a tiger lily life

I admire life.
City-life, nature, animals, humans, anything that has radiance and life apparent through growth and evolution.
Anything moving.
Viewing and being apart of the overwhelming beauty in life is my ultimate hobby.
I've always felt this passion and fire in me that's hard to hinder. People think I'm crazy; heck, even my cat probably thinks I'm nuts when I dance, spin and sing loudly in my big, empty city-apartment. I feel and enjoy this gift, we all should.
Me and my cat, though, are usually the only things that give my apartment life.
Maybe I should get a plant?
Regardless, I'm going to keep on dancing because I can and because it's life.
Where has that passion and fire gone in our society's eyes? We calmly go about our days, half of us drugged up on psychotherapeutic medicines that our doctors freely suggest - since we've felt "sad" in the past month.
Shouldn't we rejoice in our "sad" times? I mean, if there wasn't a sad feeling, then how do we know what's happy and good?
I often worry that our society has gotten to this peculiar zombie state of pushing and pulling our way into the corporate world, saving money and buying items made in china where children and women are forced to work 12 hour shifts, getting paid weekly what most of us would make in a few hours of "work".
We selfishly follow others up the totem poll of money and success, not caring about life in the process. As long as we make more than our neighbor, as long as we have better clothes and gadgets that our friends then "life" is good.
However, since when does petty cash and credit buy life?
I know I will never live to see the day when people pay attention to what they are doing and respect life. There are a few people I know who truly respect and value their lives, because they have no control over it -- they are following the example of the one person who lived a perfectly self-less life. Jesus.
We all need to strive to be like Jesus.
With Him guiding our steps, we can rejoice and enjoy everything moving, breathing and radiant.
I've came across people who think Christians are just big stiff-necked lumps who sit around, read their Bibles and occasionally visit abortion clinics holding signs that say "baby-killer" or tell homosexuals they are going to hell if they don't repent.
Jesus wouldn't do that.
The Jesus I know accepts and loves people regardless of their past. He offers them life and truth and a guide-book.
I also think, through studying Jesus' life, that we aren't supposed to just sit around and hide because we are Christians and live in the "evil" world. We're supposed to get out there and live. Live for Him, dance for Him, sing for Him, praise Him, love others for Him and be a pure and holy vessel for Him to reach out and offer the gift of life.
If we all lived passionately and recklessly for the Lord, wow, what a place this would be.
Unfortunately, there is always the darkness and evil lurking about...but what we have to remember is that through Jesus, through His light, darkness will not penetrate.
It's only light that can change darkness. Darkness doesn't know light.
I believe that it's through light we can honestly know what life is about and dangerously live for it, through the only light -- Jesus.
So, next time you see me running around, dancing, singing, smiling and laughing, please understand that it is through Jesus that I do any of it, or admire any of it.

Let's LIVE as wild as neon lights, as bright as the sun and as beautiful as a tiger lily.

Come Awake

I don't know this man.
I took his photograph while he was either passed out or taking a quick nap along a pier in San Diego. He's beautifully lovely.
I glanced again this morning at the photo and thought of the verse in Ephesians where Paul was writing about darkness vs. lightness.
"But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says: "Awake, O Sleeper and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you,"" Eph 5: 13-14.

Wake up, Mr. Man.
Daily, I need a wake up call. Not just physically, but spiritually, mentally and emotionally as well.
I sin.
I'm not that good of a person at times. I struggle, fail and get down on myself about everyday -- some days are lighter than others, true, but still...
I sometimes sink.
There are a few people in my life who I used to view up on a pedestals, like they were some sort of model Christian people that never sinned, were perfect and did everything by the book. In my eyes, they were absolutely spotless.
It took me maybe 6 months to get over it and realize that they are human, they sin and struggle, just like I do.
That's the stigma Christians carry around with them. When I wasn't walking with Christ in college, I was so turned off from Christianity because "Christians" all seemed so perfect, so fine and smooth like the cheek of a babe. Why would anyone of those "perfectly flawless" people want to be friends with me...especially on a Sunday morning when I would wake up smelling like an old ashtray and rotting beer.
Better yet, why would Jesus want to be my friend? I mean, it was because of me and my stupid decisions that he died in the first place.
I heard someone talking recently about having to be reminded that we need to view God's grace as a rushing river that can wash over everything and anything we do against the will of God.
Those mornings when I would wake up feeling like I had been ran over and floating on a stormy sea, all it would have taken was a simple prayer of re-birth, a step of faith and an acceptance that even though I sin, Christ still loves me, calls me his friend and even took it upon himself to die so that I, a measly and silly woman, could live.
As Christians, we are continually in the grace of God. We make that initial step and have to keep on stepping, holding onto our fathers hand and allowing His river of grace to wash us over again and again when we need it.
Sometimes we even need to wake up.
I have to die to myself and be born again knowing that in Christ, in His light, there is so much more dept and beautiful loveliness to this thing called life.
Arise, come awake and Christ will shine on you...

