Tag: photography

Freedom

On By Charis PsalloIn Black and white, PhotographyLeave a comment

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;[
    he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
    and the opening of the prison to those who are bound…

Isaiah 61:1

Not all captives are bound in chains. Not all prisoners are held behind bars. Jesus came to set us free from many things that keep our hearts and minds oppressed. Shame is one.

Guilt is feeling like I did something wrong. Shame is the sense that I am something wrong. To be shamed is to be rejected. Christ did not come with more condemnation, more impossible standards, more reminders that we don’t measure up. He came to reconcile us to the Father, and to set us free.

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:6.

Creative Meditations for Lent, Word prompt: freedom

Refine

On By Charis PsalloIn Art, Photography2 Comments

“Jesus leads us into a place of radical grace where we are able to celebrate the hope of experiencing God’s glory.  

And that’s not all. We also celebrate in seasons of suffering because we know that when we suffer we develop endurance,  which shapes our characters. When our characters are refined, we learn what it means to hope and anticipate God’s goodness. 

And hope will never fail to satisfy our deepest need because the Holy Spirit that was given to us has flooded our hearts with God’s love.” (Romans 5:2-5 The Voice)

One of my photo editing programs has a “kaleidoscope” feature. A photo processed through this app seldom resembles the original, but it’s fun to play with. I tried processing a photo I took of rubble from a building leveled by fire. The result caught my attention because I could see what looked like areas of engraved gold and silver set in a polished stone tile. That would be a luxury on the floor of any palace.

How precious are the foundations laid for us by saints of the past whose lives were refined by the fires of tribulation.  It’s a lot easier to appreciate the refining process in the after picture than in the middle-of-the-disaster picture. It’s easier to sing, “Refiner’s fire, my heart’s one desire is to be holy,” than it is to recognize a refining process, let alone cooperate with it. Yet suffering leads to endurance and to character. The ability to hope and anticipate God’s goodness lays a precious foundation for the next generation – especially in the middle of what looks like a disastrous mess.

Creative Meditations for Lent, Word prompt: Refine

Shift

On By Charis PsalloIn ArtLeave a comment

Two years ago this week, we drove across the province to visit family and see our granddaughter perform in her first play. One warm spring afternoon we explored the grounds of Mission Hills Winery. We stood on this spot overlooking the vineyards and lake –away from the children’s hearing– and discussed what we would do if our world shut down because of this new virus from China.

Nearby, the children were jumping through a huge iron circular sculpture. They said they were passing through it into a new space and a new time.

Sometimes children are more perceptive than adults.

A few days later we hurried home, while it was still allowed, to sit out the lockdown in our own house. By then we all knew the world had shifted.

Jesus, the world changer said this to his friends: Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. (John 14:27 NIV)

Our own world has shifted even more than we expected since that day. We now live in this beautiful place. He still reassures us as we walk into this new space and new time, “Don’t let your heart be troubled and don’t be afraid.” Stay close to God. He gives his peace.

Creative Meditations for Lent. Word prompt: Shift

Forgive

On By Charis PsalloIn faith, PhotographyLeave a comment

I thought I had forgiven, but it was hard. Every time some innocuous thing triggered a painful memory, I prayed hard to forgive again.

I thought I had forgiven, but I hadn’t. I forgave them for bumping into me and knocking me off balance. “There were extenuating circumstances,” I reasoned. “I’m sure they didn’t mean it.”

I thought I had forgiven, but I hadn’t. I thought I was just knocked over, but I wasn’t.

I couldn’t ignore the damage done. I had been trampled, broken. My trust lay in the dust in too many shattered pieces to fix. Even the desire to be the good person in this scenario was not a strong enough glue to hold my heart together. I wanted revenge. I wanted payback!

I made up an invoice and looked squarely at the cost of repercussions from their actions that played out for years.

“Oh God,” I cried. “This is too much! I can’t get by without what they owe me!”

“Take your hands off their throats,” He said. “I forgave you. When I was on the cross, I said ‘Tetelestai.’ It was finished. Done. All legal requirements met. I paid your debt. I paid their debt. Take your hands off their throats. Give up any expectation that they will someday apologize or give what they owe.”

“But how am I to live?”

“Empty your hands so I can fill them. I am your provider. I will give you everything you need.”

“Really?”

“Listen, beloved, I am telling you the truth.

I will give you what you need. I will even give you the trust you need to trust Me.

I give you My love first, so you can then love.

It all comes from Me.

It always has.”

Creative Meditations for Lent, Prompt word: Forgive

Stillness

On By Charis PsalloIn Art, Water, WinterLeave a comment

Be still before the Lord
    and wait patiently for him;
do not fret when people succeed in their ways,
    when they carry out their wicked schemes.

 Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;
    do not fret—it leads only to evil.

