• Several days ago, posted this amazing reflection - beauty as sustenance - on her Words from Silence page - focused on the practice of savoring moments. She defines savoring as “the practice of slowing down to notice and be present to beauty and goodness.” The whole post is totally worth a read

• Over the weekend I listened to a podcast from RadioLab called “Forests on Forests” that shared about some of the wonders that we are only now learning about forest canopies (including large amounts of humus piled up on branches high in some of the tallest trees out of which are growing new trees and within which are entire ecosystems! - Many of them brown!)

• Then Monday, I read this from in her Monday Manna - All about paying attention as she focuses on a recent novel and also the wisdom of Mary Oliver whom she quotes with: “Attention is the beginning of devotion….” among several other bits of wisdom from Mary Oliver. She closes her post with one of her own prayers - When I’m Completely Scattered. Again, whole post worth a read.

• Then Monday afternoon, I met with my spiritual director and the majority of our conversation shifted to this sense of paying attention (sorry no link for a transcript of our conversation).

• Tuesday morning, I queued up my Daily Calm podcast and it was entitled “Vividness” but was about a technique to deepen awareness. The closing image quotes Jon Kabat-Zinn... “Mindfulness is about being fully awake in our lives.” Here’s the free share link if you’d like to listen.

• Not done yet...The Strands puzzle from the New York Times on Tuesday had a theme of “Attention, Attention” with the words in the puzzle being behold, watch, witness, eyeball, monitor, observe, and then the “spangram” of “like a hawk,”

• And finally...in the Pop Culture Pastor’s Hour that MaryAnn and I recorded about Nature with our special guest Fr Pete the Wilderness Priest, what does MaryAnn mention with her first “pop culture item”? She talks about how nature calls us to “pay attention to little things.”

So yeah... I’m listening... I’m trying to pay attention!

This week I’ve been seeking to pay attention to my next color... brown.

Full disclosure, I had a bit of a reaction about the fact that my random list of colors for this came to brown for this week. After all, Spring is in full bloom around here. Vivid greens, purples, oranges, reds, yellows, and so forth. And this week is... brown. Some of that feeling goes back to something I heard in a message shared at an event in college over 30 years ago. The speaker was sharing about a moment with his wife while driving and he began to sing along with a song that came on the radio. She stopped his singing when she noted that she felt like his singing wasn’t bad but it wasn’t very good . As she tried to describe it further, she talked about how, when you make a fruit smoothie you put all these vibrant colors together in the blender and when they are all mixed up - they come out brown. She said, “your singing is brown.” If we were using 2026 slang, she might have said that his singing was “meh” or “mid.” For some reason, I’ve never forgotten that part of the message (honestly I don’t remember what the rest was) and it is probably because my singing is meh/mid (at best).

In the years since, however, I’ve become more aware of how someone who was not white skinned might have heard that when it was shared. Someone whose skin tone was more brown or black who heard that color described as not bad but not very good either - just brown. Good chance that it didn’t sit too well with them. I have come to understand this more with what I have read and learned about how often darker colors are associated with badness or with evil. And looking right now at the United States...who are those who are being most often targeted for arrest or put under suspicion or are victims of hate crims? People whose skin tones are darker. It is why I try to be aware and pay attention to the ways in which I speak of light and darkness, black and white, and so forth.

I am grateful that the last seven days have reminded me and shown me that brown is an amazingly vibrant and wonderful color. One example…Something my spiritual director said on Monday as we talked about this was that you don’t have a tree, any tree, without the color brown. She’s right. Brown was there in the trunk of my favorite tree as I placed my hand on it on Earth Day. Brown was the color of the bench that was the inspiration in 2024 about finding wonder in the everyday which led to my book, Ordinary Benchmarks. Brown was the color of the twisted tiny branch that I photographed with a macro lens that could have easily been overlooked. Brown was the color of the train tracks and rail spikes that held them together that I photographed on Saturday. Brown was the color of the water but more so the two turtles that I saw swimming as I looked into the lake on. Sunday. Shades of brown made up the intarsia wood piece of a heron that my dad crafted years ago that stands on a shelf in our house. Brown was the color of the snail that was so tiny that I noticed while walking on Tuesday morning after a rainy overnight.

Brown in all of these ways was beautiful, wondrous, and full of life and memory and love in what I received from this week of paying attention to this dear color.

