photography

Kissing a Few Frogs

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In a business setting, to kiss a few frogs means that you don’t quit on your first mistake or your first failure. You keep going. You keep dreaming and trying new things and hoping for the best until one of those hare-brained schemes finally works.

I think the same goes for car shopping. None of the cars I’ve looked at have been frogs by any means, but none of them were the one for me to drive home and call my own.

I’ve learned a bit in the experience of looking for a Wrangler. I’ve been able to refine what I consider must-haves and nice-to-haves. I still don’t want any manual windows. Been there, done that, got rained on a few times.

I’d prefer a 2-door, but I’m not opposed to a 4-door for the right price. I’m pretty sure I want a hard top and normal tires (as opposed to the oversized off-road tires).

I still can’t see myself in any other car but a red one. My faithful audience expects me to pull up in a red Jeep, and I just can’t disappoint.

Above all, this is one more way that God is using to strengthen my prayer life. I keep going back to that prayer of Jehosaphat from 2 Chronicles 20:12: “We don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on you.”

I’m praying and believing that God will lead me to the right Jeep at the right time not because I am so faithful to pray and so diligent in my faith but because He is faithful to His promises and He remembers me when I forget.

So here’s to more coffee and carsguru.com and lots more praying. And maybe a few weeks from now, I’ll have a update post with color pictures and everything.

1st Snow Day of 2024

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Well, that didn’t take long. 14 days into the new year and it’s already snowing. I don’t think they’re overreacting yet and calling this the Snowpocalypse of 2024, but I’m sure if given time, they’ll give some kind of name to this particular wintery weather event.

All I know is that my office is closed, so I am forced to stay home and sleep in. That time I joked about having a snow day to catch up on my reading? Well, that’s about to happen tomorrow.

I get that for those North of the Mason-Dixon line, snow isn’t a big deal. You see it all the time. If I saw as much snow as you do throughout the year, I’d probably get as sick of it as you will probably be by March (or possibly earlier).

But in the state of Tennessee, snow is still magical. It still makes me feel like a kid again, all excited for snow and no school the next day. For those of you who work from home, it means nothing — except possibly that you have a change of scenery out your office window.

So happy 1st snow day of 2024! Merry Winter!

Rinse and Repeat

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“Make the things I’m commanding you today part of who you are. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you’re sitting together in your home and when you’re walking together down the road. Make them the last thing you talk about before you go to bed and the first thing you talk about the next morning” (Deuteronomy 6: 6-7, VOICE).

I’ve mentioned it before, but it’s not always easy to come up with something creative and original when you write these blogs on a daily basis. And yes, I do write all of these myself. I’m the only writer for the Ragamuffin Gospel Fan blogs.

I find lately that I do tend to repeat myself quite a bit. Sometimes, it’s intentional. Sometimes, it’s just me being forgetful that I’ve already written on a particular topic.

I believe that a lot of faith is returning again and again to the basics until they change who you are fundamentally. It’s going back to the Gospel for the rest of your life, because that’s where your hope lies.

So, it’s 10:05 pm on a Saturday and I am at home and not out painting the town red or hitting up the clubs. I’m writing this on the fly, per usual. What you see is generally what I write on the first-take, with very little revisions or editing. That’s just the way I write these days.

I’ve heard that taking up photography changes the way you see things. You begin to look at people and scenes as if you’re composing a shot or looking through a lens.

I also think that writing changes the way you look at life. You start hearing conversations differently. Phrases will jump out at you. Lines from movies or TV shows will capture your attention. You see your world differently.

So what’s the theme of this blog? I guess if there is one, it’s this: the best kind of faith isn’t one where you know a little in a lot of areas about God and Jesus and the Church and other such matters. It’s where you keep going back to the well of the basics over and over until you’re absolutely sated with it and you know the Gospel backward and forward.

That’s it.

 

Set Free VBS 2014 Day Three

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I think ministry is like photography in some ways. In photography (at least the way I do it), I’ve learned that the biggest part of getting good shots is being there and being prepared. In my experience, the great pictures pretty much take themselves. You’re just there to capture the moments.

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Ministry is like that. You show up prepared and great things happen. Not because of any special gifts or talents you bring or because of your charismatic personality. Simply because you stayed up, prayed up, and showed up.

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Face it. God’s the One who’s doing the real work. He doesn’t ask for your ability; He asks for your availability.

Sometimes in working with people from different backgrounds, it can get discouraging. You might wonder if anything you say is getting through. Sometimes, I wondered if these kids were even listening. But I believe that if we got through to only one child, it would be worth it.

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You can’t take pictures with a dead camera battery. In the same way, you can’t serve out of emptiness. You have to have something to give away. That’s where spending time with God in His word comes in.

We saw lots of kids show up. They sang the songs and did the hand motions. They recited the memory verse. They saw what real love looks like when it takes on hands and feet.  I can’t honestly say that I saw anyone praying the sinner’s prayer, but I do know that the Word of God never returns void. That I can be sure of.

I hope to be back serving for 2015. I had a lot of fun taking pictures and seeing God work. I’m not being falsely modest when I say that there were several volunteers who did way more than I did and deserve a lot more credit than I. But in the end, God gets all the credit.

I once heard someone pray that God would get us out of the way so that He could get in the way.  That’s what I truly believe happened this week.

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Things I Love 26: Sowing the Seeds of Love

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island hammock

“A life contemplating the blessings of Christ becomes a life acting the love of Christ” (Ann Voskamp).

