Oil Spill

Pensacola Beach Before Gulf Oil Spill
Pensacola Beach with its sugar-white sand and turquoise water

The following is a brief letter I sent to the President of the United States:

Dear Mr. President:

Human life – indeed all life on earth – is dependent on the health of our oceans. While it is true that the best and latest technology can reduce the dangers involved in off-shore drilling, it is also true that no technology is fail-safe. Besides that, we can never eliminate the risk of human error, human greed, or simple human sinfulness in any venture, especially one in which huge amounts of money are at stake.

Please… no more off-shore drilling for oil. The risks to all of us are just too great.

Yours truly...

In Memory

During Memorial Day weekend, small tombstone-shaped markers line 8th Avenue in Gainesville, Florida, in remembrance of our soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq. Each year there are more, until this year they not only stretch for more than a mile, but are now on both sides of the street.

May they rest in peace, and may God have mercy on us all.

God Loves Everyone

This photo was taken at a rally held in response to local demonstrations by members of an out-of-town church who seem to believe that God hates nearly everyone except themselves. This "Christian" church even tries to explain away John 3:16:

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life."

Participants in the rally proclaimed the truth of God's love for the whole world.

In Your Easter Bonnet

African Crowned Crane at Silver Springs
(Click on image to view full-sized.)

Human finery has nothing to compare with the variety and flamboyance of nature.

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.

Christmas Blessings!

All Beautiful the March of Days

Florida Fall Leaves

Leaves are beginning to turn here in North Florida. They will not reach their peak until sometime in December — but note that by "peak" I'm not talking about New England color. The change of seasons is much more subtle here, and if we are not paying attention, the reds of fall can be overpowered by the green that is always with us.

Nevertheless, the leaves remind me of the hymn by Frances W. Wile that begins,

All beautiful the march of days, as seasons come and go;
The Hand that shaped the rose hath wrought the crystal of the snow...

Although it is highly unlikely that we will see "the crystal of the snow," our understated autumn still speaks of the loveliness of God, "from Whose unfathomed law the year in beauty flows."

Gift from a Dragonfly

Dragonfly on Lantana
(Click on photo to view full size.)

I saw this dragonfly land on a Lantana bush in the back yard and rushed inside for my camera, hoping he (or she?) would stay around. He let me take five pictures before flying off. I felt as if I had been given a precious gift.

Note that we are viewing the flower (the pink floret) through his diaphanous wing.

O Lord, how manifold are your works!
In wisdom you have made them all.
The earth is full of your creatures.
(Psalm 104:24)

Urban Art

Yellow Garden Shed

See also "Hubcap Mandalas" and "More Urban Mandalas."

The Only Path to Happiness

According to Saint Therese Couderc, the only way to be happy is to hand oneself over totally to God.

Oh! If people could just understand ahead of time the sweetness and peace that are savored when nothing is held back from the good God! How he communicates himself to the one who seeks him sincerely and has known how to surrender herself. Let them experience it and they will see that here is found the true happiness they are vainly seeking elsewhere.

Watch the video, "To Surrender Oneself," on YouTube, and notice the images of docility to the Spirit of God.

Summer Sky

Summer Evening Sky
(Click to view full-sized.)

I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples,
and I will sing praises to you among the nations.
For your steadfast love is higher than the heavens,
and your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.

(Psalm 108:3-4)

Bouquet of Fabric Remnants

A Bouquet of Fabric Remnants
(Click photo to view full-sized)

Fill your world with bouquets! Look for the beauty around you and inside you. If you don't have hyacinths or roses, use what life provides.

Lavish in Detail

Yellow-crowned Night Heron by Intracoastal Waterway

If you click on the photo to view it full sized, you will see the intricacies of the heron's feathers. Then gaze on the edge and the patterns in the huge sycamore leaf which dwarfs the bicycle seat on which it is resting.

Dry Sycamore Leaf on Bicycle

Whether in a bird's feathers or a leaf or the double helix of DNA, nature is not parsimonious where detail is concerned.

Lord, how thy wonders are displayed,
where'er I turn my eye,
if I survey the ground I tread,
or gaze upon the sky!

Isaac Watts, "I Sing the Mighty Power of God"

How Lovely Is Your Dwelling!

Cybernun's new video features Brahms' "How Lovely Is Your Dwelling Place" (Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen), from his German Requiem.

How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!
My soul longs, yea, faints for the courts of the Lord.
My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.
Happy are they who dwell in your house,
Ever singing your praise!
(Psalm 84:1-2,4)

Not only the temple, not only the churches are God's dwelling, but all of creation -- and each of us is also the dwelling place of God. "Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?" (1 Corinthians 3:16). How lovely is God's dwelling place!

Dandelion Reaching High

Dandelion and Clouds

The prayer of the humble pierces the clouds,
and it will not rest until it reaches its goal.
(Sirach 35:21)

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

To Live for Jesus

The short video, "Jesus Tibi Vivo," features a Latin song based on Romans 14:8,

If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.

Especially appropriate for this Lenten season is the final scene, where everyone is gathered into the cross.

No Barrier Needed

Some fences are needed. But we don't need barriers between ourselves and God.

Just as I am, thy love unknown
Has broken every barrier down;
Now to be thine, yea thine alone,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

"Just as I Am," Charlotte Elliott, 1841

Spring as Lent Begins

Dogwood and Spanish Moss
(Click to view full size photo.)

LENTEN FLOWERS

Primrose, anemone, bluebell, moss
Grow in the Kingdom of the Cross

And the ash-tree's purple bud
Dresses the spear that sheds his blood.

