Category: Photography

Stuck

On By Charis PsalloIn Man made, Photography4 Comments

truck hay barn vignette

 

There is something comforting about the past. Even when we know it is dysfunctional, and carries useless clutter, it’s familiar. My thinking is like that sometimes. I know my old default way of thinking was filled with negativity and got me into all manner of trouble before, but when I’m not careful about being intentional I slip back behind the wheel and try to take the jalopie for one more spin. The seat is old and worn, but it conforms to the shape of my bum. I settle in -and then wonder why I am making no progress.

I hear the voice of my Lord asking, “And how’s that working for you?”
“I can’t seem to get it in gear… Can you give me a hand?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“I have something better in mind.”
“But that means giving up ol’ Bessie.”
“It does.”
“But I’ve had this way of thinking for a long time. It served me in the past and got me through a lot of stuff.”
“And how’s it working for you now?”
“I’m kind of stuck.”
“I have something better in mind.”
“What’s that?”
“My vehicle, not yours. My thoughts, not yours.”
“Let me think about it……Well, this isn’t working. That’s for sure. By now I should be much farther ahead….”

“OK. Show me your ways Lord.”

Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him,  throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. (Ephesians 4:21-23)

 

Edited to add:

So I just read something that said tonight is the first night of Passover and it included this verse:

Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival, not with the old bread leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (1Cor. 5:6-8)

Suddenly I started wondering what the expiry date is on my jar of baking yeast in the fridge. (Sometimes the literal/metaphorical line in my brain is not all that well-defined.) I checked. It’s this month. I chucked it. It’s probably time to toss some old thinking as well.

Ok, not “probably time.” It is time. I hear You, Lord.

Into the Light

On By Charis PsalloIn Animals, Photography, Sky5 Comments

IMG_5679 flying geese sun ch

Heaven’s light
Breaking through,
Turning night to day,
It’s a new beginning.
Love has come,
Hope has dawned,
Driving fears away,
It’s a new beginning.

Your mercy reached into the darkest night to find us,
Your blood has freed us from the curse of sin that bound us,
Your truth delivered us from all the lies that held us down
When we were overwhelmed….

Oh, out of the darkness You rescued us,
You have rescued us,
Oh, into the light of Your love for us,
Lord, You rescued us.

Here we stand,
Held by grace,
Knowing every day
Is a new beginning.
All we need
Found in You,
Love has made a way,
It’s a new beginning.

No sorrow deep enough to crush the hope within us,
No mountain big enough to block the path before us,
No power strong enough to take us from Your mighty hand,
For You have overcome.

-Stuart Townend

For Freedom Set Free

On By Charis PsalloIn Art, Photography, Sky6 Comments

white clouds
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
(Galatians 5:1)

With what a cost did Christ purchase our freedom! How cheaply we often sell ourselves back into slavery -and just for the reward of being able to measure our spirituality so we can compare our progress to other travelers on this road.  Stand firm therefore, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.

Father’s Good Pleasure

On By Charis PsalloIn Flowers, Photography16 Comments

IMG_7931 pink spring
Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. (Luke 12:32)

I found a little shrub in my garden. I didn’t plant it. I didn’t nurture or tend it. I don’t know what it is, but it is covered with tiny pink blossoms while everything else is still frozen. A free gift of promise that says, “More to come.”

Thank You.

20 Degrees!

On By Charis PsalloIn Music, Photography, Trees and forests8 Comments

IMG_7911 woods 5

Twenty degrees! (That’s room temperature for those of you living in the country that doesn’t use Celsius.) Yesterday the sun was shining! I opened the windows! I went out without a jacket!

I had work to do, but the forest paths called to me.

The snow was gone. The birds were singing! The trees were rustling! The scent of pine and fir and cedar is starting to return.

Ahhh

When through the woods and forest glades I wander

and hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees,

when I look down from lofty mountain grandeur

and see the brook and feel the gentle breeze,

then sings my souls, my Saviour God, to Thee,

“How great Thou art!”

 

 

 

IMG_7887 woods 4

 

 

IMG_7890 teepee mtn woods 2

 

 

IMG_7881 juniper1

 

 

IMG_7882 woods

 

 

IMG_7738 woods west

 

 

IMG_7869 woods shadows

 

 

IMG_7876 woods path

Prepare the Way

On By Charis PsalloIn Flowers, Photography2 Comments

IMG_7852 first crocus 1

I found one!

The first lone crocus I saw this year was not in a forest clearing but in the middle of a construction zone. At the end of every winter I go out looking for signs of life. I have a lot of photos of crocus flowers in my stash because they give me such hope. When I was a child I picked bunches of them to bring inside, but they soon flopped over the side of the jam jar. A wild crocus is not easily domesticated; it is meant to be out in the dead cold field poking its optimistic head through patches of snow. It is a forerunner of better things to come.

I was thinking about forerunners the other day, those people who can see what is coming next before anyone else does. Hawk-eyes, scouts, prophets, innovators, preparers-of-the-way. In the art world Van Gogh was one of these. In his lifetime he never sold a painting, never received recognition, never found a place where he “fit.” That boy was “different.” It wasn’t until many years later his paintings sold for millions. Forerunners don’t run to be popular.