“…life change comes when we receive life with thanks and ask for nothing to change” (Ann Voskamp).

I think for me two of the biggest agents of change have been 1) letting go of expectations of others and 2) receiving all of life as a gift. Making this list has changed my outlook. I have too many blessings to not see God in my daily world. I have been blessed too much not to want to be a conduit of blessing to others. That said, the list picks up at #726

726) God using me in the lives of those around me who don’t know Jesus to be Jesus to them.

727) The moment when you realize that the headache is gone.

728) Unplanned naps on Sunday afternoons.

729) Any time I get a chance to have a conversation with my smart and funny friend Alex.

730) Getting compliments on my t-shirts.

731) Not being naked in public.

732) The anticipation of coming to a good part in a book I’ve already read before.

733) Old Glenn Miller recordings.

734) Those pens that have the four different colors of ink.

735) Finding something of mine that I thought was lost forever.

736) That everybody doesn’t think like I do.

737) The smell of a freshly painted room.

738) The way Jesus told the best stories.

739) Gibson’s Donuts (even though there aren’t any in Nashville . . . yet).

740) The scent of honeysuckle in the air.

741) Picking blackberries in summer.

742) Being a Bapticostalicopalean (Baptist+Pentecostal+Catholic+Episcopalian) at heart.

743) Dreams that refuse to die.

744) Goat cheese.

745) The idea of changing the world by changing one person’s world.

746) Hearing people’s stories of how Jesus found and rescued them.

747) Seeing the glow of a person coming out of the baptismal waters a new creation in Christ.

748) The smell of the tire section at Costco.

749) Road trips.

750) Capturing a moment and a feeling inside a photograph.

751) Old graveyards.

752) My book of Emily Dickinson poems that I’ve somehow managed to misplace.

753) That I’m over 3/4 of the way through my list.

754) The freedom of finally being able to forgive myself for not being perfect.

755) Wintergreen or spearmint gum.

756) A now discontinued flavor of Snapple called Ralph’s Cantaloupe Cocktail that actually tasted just like cantaloupes.

757) Memories of riding standing up on the back of my dad’s old pickup truck with Murphy the black lab in the middle, grinning like an idiot and loving every minute of it (I meant the dog, but I’m sure I was smiling a mile wide, too)

758) Finding one Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey mystery novels in hardback at a used bookshop.

759) People who always give me the benefit of the doubt.

760) Those Market Fresh BLTs from Arby’s.

Things I Love 21: This Blog Series Is Old Enough To Drink (If It Weren’t a Baptist Blog)

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island hammock

“Humbly let go. Let go of trying to do, let go of trying to control, let go of my own way, let go of my own fears. Let God blow His wind, His trials, oxygen for joy’s fire. Leave the hand open and be. Be at peace. Bend the knee and be small and let God give what God chooses to give because He only gives love and whisper a surprised thanks. This is the fuel for joy’s flame. Fullness of joy is discovered only in the emptying of will. And I can empty. I can empty because counting His graces has awakened me to how He cherishes me, holds me, passionately values me. I can empty because I am full of His love. I can trust” (Ann Voskamp).

My list continues at #551.

551) Going back to swing dancing at Centennial Park on July 13.

552) Conversations with people of different faith-traditions where we both learn something new.

553) Embracing my own uniqueness instead of giving in to the pressure around me to fit in.

554) When I finally realized that the song “Father Abraham” was about the Abraham from the Bible and NOT Abraham Lincoln.

555) The joke about what a vegan zombie craves– “Graaaaaaains!”

556) That true belief is active and results in actions– works if you will. It’s not mental assent; it’s putting hands and feet on faith and living it out every single day.

557) That defining what truth is and is not is not up to me.

558) Getting coupons for free Chick-fil-A sandwiches.

559) The random way my brain works and how it makes all my conversations extremely unpredictable yet very interesting.

560) God being so much bigger than my fears and doubts and questions.

561) Knowing that my eternal security doesn’t depend on my skill at playing Candy Crush Saga.

562) Knowing my ultimate hope isn’t in a president or a republic, but a King and a Kingdom.

563) Half-priced shakes from Sonic.

564) The thought of never having to take another math class as long as I live.

565) The movie That Thing You Do!

566) The conversation I had at Best Buy with Jamie (who I will probably never see again) where I completely lost track of time.

567) Chihuahuas that fit into tea cups.

568) Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens (is that how the song goes?)

569) The perfect cup of Earl Grey tea.

570) Capturing a magical moment in a photograph.

571) Running through a sprinkler just I used to to when I was little.

572) The uncomplicated faith of a child.

573) Fireworks on the 4th of July.

574) My friend Lara getting married (and me getting an invitation to her wedding to see a prayer of mine getting answered before my very eyes).

575) That I still have 6 months to finish my goal of watching all of the 9 nominees for 2012’s Best Picture Academy Award.

576) Never having to watch Life of Pi ever again– once was definitely enough.

577) Hugs.

578) Every single cartoon featuring that loveable dog named Droopy.

579) How a faithful pet can actually lower your blood pressure and reduce stress.

580) Hearing my cat Lucy snore.

581) Making peace with the past– all of it.

582) Cool Hand Luke– because it is such a great film.

583) Truly worshipping in spirit and in truth.

584) Government square pizzas like they used to have when I was in grade school.

585) All of the people who follow this blog faithfully.