With the thorns that pierce his brow
Soft encircling petals grow

For in each flower the secret lies
Of the tree that crucifies.

Garden by the water clear
All must die who enter here!

- Kathleen Raine

Winter Beauty

A north Florida winter has its own beauty, just as every season of life is beautiful in its own way. Here are two pictures taken on Paynes Prairie:

Paynes Prairie in Winter
(click photo to view full size)


November Tapestry

Earlier in the season, the Paynes Prairie vegetation created a rich tapestry.

For everything there is a season,
and a time for every matter under heaven.
(Ecclesiastes 3:1)

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.

The Light Shines in the Darkness

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 came into being through him,
and without him not one thing came into being.
What has come into being 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)

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)

Amazing Love, Amazing Grace

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)

Radiant Gears

Radiant Gears
(Click to view full size)

Beauty is everywhere! But we do need to stop and look. What if Moses had not turned aside to gaze at the burning bush?

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...

Only Thou

A video based on an early Hasidic prayer:

Beauty in Simple Things (2)

One day recently I noticed that the adding machine tape had flowed over, rather gracefully I thought, onto the floor. So I stopped and took a few pictures. Here is one of the photographs, modified with several filters.

Beautiful? That may be stretching it a bit. But who knows? Perhaps one day you may stop to gaze at an ordinary sight, and find it is really a burning bush.

Laudate Dominum

Cybernun has a new video: a rendition of the sublime Laudate Dominum, from Mozart's Vesperae solennes de confessore. The Latin lyrics are Psalm 117.

That All May Be One

War, violence, injustice, racism, sexism, unloving divisions among the human family -- all of these deny the truth of our oneness in God.

Beauty in Simple Things

These are photos of pipes, taken in the Cenacle Retreat House in Lake Ronkonkoma, New York. The house was built in 1926 and will soon make way to a smaller, greener, more efficient building. Although there are obvious beauties in the old building (the stained glass windows, the dark wood doors and moldings, for example), beauty may also be found where we least expect it—wherever we walk during this day, if we have eyes to see.

Granted, the loveliness of exposed pipes is open to discussion, but I suspect you will agree with me, if not that these are beautiful, at least that they are interesting.

Predator Kitty

Cat Peering

This spring, when the baby squirrels lived in holes in our patio wall (see "Test Everything"), a neighborhood cat had high hopes of catching one. But all he can get in the hole is his nose.

Cat Settling in for the Long Watch

Knowing he can't get at the baby squirrels while they are in the nest, he settles down to wait, on the very slim chance that they will come out while he is there.

Cat Seeing Me Watching Him

Be sure to click on the photo to see the size of his eyes. Is this a guilty look? Or is he accusing me of interfering?

I don't know whether you will find anything inspirational in these pictures, except perhaps the enjoyment of God's creatures — but that is probably inspiration enough.

O Lord, how manifold are your works!
In wisdom you have made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.

(Psalm 104:24)

Wherever I Go, You Are There

Cybernun has a new video:

Test Everything

Baby Squirrel Nibbling Spanish Moss

Baby Squirrel Nibbling Nail

Like human children, the baby squirrels outside my bedroom window seem to put everything in their mouths. A passage from 1 Thessalonians comes to mind:

...test everything;
hold fast to what is good;
abstain from every form of evil. (5:20-21)

I notice that Paul does not say "taste everything," however, which could be more than slightly risky.

Holy Ground

"Angel" Glimpsed Praying in Woods

(Click image to view full-sized.)

Take off your shoes from your feet,

for the place on which you are standing

is holy ground.

(Exodus 3:5)

Earth's crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God:

But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,

The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries.

- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I See His Blood

Driftwood Cross
(Click on image to view full-sized.)

I see his blood upon the rose
And in the stars the glory of his eyes,
His body gleams amid eternal snows,
His tears fall from the skies.

I see his face in every flower;
The thunder and the singing of the birds
Are but his voice—and carven by his power
Rocks are his written words.

All pathways by his feet are worn,
His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea,
His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,
His cross is every tree.

- Joseph Mary Plunkett

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)

God Is Love

Heart Clouds
(Click on image to view full-sized.)

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. (1 John 4:16b)

If you would like to send this picture as an e-card, visit Vocation Quest Cards.

Shine in Our Darkness

Light Breaking on Pensacola Bay
(Click on image to view full-sized.)

O God, when all seems to be darkness in me,
may your Light break through,
for you are always here, loving me.

"If I say, "Let only darkness cover me,
and the light about me be night,"
even the darkness is not dark to you,
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you."
Psalm 139:11-12

God Among Us

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 Word became flesh
and dwelt among us,
full of grace and truth.
We have beheld his glory,
glory as of the only Son
from the Father.
(John 1:1-4;14)

In Radiant Beauty

Basket and Christmas Balls
(Click photo to view full-sized.)

"The Lord will dawn on you in radiant beauty."
(from the Liturgy of the Hours)

House of Many Colors

(Click on photo to view full-sized.)

I haven't been back to this house to see if the owners have chosen to go with a single color. I rather hope not. I am reminded of Joseph, beloved of his father.

Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colors. (Genesis 37:3 KJV)

The Rock That Is Higher than I

Heart and Rock
(Click photo to view full size.)

Hear my cry, O God;
listen to my prayer.
From the end of the earth I call to you,
when my heart is faint.

Lead me to the rock
that is higher than I;
for you are my refuge,
a strong tower against the enemy.

Let me abide in your tent for ever,
find refuge under the shelter of your wings.

Psalm 61:1-4

A Vision of Goodness