Wheatfield

John the Baptist was a forerunner. He was also “different.” He didn’t have a complete picture of the One who was to come, forerunners seldom do, but he knew with certainty in his heart that there was a change coming, and his assignment was to prepare hearts for change. Like a farmer who prepares the field for planting he set about  tearing out obnoxious weeds that had been there so long folks had accepted their presence as part of the landscape. He preached the message of repentance. Repentance is not the same thing as penance, (trying to make up for wrongs done by some sort of demonstration of self-administered punishment or public humiliation, although, for some making public apologies and announcements of plans to repay what they stole may be an indication of their intent to change.) Repentance often involves grief, but primarily repentance (metanoia in Koine Greek) means change. Repentance is admitting our thinking has been off and coming into agreement with God that we have missed the mark he set (hamartia, the Greek word for sin means just that -missing the mark.) Repentance means having a better thought and adjusting our aim. Repentance means leaving the past behind and doing things differently.

The basic mission of forerunners like John is to poke a finger into embarrassingly sensitive, and often hidden, parts of our lives and ask the question, “And how’s that workin’ for ya?”

There are forerunners amongst us now, folks with an antsy sense that change is imminent, but who don’t know exactly what that change will look like. They go through life awkwardly, never really fitting in anywhere, annoying themselves and others with their inability to find contentment with accepted ideas and practices that don’t quite line up with both the Holy Spirit’s whisperings and with Scripture. They are not easily domesticated, and often pop up in places where  dormancy is “normal.” They stand out because they are different and the light shines through them in colours we haven’t seen for a long time.

Yet somehow we are drawn to them. They are messengers of hope.

IMG_7854 first crocus 2

 

Lessons on Grace

On By Charis PsalloIn Art, Water15 Comments

 

Smooth Sailing, oil

This duck can glide smoothly through what looks like turbulence because the water is actually calm. The peaceful surface of the water merely picks up the image of the atmosphere around it.

Sometimes I fail to enjoy the peace the Lord has granted me because I am caught up in the turbulence of the lives of people I care about. It’s a hazard for empathic people whose sensitivity causes them to pick up other people’s emotions. The Bible calls it the gift of mercy. It can be a useful tool, but it is a tool, not a reward, and it needs to be used with skill and wisdom. One of the great frustrations in my life has been the seemingly callous attitudes of people who are oblivious to the pain of others. Nothing stirs up my self-labeled righteous indignation more than non-compassionate people who shrug in the presence of suffering and say, “Not my problem.” It makes me furious!

James 2:14-17 says it’s a useless faith that walks past suffering and says, “Go in peace; keep warm and well-fed,” or as Dickens wrote, “Are there no workhouses?”

But this week the Lord has been smacking me upside the head (ever so lovingly) about misaligned compassion that is actually a lack of faith on my part.

I have discovered 1 Corinthians 12:9,10 to be true in my life.

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. ” (1 Corinthians 12:9,10)

It’s not a matter of self-imposed martyrdom or false humility, but I am learning that it is in the areas where I have been, quite frankly, an utter failure that God is most able to communicate his goodness through me. His goodness amazes me and I love to talk about it. But this is where he called me up on the carpet this week.

“Why, when you have experienced My goodness, do you think that I am not able to do the same thing for others?”

“When did I say that?”

“When you keep jumping in to fix things for people. How will they learn to call on Me when they can call on you? Why do you assume I don’t care? Maybe I’m allowing some of the troubles in their lives for a purpose. I want them to ask Me, to know Me. I’ve called you to pray, to intercede. I want you to stand in the gap, not stand in the way.”

I admit, I’m bad at the whole boundaries thing. I was an over-responsible eldest child and had my personal boundaries violated so often I don’t have an innate sense of when I need to step back and let God be God. (Yes, Lord, I realize that is an explanation and not an excuse.) I’m still learning.

I noticed that parents of my students who applied “tough love” as their go-to position used it on teens who had known precious little “gentle love” in the first place. I felt agony for overachiever-types who were locked out of the house for being five minutes late for a 10 p.m. curfew. On the other hand I have also seen far too many young people grow up with a sense of  learned helplessness when their parents ran defense for them with excuse after excuse for their kid’s lack of self-discipline. I’ve also been caught, more than once, pouring more effort into changing someone’s circumstances than they themselves put into changing the habits that got them there. I’ve seen people who haven’t been tempered by adversity presume on the grace of God with a sense of entitlement that reveals a shallow unloving relationship where the Creator of the universe is viewed as their personal Santa Claus. Someone told me the sin of presumption David recognized as a problem in Psalm 19 is assuming God is here to serve your agenda, instead of you being here to serve God’s.

But God forgive me, sometimes I’ve been the enabler, and it’s been the result of my own lack of faith.

Like everyone else I tend to hear what I want to hear. The folk who easily gravitate to “tough love” need to hear the message “Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered.” (Proverbs 21:13) and the folk who rush in, striving to fix the world themselves need to hear, ““I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?” (Jeremiah 32:17)

The last one is me. One couple I admire who have cared for thousands of orphans and fed the hungry and healed the sick  and introduced millions to the goodness of God is Heidi and Roland Baker of Mozambique. Heidi repeats, “God is God. I am not.”

This is what I am learning: God gives plentiful grace for our own circumstances. He has grace in overabundant supply for anyone who asks Him. He does not necessarily give me grace to deal with problems that are not mine. When I am overly influenced by the turbulent atmosphere all around me I lose my peace and when I am worried or afraid I can’t move. I’m no help to anyone. My joy becomes forced and my ability to love is limited to my own willpower. I need to be on solid ground myself before I can throw a lifesaver to a drowning person. I need, like this duck on the lake, to appreciate the peace that is mine in Jesus Christ and move on that.

Sorry, Lord. Give me discernment to stand with you and not for you. Your grace is sufficient for all the people I care about as well. I trust you.