instead of looking.

We are made in His image, the Word says. We are not copies of Him, perfect in focus, in sharpness, in tone, in pose, perfect in reflecting who He is. Hardly. We are what He sees in our hearts. He does not just look at us, like He is watching an ant farm. He sees us for what we are. It is up to us to see Him for who and what He is, not just look for some kind of miraculous, clarifying, sharply focused shard of evidence in this broken world.

We cannot find Him by looking; He is not something to sought by looking under a rock, or looking through a microscope, or writing an algorithm. We can, however, see Him as we seek Him with vision. He sees our hearts. We can see His if only we will stop looking.

My chains are gone; I've been set free ...

2010-07-16T18:03:00.000-07:00

Sunrise, sunset

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There is nothing haphazard about a sunrise or sunset. I think that is something everyone can agree on.

Some say immutable physical law is the reason. Some say His plan is the reason. This is where the general agreement breaks down.

Those who hold physical law is the reason, upon taking their argument back to the beginning, then argue that such order was the coincidental result of happenstance born from chaos.

Those who believe His plan is the reason, upon taking their belief back to the beginning, then see order wrought consciously and lovingly out of chaos.

Where do you stand?

The importance of water

2010-07-09T02:48:00.000-07:00

I have been bathing in our kitchen sink for two weeks now as our single bathroom is being re-done (Yes, I am that slow). I use a portable step at the sink to get first one foot, then in the other under the tap; other gyrations are necessary to wash the rest of me and shampoo my hair.

The novelty wore off in a couple of days, but I am managing to refrain from bodily stench - and learning again how important water is. With one foot in the sink, I am reminded that I have clean, running water available in our little shack even if we do not have a bathtub at the moment (it is sitting in the front yard, freshly painted and wearing freshly painted cast-iron clawed feet, awaiting installation). Running, fresh water in a home at all would be considered a blessing in much if not most of the world; a bathtub with running water would be considered remarkable, and perhaps wasteful, in places where potable water is scarce.

I can drink water from the tap, I can wash my hands under the tap, with contortions I can bath under the tap, I can make iced tea with water from the tap, I can get water from the tap for boiling pasta; how wonderful is the constant availability of fresh, clean water!

Yet this kind of water - a requirement more important than food for life on this world - has little importance when compared to a different kind of water, the living water that is Jesus of Nazereth. The water He offers is eternal. Anyone who knows Jesus as Savior will never run out of this kind of water no matter where on this planet he goes, whether to Death Valley or the Amazon Valley, the Gobi Desert or the Mississippi Delta.

As Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4: 1-42), "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

Consider those words the next time you draw a bubble bath, or wash your car, or pay your water bill, or drink a glass of clean, fresh water - or wash your dirty foot in the kitchen sink ...

He is the risen sun ...

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Peace, like a river ...

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He is the Living Water. He can slake your thirst forever ...

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Judge not, that you be judged ...

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This passage, so often misapplied by believers and unbelievers alike, must be understood within the context of where it came from - the so-called Sermon on the Mount. Jesus was speaking specifically to His closest disciples in this sermon, laying out for them how they were to act when He was bodily gone.

Thousands of others heard the sermon, too, but did not have the connection with Jesus that His closest disciples did.

The verse at issue seems to me the fullest expression of what is called by believers and unbelievers alike the Golden Rule, which is spoken by Jesus a few verses later in Matthew Chapter 7. But it is so often used by unbelievers to judge believers' actions as Christians, to call down the label of hypocrite - and used meanly by believers on each other as a hickory accountability stick.

Only when verse 1 is cited/read in conjuction with verses 2-14, does its deeper meaning appear: settle your own spiritual affairs with understanding and obedience to the Father before dealing with those of fellow believers.

Do not be afraid or dismayed ...

2010-06-22T06:00:00.000-07:00

Clean clothes

2010-06-09T05:52:00.000-07:00

The prophet Zechariah had a vision of Joshua, dressed in filthy clothes, standing before the Father for judgment, with Satan at Joshua's right side ready to recite all of Joshua's sins. This is the same Joshua who was the Father's great general, chosen to lead the Hebrews into Canaan to take the promised land. This is the same Joshua who nevertheless sinned like you and I sin.

A crowd was there, waiting for instructions from the angel of the Lord. The instructions were these: "Remove the filthy garments from him." And to Joshua the he angel of the Lord said, "Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments."

How I long for those sun-dried clothes, made soft by the purest breeze ...

As for me and my house ...

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The Father needs no house

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I read 1 Samuel, chapters 3 and 4 today, about the calling of Samuel to the ministry, the capture of the ark, and the death of Eli, all important events in the life of the Hebrews and their relationship with the Father. I had read this passage many times before. Today, the passage spoke to me.

Consider this: Father God let the Phillistines crush the Hebrews, and take the ark of the covenant.

Sure, it was to punish a largely faithless people, and to punish Eli and his family for letting his sons corrupt the temple and the priesthood. The Hebrews, in their faithless desperation, used the ark as a totem, an idol, by bringing it to the battle with Phillistines, hoping it would turn the battle their way.

Yet the Father let the ark be captured, rather than be used as a wood-and-gold idol. He would not let his chosen people spiritually confine Him to a box, even a box built according to His very own plans.

What does this say to us today? That our church structures and campuses cannot hold Him, that any single church community cannot keep Him on a leash, that church traditions and liturgies have no hold on Him.

He wants our hearts, not our buildings, not our pews, not our playgrounds and gyms, not our vans and buses, not our altars and lecterns, not our Power Points, not our hymnals and songbooks, not our pianos and organs and guitars, not our annual budgets.