One more thing before sharing the photos. This week also had something take place that could easily have gone unnoticed for many. Congress passed and the President signed an action that removes a long-standing protection for the Boundary Waters Wilderness area. The Boundary Waters is one of the last fully protected areas in our country. But no more. The action signed will allow for copper mining by a Chilean company that will likely disrupt if not destroy areas of this pristine wilderness. I don’t know what else can be done beyond direct action when the work begins (I am sure that there are organizations already filing suit against the actions) but still contact your representatives to express your feelings about this. To read more about this, click here.

Onto the beauty and wonder of noticing Brown this week:

Where did you see brown this past week?

This next week? Yellow!

I did want to share a few more images that were not brown per se but just were really beautiful and fun to receive including Scout from a really unique angle.

Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed

Share

Last week, when intro-ing the color red, I shared that I had a rather conflicted relationship with that color. Orange is quite different sports-wise as my beloved Denver Broncos’ colors are orange and blue. Similarly, as I now live in Cincinnati, orange is all over the place for the colors (along with black) of the Cincinnati Bengals.

Orange is the next color in the rainbow after red so it flows from red and flows into yellow - hence how the color orange emerges as the mixing of red and yellow. As you’ll see in my noticings this week, there also isn’t “one” orange. There’s a spectrum of what is considered orange.

Orange also has deeply varying meanings. It generally speaks to energy, enthusiasm, and happiness but it also has a sense of warning / danger. The signs I noted above on my street are orange to draw peoples’ attention to be sure they know they are in a work zone to keep the workers safe (as well as those traveling through). Orange is also a color that hunters and outdoorspeople are to wear to be sure that others can see them.

Orange is also the color for one of the leading gun-safety movements in the United States - wearorange.org is the website for Everytown for Gun Safety and drew the inspiration from the tragic story of Hadiya Pendleton. Quoting from the website:

On January 21, 2013, marched in President Obama’s second inaugural parade. One week later, Hadiya was shot and killed on a playground in Chicago. Soon after this tragedy, Hadiya’s friends commemorated her life by wearing orange, the color hunters wear in the woods to protect themselves and others.

Wear Orange honors Hadiya and the nearly 130 people shot and killed every day in the United States, along with the hundreds more who are wounded and the countless others whose lives have been changed by gun violence.

I personally wear orange each year on National Gun Violence Awareness Day in honor (this year it is June 5) and will continue to work and advocate for common-sense gun safety in our country.

Orange also has a deeply spiritual side to it. However, in my Christian tradition, orange isn’t a regularly used color. There isn’t an orange liturgical season (our primary liturgical colors are blue/purple, green, white, and red). Similarly as far as I could find, there is nowhere in the Bible where the word “orange” is used either to refer to a color or to the fruit. When doing an internet search about this, I found one website that came up called “30 Powerful Verses about the Color Orange.” However, none of them were directly related to orange, but instead it was just a ploy to pull in traffic and put out a bunch of Bible verses that (with some imagination) could connect to the meaning of the color. Interestingly though, the church that I serve now (ResoundingJoy Church) has orange as one of its primary colors in the logo because of a sense of warmth, energy, and vitality.

But that is not to say that other religious traditions are the same. In the Buddhist tradition, orange is a central color. Buddhist monks often wear robes that are bright orange. They’re sometimes referred to as saffron robes because they used to be created by using scraps of cloth that were then dyed in saffron or tumeric infused waters. The meaning with this is tied to simplicity (robes), eschewing material possessions (using cloth scraps), and a connection to the natural world (using natural dyes and colors).

One last orange thing before sharing my noticings for the week. So I have a weird thing I do when I am finishing my daily workouts with a yoga flow. In our basement we have some of those wifi-enabled light bulbs which can emit a wide range of colors. So I generally try to connect the primary color of the yoga teacher’s outfit to the colors in the room (yes I know its weird but it gives a good vibe). Anyway, on Tuesday morning, I pulled up a video for that day and what color was the yogi wearing? Bright orange. So I made the room a nice shade of orange and I did photograph my legs at the end of the flow with an intent to share but it looked rather creepy…so I’m not subjecting you to that…

Next week is a shift away from the traditional spectrum colors - this week ahead is… brown!

Here are my orange noticings ...

Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed

Share

Red is one of the three primary colors (along with blue and green yellow) and is the color with the longest wavelength of light. Different cultures have different associations with the color red. In China and many other Asian countries, red symbolizes good forture and happiness. In the United States and many European countries, it is associated with love, sexuality, and passion but also anger and death. For example in many movies and shows, if you see someone wearing red, it often hints at an unfortunate end coming for them (see “red shirts” on the original Star Trek show). I would also be remiss if, as a Star Wars geek, I did not note how red lightsabers (powered by red kyber crystals) have generally noted someone who has turned away from the life-giving aspects of The Force.