photojournalism

People run away when they see me in public with the Nikon D70 in hand...but little do they know that i'd rather be holding it than my pen and reporter's notebook.
I love photography. Henri Cartier-Bresson is my mentor, even though the old man doesn't know it. His work has inspired my love and growing passion of photojournalism.
"What is photojournalism? Occasionally, a very unique photo, in which form is precise and rich enough and content has enough resonance, is sufficient in itself - but that's rarely the case. The elements of a subject that speak to us are often scattered and can't be captured in one photo; we don't have the right to force them together, and to stage them would be cheating... which brings us to the need for photojournalism," Bressson said.
Bresson has also spoken heavily on the beauty of capturing a moment in time that will never again be recreated or re-done. That's why photographs are priceless -- never again will that same thing happen at the same spot ever again throughout history -- an utterly unique event captured on film, or on card.
Never again will the man in my photo sit at that exact spot and tighten his bow at the same time with the sun illuminating his back and silhouetting his face. (that's also what's amazing about creation..)
It takes passion and confidence to take good photos -- and an eye that knows what to capture when, as well as the ability to to stretch your body and your legs in odd positions so your finger can hit the shutter at the exact moment in time.
There is an odd character trait that most photographers have -- as Bresson said, it's intuition.
"I'm not interested in photography. With photography you don't grasp anything. It's just intuition. To be a draftsman is very different," Bresson said.
Next time you see one of those annoying reporters with a camera -- back off and stop staring -- let the artist work and capture those priceless moments that you'll be talking about over coffee the next morning.

A living hope

"And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love," 1 Corinthians 13:13.
Love, a word so vast, beautiful and yet so simple. Love. Hope. Faith. Love.
About a year and a half ago, I had the opportunity to aide in Hurricane Katrina relief in Mississippi with a group of college peers. It was a fun trip, as fun as you can get with a bunch of crazy college-aged Christians traveling in vans for 12 or so hours.
The laughter ceased as our vans rolled into Pascagoula, Mississippi. What was once a bustling, coastal city was stripped. Stripped of people, of shutters, of signs, of light and of life.
As we drove in the dark to our destination, a large church which had very little damage (divine intervention, perhaps?), I could start to feel it. A lost hope from shattered lives seeking someone to shed just a little light on them, a glimmer of hope, perhaps some love, even.
Our vans got to the sight and we began to unload our belongings and cart them to our appropriate rooms. The ladies of our group shared a large teen rec room. The brown, green, blue and beige air-mattress' decorated the bland burber as we unrolled our sleeping bags. I remember the room was full of nervous laughter as we got ready for bed.
After breakfast the following morning, we loaded up and went on a tour of some of the worse affected areas in Pascagoula. Homes leveled, cars in random places, strange debris hanging from the bare trees, huge plywood signs displaying Insurance policy numbers and threatening 'no-trespassing' notes crammed by debris. People were outside, rummaging through their things, attempting a clean up process with tears carpeting their faces.
Our team split into two separate teams and worked on drywalling a church and a house. The church, ironically, was being sponsored by a church in Crawfordsville (something I had written a story about -- the Lord works is such awesome ways).
God used a bunch of non-experienced dry-wallers and did immeasurably more than we thought. By the end of the week, we had given a church, it's family and a single women a fresh start. Some could call it a hope. But what we did was not of us, but of Him, the one who CAN do more than we can ever imagine.
I love all the analogies in this story. Our lives can be shaken, blown around and stripped to the point that we are crawling around in dust and ashes, crying out for a hope. That hope is smack dab in front, calling for a step of faith and arms wide open, ready and yearning to give a hug that will last a lifetime.
In the Lord there is HOPE, mercy, forgiveness. The scriptures even say that we can be pressed but not crushed, persecuted yet not abandoned,and struck down, but not destroyed through Christ Jesus.
Rough winds will come, rain will come, thunder and lightening will come, but there will always be that one constant LOVE watching over us.
On our last day, we traveled to a bridge that was supposed to take us over to Biloxi. It was destroyed. We got out and walked around the coast area and just stood in awe of how a storm so strong could rip 3 feet of concrete from a steel skeleton of a bridge. In the sand close to the bridge, littered with random debris and tire tracks Amber and I drew a message that will outlast any storm and flood and any pain. Hope. Hope in Jesus Christ.
Through Him and Him only will we understand what Hope truly means.
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." 1 Peter 1:3-5