I have to wonder: what would we believers do if all of our arks disappeared today?

Would you cower in your entertainment room in the basement?

Or would you shout hallelujah, for another set of shackles had fallen away?

Is your heart open to Him? Are your eyes open to His majesty?

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When He knocks, will you open the door?

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"I will make you fishers of men ..."

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Jesus is my consoler ...

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Consider the lillies of the field ...

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"For you formed my inward parts ...

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... you knitted me together in my mother's womb." Psalm 139:13

Like a rose, trampled on the ground ...

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A new way to witness

2010-05-27T06:12:00.000-07:00

Passion has been renewed for an old hobby of mine - photography. For the past five months, I have been acquiring some gear, joining some forums, and shooting a lot of film. The spark for the renewal flared in April of 2009 when my first grandchild was born. My daughter - with a photo in mind I took of her as an infant 31 years ago, and which hangs in her house - asked me to shoot Zella in black and white a few days after she was born. So I broke out my old Praktica LTL and shot some bw400cn. Then came photobucket. Then came some mechanical issues with the Praktica. Then came web searches for a possible replacement. Then came the renewed interest in gear ... and the forums ... and dozens more grandchild shots ... and street shots ... and fish camp shots ... and now I see light everywhere.

Which goes along grandly, I recently discovered, with the Light of the world. He is so good, indeed. John 3:19.

repentance and forgiveness

2010-04-07T06:48:00.000-07:00

luke 24: 46-47 records the risen Jesus telling His still shocked apostles they are to proclaim repentance AND forgiveness. notice that Jesus said "repentance" first. this is so simple, and so difficult at the same time. we, as believers, must remember to repent before seeking forgiveness. this is hard enough for believers. yet how difficult this must be for unbelievers to grasp, especially those who revel in their sin, often not even realizing they are sinning. repent? from what? this is where the Way we believers live our lives must be clearly different from the way those who do not believe live their lives. evidence must be evident ...

finally, i think got some tight, steady telephoto shots of the sliders (turtles) that bask on the fallen, dead tree. they are so wary. i had to scoot on my rear a foot at a time, moving the camera/tripod ahead of me ...

Spring morning at Black Creek

2010-04-05T09:22:00.000-07:00

i was sitting on the front porch a few minutes ago, drinking a cup of fresh fair trade coffee, just seeing.
i could see black creek 100 yards away. i could see almost fully bloomed dogwoods. i could see the wind in the movement of the branches. i could see new growth on the sweet gums and oaks.
i could hear the calls of at least 10 different bird species. two good little dogs were at my feet, hoping for another taste of coffee.
i thought to myself, what else could a man want other than You, Jesus. what peace came with that thought. how could a man be blessed more than me? my bride at work. two strong, hard-working sons and a strong, hard-working son-in-law. a daughter that no dad can match. a granddaughter whose smile and reach for her pappy bring a smile just at the thought. a daughter-in-law who is expecting our second grandchild.
but He is first. without Him, all these good things become just things, for all good comes from Him.
thank you, Father.

2010-03-08T20:09:00.000-08:00

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1277652#post1277652

on a snowy afternoon

2010-02-12T14:30:00.000-08:00

Clumps of snow falling
from trees too heavy with warmth;
birds bustle beneath

that's the way it has been today after the snow finally arrived, then began to melt ever so slowly as the afternoon waned. so still at times, so raucous at others, such as when the mailman wheeled quickly through - and when the birds went mad with gluttony at the feeder. got to shoot some snow photos before things turned mushy. reckon i will post some here on the blog when i figure out how to do so.

the oak grove wrestling team is doing well at state. it is wonderful to have katie's facebook reports from the tournament. how she keeps official score at one mat and keeps up with our guys is beyond me. what a woman. Proverbs 31:10 - An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.

what a sight on an overcast afternoon

2010-02-05T14:19:00.000-08:00

after a good nap, i saw something i had not seen in years: a squadron of feeding cedar waxwings. they attacked a spray of mistleto like airborne piranhas, consuming all of the pearl-like berries in seconds. i could imagine a mist of blood in their wake, high in the water oak tree, as the waxwings flew to their next target.
speaking of blood, the sacrificial kind, here is the Word for the day from John 14: 6 - "... I am the way and the truth and the light; no one comes to the Father except through me."

A gently rainy day ...

2010-02-04T14:34:00.000-08:00

... and ever full of His glory. Psalm 118: 24 - "This is the day the Lord has made; rejoice and be glad in it." i surely have been glad in it despite being housebound by a bad knee for the third day. shot some more photos from the front window. discussed the meaning of art with new cyber acquaintances on a photography forum. that was a joy for this old redneck evangelical fundamentalist river rat. a greater joy was the arrival of my goodwife, home from school this afternoon. the birds were entertaining again. just a few minutes ago, a bare branch just outside the window was decorated with four cardinals - three males and a female.

Well, here goes; first post ...

2010-02-03T14:46:00.000-08:00

... from black creek fish camp. home all day, keeping pressure off my left knee as much as possible. strained mcl. don't want to aggravate it. hated not being able to get out to take pictures. this little river bottom ecosystem is ever fascinating. instead, i screwed a vivitar 135/2.8 on my pentax sp 1000, put the camera on a tripod near the laptop, and aimed it outside. hope i got some interesting shots from the bird feeder. yesterday, a scrappy little song sparrow head butted one of his buddies who got a little too close to the first sparrow's grub. scripture for today is psalm 34:8 - "Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good." i have tasted and seen His goodness today ...