Psalm 37: 7, 8 NIV

Creative Meditations for Lent, Word prompt: Stillness

Binding Up the Broken Heart

On By Charis PsalloIn Photography2 Comments

I saw this section of fence while out on a walk. It’s been neglected for a very long time. No one tended to it by painting it or mending it, yet it still stands, held together by roots and branches. It’s still there, but it is shattered in places and vulnerable to the attack of weather, lichens, insects, and age. It reminds me of a broken heart held together by coping methods, but not by love. It’s still standing, beautiful in an interesting way, but decaying.

When Jesus read out his personal manifesto (recorded hundreds of years earlier through the prophet Isaiah) in the synagogue in Nazareth, he told the people one of his purposes was to bind up the broken-hearted. Why bind? Why not heal instantly like he did for the blind and lame?

Through the prophet Ezekiel, God chides the shepherds of Israel for healing people superficially and failing to “bind up the broken-hearted.” I wonder if it’s because a heart shattered by process requires process to heal. Wounding through episodes of neglect, rejection, abuse, betrayal, disappointment, and loss (and all the other consequences of living in a fallen world) happens over time. Someone told me once that if the damage occurred in relationship, healing needs to occur in relationship. Jesus offers that kind of loving relationship that wraps the heart in swaddling bandages to keep it protected while healing.

The compassionate are continually wounded by not only assaults on their own hearts, but by what they see and feel around them when people they care about suffer deep wounds. Sometimes, it’s all too much. They “fall apart.” Without the arms of their Saviour holding them together and binding up their own wounds, and strengthening them with empowering grace, they would succumb to false comforts that would use them and leave them vulnerable to the elements of fear, distrust, jealousy, despair, unforgiveness, and apathy.

Jesus came to bind up the broken hearted – if we will let him.

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.

Isaiah 61:1-3 NIV

Marvel

On By Charis PsalloIn nature, PhotographyLeave a comment

“When I consider your heavens,
    the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
    which you have set in place,
 what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them?”

-Psalm 8:3,4

I marvel at God’s handiwork from the most miniscule particle to unimaginable distances in space. I am fascinated by the power of the sun’s explosions and the sensitivity of tiny cilia in the inner ear. I marvel at his strength and his gentleness. God’s omnipotence is so perfectly under control that the most vulnerable person, broken by the cruelty of the world, can come to him, lean her head on his chest, call him “Abba,” and know she is perfectly safe.

One

On By Charis PsalloIn PhotographyLeave a comment

Word prompt for today’s Lenten meditation: One

What image could possibly describe something so unique –so holy– as the concept of oneness and perfect unity? “Holy” means set apart. God is holy. The only God. Wholly other. Unique. One.

As I meditated on this I kept going back to the source of all life, the moment when God, in perfect unity, spoke, “Let there be light.”

If we can’t fully understand the power of perfect unity in the Godhead, how can we understand how One so holy makes it possible to be in Christ and He in us? What kind of power is released when we are perfectly aligned with him and therefore with others who live and move and have their being in the Three-in-One?

It’s a mystery.

Any single image will be totally inadequate, but I thought about light and refraction and how prisms show us the diversity of colours within light. The sun shining on crystal in a local shop window display caught my attention. Many facets, one Light.

“I am not praying only for these men but for all those who will believe in me through their message, that they may all be one. Just as you, Father, live in me and I live in you, I am asking that they may live in us, that the world may believe that you did send me. I have given them the honour that you gave me, that they may be one, as we are one—I in them and you in me, that they may grow complete into one, so that the world may realize that you sent me and have loved them as you loved me.” – Jesus, recorded by John the Beloved in chapter 17 of his record of life with the One in human form, Phillips translation 

Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit

On By Charis PsalloIn PhotographyLeave a comment

Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” These are the ones who recognize their spiritual need, the ones who have tried and know they can’t make it on their own. To the spiritually downcast he gives a promise: “for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.”

The psalms written by the Sons of Korah are about the journey back from rebellion and shame. This is in Psalm 42.

I say to God my Rock,
    “Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
    oppressed by the enemy?”
 My bones suffer mortal agony
    as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long,
    “Where is your God?”

Why, my soul, are you downcast?
    Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
    for I will yet praise him,
    my Savior and my God.

Sometimes God plants a glimpse of higher things right there on the ground where the downcast can find it.

Look up. Your redemption is coming closer.

When You Just Don’t Know

On By Charis PsalloIn Photography, Winter2 Comments

“Where is peace to be found? The answer is surprising but clear. In weakness. Why there? Because in our weakness, our familiar ways of controlling and manipulating our world are being stripped away, and we are forced to let go from doing much, thinking much, and relying on our self-sufficiency. Right there where we are most vulnerable, the peace that is not of this world is mysteriously hidden.”

Henri Nouwen

Sometimes it’s not until we have reached the end of our ideas, our energy, and our optimism that we are ready to ask God for wisdom. Sometimes it’s not until we wait –for we know not what– that we can start to hear the voice that speaks in silence.

He often starts with, “I love you. Do you know that? Do you know that?”