©IBKimage2012
Sometimes when many words have been spoken, a time of silence is renewing. Being with and not doing for is a wonderful change of habit. After an intense period of time, a shift in focus brings new awareness. Sometimes a picture is enough with few words necessary.
Wishing all of you an intentional time of reflecting on the beautiful in your life and how you are blessed by it.
IBK
©IBKimage 2012
My father was a German master cabinet maker. New projects began with a trip to the small town lumber yard where we lived. He would look through the various offerings and then make a choice based on the end use , the hardness or softness, the straightness of the piece, the unique grain running through it and so on. I would watch him draft a plan for the object ; measure, cut, plane, sand, smooth, file, turn, nail together, dovetail, glue, bore, chisel and numerous other processes to get the end result. The best part of all was when it was all ready for finishing. In photography we call it post processing. The intent is the same, to take a well crafted wooden article (or a well composed photo) and bring out the best from the raw material. In wood-working this is usually done by adding a stain to bring out the beauty of the unfinished grain. My father disliked covering up the grain with paint. Today’s manufactured particle board has to be covered up since there’s no unique grain.
In the Biblical book of Proverbs 22:6 we are told to “train up a child in the way they should go and when old they will not depart from it.” The lesson is that instead of conforming our children to our desires and dreams for them, we actually are encouraged to help them find and recognize their “bent” and then provide an environment for that to develop and to provide boundaries and correction when off the path.
As we mature, it is often hard to continue to honor that bent among the many novelties calling out for our attention.
Today’s image comes once again from the Queen City Architectural Salvage Yard here in Denver where the discarded can be restored and transformed with love to once again delight in its bent.
©IBKimage 2012
It’s very interesting how things that we’re struggling with “all of a sudden” resolve. One day, without notice, something that has been taking away so much of our physical and mental effort, finds it proper proportion in our life, or even disappears. It was one of those weeks for me. I was grateful for a negative result on a diabetes test and all that would have implied. The gratitude turned into action as I examined the layers of denial that I had piled on during the last few months.
All of the things that I can do, (and know how to) to stay healthy, both physically and emotionally and spiritually, I decided to take a sabbatical from. Who knows if it was rebellion, passive-agressive behavior, or perhaps just a realization that in our very human transitions, we sometimes just need a long “soak” in a dry tub. Having no idea of what’s next, but trusting my creator,redeemer,sustainer to provide what I don’t even know I need. Until then, we can take small next actions, engaging again in habits that satisfy and then gradually … the old is new again.
Today’s image comes from the Queen City Salvage Yard here in Denver; a delightful garden of oldness tucked underneath a busy I 70 East viaduct. Here so close and yet so far away from the cacophony of daily activity, are yesterdays front doors, and old car bodies; tools and gadgets from another time, once on grandfather’s tool bench; and rusted hand pumps used to bring cool water to the farm and town kitchens before pvc pipe carried the running water to the faucet.
The paint is peeling on the door in our image but look at the beautiful grain and pattern underneath. Someone will find this new old door and in just the right season – wherever it goes, it will be just the right thing .
IBK
Hello Dear Readers,
Like the beautiful colored trout in a Colorado stream, I’ve been a bit “under water” (groan) for the last few weeks and thus no blog. In addition to the opportunities and change in routine in the heat of summer, there have been major transitions in our small family and in the lives of many I have the privilege to interact and “do life” with. The biggest change came with the death of our brother-in-law a month ago. Family gathered as they do to love and support one another and a season begins as we learn to live in our lives without our loved one.
The summer so far has been a reminder of the importance of time well spent with the dying as well as the living; of renewed relationship contacts with old as well as new friends; of reminders that new seasons require adjustments in thinking and release of long held habits and shedding of things we no longer need or even want.
So, I’m still a bit overwhelmed and a little lost with a few things that require my attention, but watching our visiting grand-nephew swim yesterday, while sitting in the shade and just being in the moment, reminded again, that new seasons bring new … opportunities to respond to our situations.
I’ll be back in mid-August on a regular weekly basis to share more Words and Images.
Until then, the best to you and yours,
IBK
©2011MarkMatoon
With major transitions, come new challenges and responses. This sound so obvious, but ask the survivors of a bombing in Boston if their lives will not be forever changed as they navigate their way through through emotional, physical, and spiritual challenges? How about our neighbors in Texas whose town blew up ? What about the newly diagnosed cancer patient whose journey into the unknown is beginning? And yet in all of these cases we’ve seen people step forward and surround those hurting, with “gifts of themselves” offered in love and compassion.
Most of our transitions are not this abrupt but the years spent in habit whether fruitful or barren, do seem to provide a well to draw on (or not) when our world and our relationships seem to be (or are) crumbling all around us. Major transitions and pain also seem to, after a time, help us see new ways that we might choose to adapt to our new “normals.” Fire most certainly destroys, but it also refines and provides the fuel for our basic survival needs.
None of what I’m saying is new, but perhaps I’m reminded again that when our lives change, whether in sickness or in health (or in death and destruction of recent days) we can boldly enter the wilderness of transition and perhaps marvel at how love finds us us when we are lost and broken. No matter what your transition, find a place of sabbath where you can “lay it all down” and slowly discover what your heart tells you to “pick up again” … leaving behind the demands and expectations of others; and the self created burdens of perfection, “more” and “faster.”
Today’s image was taken by a photographer, with whom I studied,on Nantucket Island in June of 2011, a few months after my mother died. The ocean always draws me to itself, and provides the water for my thirst.