One specific usage of red is firmly in my memory - red is also the only color seen in the black-and-white film, Schindler’s List, where a young Jewish girl wearing a bright red coat is seen being rounded up by the Nazis. Later in the film, when there is a pile of bodies shown, there is the faintest glimpse of a dirty red coat. This is one of the most memorable and heartbreaking movie moments I have ever seen.2

Red is also often a primary color in sunrises and sunsets - explained best by this from Wikipedia about what is known as Rayleigh Scattering:

As a ray of white sunlight travels through the atmosphere to the eye, some of the colors are scattered out of the beam by air molecules and airborne particles due to Rayleigh scattering, changing the final color of the beam that is seen. Colors with a shorter wavelength, such as blue and green, scatter more strongly, and are removed from the light that finally reaches the eye. At sunrise and sunset, when the path of the sunlight through the atmosphere to the eye is longest, the blue and green components are removed almost completely, leaving the longer wavelength orange and red light. The remaining reddened sunlight can also be scattered by cloud droplets and other relatively large particles, which give the sky above the horizon its red glow.3

And there’s the old saying “Red sky in morning, sailors take warning. Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.”

In my Christian faith tradition, red is often connected with sin (Isaiah 1:18 - ...though your sins are scarlet...”), judgment/wrath (Revelation 6:4 - the fiery red horse of judgment), and also to signify wealth and abundance (Proverbs 31:21 and Exodus 26:1). So, like everything else above, it is all over the map.

Here’s where I saw red this week (along with some commentary as the captions for each)

This next week, I will be shifting to orange and again, I’ll post those photos next Wednesday.

And Scout…wearing the hat in the macro photo above…

Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed

Share

Share

I tried to find a youtube clip of the scene but could only find one really low quality one. C’est la vie. Things are feeling frayed for our heroes in the film at this point and this moment represents a step towards restoration.

I had several conversations on Wednesday as well where there was a similar theme of feeling frayed and I’m feeling that a bit as well. In times like that, it is good to go back to the beginning, back to foundations. So, I’m going back to the beginning for the next chunk of time here at Imago Scriptura. I feel a need to jumpstart some of my photographic creativity and so I am going back to the beginning - color. (BTW - there was a great article I found when searching for the video clip - it was from a writer named Bill True using this same scene to talk about when a writer gets stuck. A solution? Go back to the beginning - here the link)

When I have facilitated groups on contemplative photography, I always begin with color. The first week we would meet, the assignment would be to choose a color and intentionally seek to photograph that color throughout the week. The intention was to focus on something simple to help with the practice of noticing. It was beautiful as we would gather the next time and people would share about how they never realized how much _________ (insert color here) there was around them until they started looking specifically for that color.

This was all sparked on Wednesday morning as I was feeling like I was photographing the same places and the same things. What lit the spark was this photo.

The brilliant red (unusual a bit for this early Spring) took me back to those contemplative photography sessions, back to the beginning. And then I started seeing more and more red on the walk. And the idea was born.

So, for the most part, over the next few months, I am going to be posting generally 1x/week on Wednesdays and sharing seven images of the color I was focusing on. As I shared above, I am starting with red. Then next Wednesday I’ll share all the red photographs and introduce the next color. There may be some reflections on the experience and meaning of that color as well.

As True wrote in the article linked above, “…go back to the core of the story.” The core of what I share here is about noticing. So, like I do in my contemplative photography classes I’m going back to the beginning of noticing color. I’d love to have you share colors that you see along the way as well. See you next Wednesday with seven days of noticing the color red.

We’ll see about getting Scout in on the act too…(even though her visual color spectrum is much more limited than ours).

Here’s a blast from the past photo of Scout. Two years ago this past Wednesday when we went to northern Ohio for the total solar eclipse…

Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed

Share

But here’s the other thing. Since I wrote that last reflection on Thursday, I have been seeing these trees everywhere. It isn’t that they all of a sudden appeared but I had an attentiveness to them because of that experience with Troy and MaryAnn. So, my eyes have been drawn to that purple/pink color all around.

