Iced Tea Season

Now that the weather is getting warmer, it is time to share with you some of my photos of, yes, a glass of iced tea!

Light shining on glass of ice and tea

(Click on image to view full size.)

Variations:

 

 

 

 

 

I saw written as in letters of gold this word Goodness,

which I repeated for a long while with an indescribable sweetness.

I saw it, I say, written on all creatures,

animate and inanimate, rational or not — 

 all bore this name of goodness. 

(Saint Therese Couderc)

Flying Saucer?

(Click photos to view full size.)

This photograph is of a large soap bubble in a glass plate.  As you see, the room was dark except for one strategically placed light—which, curiously enough, looks a bit like an angel hovering in the bubble.

Since the picture reminded me of a flying saucer, I decided to have a little fun and situate it in a whimsical space scene.  The result is below.

Orchids and Light

Orchids in Different Light

The artist Evelyn Dunbar has said:

We are each gifted in a unique and important way. It is our privilege and our adventure to discover our own special light.

Your special light is not quite like anyone else's light.  When our particular light is a true light, it flows from and participates in the light of God. 

In an essay called, "The Light Within," the Quaker Thomas R. Kelly writes:

Eternity is at our hearts, pressing upon our time-torn lives, warming us with intimations of an astounding destiny, calling us home unto Itself. Yielding to these persuasions, gladly committing ourselves in body and soul, utterly and completely, to the Light Within, is the beginning of true life. It is a dynamic center, a creative Life that presses to birth within us. It is a Light Within that illumines the face of God and casts new shadows and new glories upon the human face. It is a seed stirring to life if we do not choke it. It is the Shekinah of the soul, the Presence in the midst. Here is the Slumbering Christ, stirring to be awakened, to become the soul we clothe in earthly form and action. And He is within us all.  (A Testament of Devotion)

Nighttime Interior

Playing with a simple interior scene... 

Clothed with Light

This new video from Cybernun uses fractal imagery, video clips, and animated effects to illustrate the Russian Hymn, "God, You Are Clothed with Light."

Watch in full screen mode if your computer and internet connection allow.

Death Swallowed Up in Victory

Easter Lilies in Sunlight and Shadow

(Click image to view full size.)

Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality.

When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:

‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’

1 Corinthians 15:51-54

May the Year Bring Peace

Happy New Year!
(Click image to view full size.)

This is a moving-camera light image, edited with PhotoShop to create the blurred, silk-like effect.

Holiday Light

This is not a glass icicle ornament, but a stream of water catching the light.

The larger photograph gives a glimpse of the hand and the glass of water.

Sometimes a light surprises the child of God who sings;
It is the Lord, who rises with healing in His wings:
When comforts are declining, He grants the soul again
A season of clear shining, to cheer it after rain.

(William Cowper, alt)

Your Light Will Come

I have just noticed that the last several posts have to do with light. Now that it is Advent, the theme of light continues, with the feeble lights of the Advent wreath both a prayer and a promise of the eternal Light of God.

Your light will come, Jerusalem;
the Lord will dawn on you in radiant beauty.

(Responsory, Advent Morning Prayer, The Liturgy of the Hours)

Let Your Light Shine

As the days get shorter, you might like to view Cybernun's new video, "Let Your Light Shine."

Morning Light

Sunrise on a Country Highway
(Please click on image to view full size.)

Arise, shine; for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
For darkness shall cover the earth,
and thick darkness the peoples;
but the Lord will arise upon you,
and his glory will appear over you.

(Isaiah 60:1-2)

Seeing Light

Late Afternoon Sun through Patio Wall
(click to view full size)

From And There Was Light, by Jacques Lusseyran, a French Resistance hero who was accidentally blinded at the age of seven:

It was a great surprise to me to find myself blind, and being blind was not at all as I imagined it.... They told me that to be blind meant not to see. Yet how was I to believe them when I saw! Not at once, I admit.... For at that time I still wanted to use my eyes. I followed their usual path. I looked in the direction where I was in the habit of seeing before the accident, and there was anguish, a lack, something like a void which filled me with what grownups call despair....

...some instinct — I was almost about to say a hand laid on me — made me change course. I began to look more closely, not at things but at a world closer to myself, looking from an inner place to one further within, instead of clinging to the movement of sight toward the world outside.

Immediately, the substance of the universe drew together, redefined and peopled itself anew. I was aware of a radiance emanating from a place I knew nothing about, a place which might as well have been outside me as within. but radiance was there, or, to put it more precisely, light. If was a fact, for light was there.

I felt indescribable relief, and happiness so great it almost made me laugh. Confidence and gratitude came as if a prayer had been answered. I found light and joy at the same moment...

Reflection

Street Reflection
(Click on image to view full-sized.)

If you look carefully, you'll notice that some of the vegetation visible in the window is actually inside the empty house, having found an opening and flourished there -- and indicating the tenacity of life.

Now we see only reflections in a mirror,
mere riddles,
but then we shall be seeing face to face.
Now I can know only imperfectly;
but then I shall know just as fully
as I am myself known.

(I Corinthians 13:12, New Jerusalem Bible)

Into Light

Out of darkness
Into light






Glimpse of porch and Alabama River

(Click on image to view full-sized.)

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Tree - moving camera
(Click on photo to view full size.)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:1-5)