IBK
©IBKimage 2012
When my oldest son was little I gave him a book that was in my toy consultant sample packet. The title: “Little While Friends.” He received it just before we went on a family road trip one summer where we explored three towns named Keystone in three states … among other things. Stopping to climb rocks or while visiting a snake attraction, he would often find little while friends to interact with. They didn’t have the same stature as friends from home or the familiarity and commitment of family, but it taught him early on that there are interesting people and sights all around that satisfy. Perhaps, like a beautiful mixed bouquet of flowers in a vase from the floral shop; they are precious because they are a fragile, time-limited treasures.
Now these little while friends don’t always have to be people … the beauty of nature in it distinct seasons, the gift of artists helping us enter into a place we hadn’t considered before; musicians stirring our souls; delight with new learning and new technologies that improve our daily living and help to restore in some manner what has been lost … but generally, it’s people we continually seem to say goodbye to; at airports and graduations, weddings and job changes, first day of school and retirement, and then a final ending whose tension we all live with confronted with so many “little while” choices, actions and engagements.
Our layered wall hanging in today’s image, by a fiber artist in Omaha, NE provided a little while delight on a restaurant wall, as a long time friend and I cherished precious time together over a meal,but more importantly it also reminds me that no matter how dark it might be, the light is thankfully always present. The story of death and resurrection, mourned and celebrated is thankfully” little while” and eternal.
IBK
©IBKimage2012
I grew up in a small village in South Central Nebraska. Whenever I wanted to see the stars on a clear night, I looked up. Living in a city these many years later, I can look up and see some stars in my neighborhood, but not the unobstructed view of my childhood. Stars light if you will. I have a desire this year to intentionally spend some time in places with a plethora of unobstructed stars, but in the meantime I wander in my city at night and am delighted to capture the beauty of light illuminating human craft.
Perhaps what I’m really thinking about in this new year is that I’d like to focus on “blooming where I’m planted.” Observing and listening and delighting in what is, and deepening the learning in some of what I’m already engaged in, but also leaving room to be delighted and surprised about what is “out there.”
Today’s image is near Union Station, in downtown Denver.
Happy New Year to you and yours!
IBK
© IBKimage 2012
We are most anxious it seems when we think back to what was or forward to what will be. Regrets for actions taken or not taken; fearful for actions to be taken and so on. I’ve been reflecting a bit this week about why I love photography. When I raise my camera to my eye and look through the view-finder I find that I enter a world of the present moment. All yesterdays and tomorrows disappear and the focus is to capture ever so briefly a moment in time that allows me to repent of my own efforts and be “graced” and humbled by what has been provided. Many years ago I read a book entitled: “Everyday Sacred” by Sue Bender. In short, her thesis was to be open to the holiness of living in the everyday moments. Seeing the familiar in a new light and searching for the beauty of the common is certainly one way that I love dancing.
Today’s image was discovered during a walk, near a 400 year old house in Meldorf, Germany. On my recent trip there I looked up to see the dancer in the side window of an artist’s residence and studio.
What music calls you to dance in the moment? What might you let go off to start or continue dancing?
IBK
©IBKimage 2011
Nebraska author Willa Cather once said: “Some things you learn in calm, some things in storm…” The last two weeks I’ve had the privilege and pain to learn in both conditions. In the calm of this week, the storm of vertigo and pulsatile tinnitus have suddenly, after a three month fury, thankfully blown out to sea. Turns out that it might have been too high a dose of my thyroid medicine which under different conditions was just right. A dear friend’s visit brought delightful hours of conversation and laughter and comfort when recounting incidents of a broken heart. Finishing a project after weeks of interviews, listening, editing and learning, preparation for sharing, provided a time of calmness tonight, after a storm of self-doubt, anxiety of wondering why I had any credentials to do this, and so on.
Like the lighthouse on Nantucket Island surrounded by a morning fog, we often can’t see clearly what it is that is directly in front of us and instead work so hard to see or engage in activity to clear the fog, often resulting in a stormy tempest in our soul or less dramatic, fatigue. And then … the fog rolls out to sea without our effort. We can stop filling in the blanks and things are clearer.
Next week I’ll be traveling to Germany with my family to spread my late mother’s ashes on the North Sea near where she lived before being emigrating to America ; it is also the place where I was born. In the intervening years since my last visit to our hometown, on the occasion of her 80th birthday, much has been revealed in calm and storm.
I wish you shelter and companions in your calms and storms.
IBK
©IBKimage2012
It has been 4 years this month since I moved to Denver and I sometimes take for granted what I was initially so delighted by. Upon arriving here I would choose a different street about every 2 weeks and mine it for treasure … here an Italian bakery; there a meat market , a place to drop off clothes for a non profit organization helping women rebuild their lives; oh, an electrical repair place; a library; a neighborhood nursery and garden center and so on. Once we become familiar with a place (or person), it is so easy to not see the uniqueness that delighted us in the first place.
Today’s image of the downtown Denver skyline was taken five minutes away from my home in northwest Denver. I’ve been in the building next to where I took the shot and had driven by , but hadn’t seen the walking path where I set up my tripod to take this image. Had I not signed up with the Front Range Photography “Meetup” group to “do a downtown night shoot”, I wouldn’t have discovered this treasure.
In the midst of your routines this week, where could you intentionally “seek and find” something you might be taking for granted? Come on now, how about a treasure hunt?
IBK