Its very similar to what I shared in my Easter message on Sunday morning. I shared that resurrection wasn’t just something from a story 2,000+ years ago but is happening all around all the time, even, and often in defiance of, evidence to the contrary. It is in nature (Winter shifting to Spring). it is in relationships. It is in communities. it is in the rhythms of life. Fr. Richard Rohr often shares his threefold pattern of life of - order, disorder, and reorder. Another way of explaining those would be - life, death, and resurrection. Another framework I’ve heard (and is the one I usually speak to) is that the rhythm of all of life is birth, life, death, and resurrection, repeat. Parts of life might be in different stages but I do truly believe that when we are in a time of disorder/death, that reorder/resurrection is sometime ahead. I’m holding tightly to that hope and trying to live that hope in a time right now that feels like massive disorder and too much death.

In his Easter reflection yesterday, Fr. Rohr wrote this:

I believe the resurrection of Christ is saying that the final judgment has already happened. It’s nothing we need to fear. It’s nothing we need to avoid or deny. God’s final judgment is that God will have the last word! Easter reveals that there are no dead ends; ultimately, nothing is going to end in tragedy and crucifixion. Of course we look around us, at history and at life in its daily moments and it seems, “No, that isn’t true.” And yet, ever and again, here and there, more than we suspect, new life breaks through for those who are willing to see and to cooperate with this universal mystery of resurrection.1

The reminder in this for me? If I want to be angry at the world (and there’s plenty to be angry about), then by all means I can center on the things that will keep me angry. But if I want to live in resurrection and in hope, center on the things that remind me that, even in spite of so many things, resurrection and restoration are still ahead and are also present here and now. And in centering on those, it allows me to engage that which needs to be changed and needs transformation and healing.

So with that, here’s a bunch of the Eastern Redbuds I have seen, starting with my favorite of all of them.

And of course Scout with some more…

A few more notes:

Pop Culture Pastors Hour - The Pitt

A new episode of PCPH is posted! This time we were talking the HBO Max show, The Pitt, with two real-life chaplains! and Amy Snow! Check it out right here and you can also subscribe to the podcast feed on Apple or Spotify

New Music! U2 drops two surprise EPs!

Anyone who has been on here for a while knows that I am a U2 mark in a big way. So, I was so excited for the surprise EP, Days of Ash that dropped on Ash Wednesday a few weeks back - it is a collection of songs speaking into the very present events right now and several of the songs especially gave words to what I have been feeling.

But then, on Good Friday (the Friday before Easter), they dropped ANOTHER surprise EP - this one called Easter Lily that was a collection of songs that spoke to the hope of rebirth and restoration that is possible (and similar to what I wrote above). I waited to listen to it until Scout and my walk on Easter morning and I am so glad I did. What a treasure of new songs.

You can check them both out on any of the streaming services or you can purchase digital tracks as well. Personally, I’d say that my top five from the two EPs are (in no particular order)

• American Obituary (Days of Ash)

• The Tears of Things (Days of Ash)

• COEXIST (I Will Bless the Lord at All Times) (Easter Lily)

• Scars (Easter Lily)

• Resurrection Song (Easter Lily)

In that last song are these lyrics:

Love extravagantly
and without regret
If there’s anything better
I’ve not heard it yet

An Action Step

With that lyric in mind, I cannot leave this post without asking this of you. Regardless of your feelings about the current American administration, if you are an American citizen, I am asking you to please contact your representative and your senators. Ask/tell them to do what they can to stop the actions threatened by the president in what he posted online on Easter morning. There is no place in our world right now for attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure (bridges, power plants, etc). I do not support, of course, the Iranian actions of doing that to other countries, but I can take action to do what I can to stop it from our own country. I called my legislators on Monday and I will be calling again today asking them to do what they can to take action against these promised attacks. These actions are not the way of civility, love, or resurrection.

Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed

Share

Ok, onto the 6th and final shift from Better Than Normal. But starting with a way-back Ed flashback and a bit of a true confession…

I was on our fifth and sixth grade basketball teams at the Catholic school I attended while growing up. (This was before I basically stopped growing at 5’7” a few years later). Our team was dominant. We had the tallest player in the league and one of our guards was the nephew of an NBA player. During our fifth grade year we were barely even challenged throughout the season and the Denver parochial league playoffs. We won the title game in a runaway. Unfortunately, I came down with chicken pox right at the beginning of the playoffs and so I missed the championship game celebration. The only bright spot was that I remember that I saw an ad while watching The Price is Right that Star Wars was going to be shown on network TV! But it wasn’t much of a bright spot considering what I had missed with my team.

Well there was always next season and we continued where we left off. We dominated everyone we played. We, of course, reached the playoffs and faced a team in the semifinals that we had crushed earlier in the year. Well, something was in the air that day and it was a tight game throughout. It came down to a final shot and one of our players missed. I happened to be on the floor as the final shot clanged off the rim. I jumped valiantly for a rebound but came nowhere near it. And like that, the game was over. We lost.

We went back to the locker room and I slammed a locker so hard that it broke. I was so mad. Several other teammates were doing the same. Our coach game in and shouted in a very non-Catholic way, “Cut it the hell out! You lost! But that’s not how we lose!”

I would love to say that I took his words to heart and that my fiery competitive nature decreased as the years went but that was not the case. As I shifted to tennis in junior high and high school, there were more than a few times that a racquet was slammed after a bad shot or after losing a match. Similary, the same would happen while watching sports - yelling at the TV, getting furious after one of my teams lost, etc. Decades after that 6th grade basketball game, in my and my wife’s first year of marriage, I was watching Colorado play Colorado State and CU blew a big lead late and lost in a really ugly fashion. I was so mad grouched at her and she (rightly) threw it back at me. That moment began a shift for me about trying to temper my competitive nature. Now, I can’t say that I am not competitive but it (thankfully) has definitely shifted. But my kids can tell you that I still do not like to lose when we play cards or other games...But I will say that I think I’m the least competitive person in my family…lol

This is not to say that competition is always a bad thing. But the question is whether our competitiveness is simply to push us to dominate and overpower others or whether it is to help build up and grow community. MaryAnn details a beautiful shift from competition to community in the final chapter of Better Than Normal where she shares a list of the characteristics of community. I don’t want to list all of them (I don’t want to spoil the book after all) but I could sum them up personally with this.

Community arises when we are seeking to build up with one another into something greater than ourselves rather than just trying to see who will end up on top.

I experienced something of this in an unexpected way on Thursday morning. My friend has been doing a really cool thing on his substack page where he’s sharing songs that he’s written over the years over a period of 100 days. He sent that day’s song to me and to MaryAnn (Troy is a common friend) which is linked directly below. His comment on the song to us was “A modern gothic lament for Maundy Thursday. Blessings on your weekend!”

Troy Bronsink

Day 39: *Justice Waits on Us All

Fifteenth song of my #100DaysOfDemos project, a darker lament for the age of disorientation. I’m still at it: an hour or more a day. Some fish just take longer to hook…

Read more

a month ago · 2 likes · 2 comments · Troy Bronsink

After I listened to the song on my way back from the lake after Scout and my walk, I sent this back in the group text.

Just listened while driving back from Winton lake with Scout on this super foggy morning. Lots to process in the song but wow. Simply. Wow.

Later in the day I downloaded that morning’s photos beacuse there was one moment on Scout and my walk that seemed to connect with Troy’s song. In the group text, I replied with this photo and message:

Troy after I downloaded my photos, this one felt like your song to me - that there’s something beautiful that is out there (authentic justice) like the purple blooms but it just feels at times like it is reaching into a world that is unclear about what that actually is.

Troy’s response?

Yessss! Thank you

MaryAnn replied with this photo and comment:

And how fitting… I have one of those right out my window!

I so loved how the three of us were able to build on each other and build upon the overlapping friendships that we share to create this thing.

That is a beautiful example, from my perspective, of the shift from competition to community. Three friends, each using their own gifts and their own experiences, not to compete but to build toward something bigger. 💙

I do hope you pick up MaryAnn’s book. It is a truly encouraging, challenging, and honest read that so speaks into where we find ourselves at this point.

Again, you can order it at any of the usual online and in-person retailers or you can order it directly from the publisher at 40% using this link and the code NORMAL40.

Scout Pic - Dog in the fog…

Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed

Share

As we walked, I was thinking about what beauty means to me and how seeking after and sharing beauty has become a core practice in my day to day life. But as I reflected yesterday morning, what stood out to me is that what makes something beautiful is how it connects. Beauty connects me with God. Beauty connects me to nature. Beauty connects me to others. Beauty connects me to memories. It isn’t just beauty for beauty’s sake. Beauty connects.

This past Sunday morning, I had, of course, been out with Scout early before our Palm Sunday service. But a little bit later, I received a message from one of our folks in the church with a photo of the sunrise from his home (which is about 20ish minutes from the church). Here’s what he sent.

Beautiful, eh? It was beautiful not only in what is in the photo but in that he made the choice to share that beauty with another person. In this case...me.

Well, when I downloaded my photos later in the day from the morning, here’s one of them.

Maybe they weren’t quite at the same time but they were pretty close. So I shared it with him as well. Again, beauty shared and beauty connecting.

I thought it was so wonderful that the two of us were looking at the same sunrise from two rather different locations (about 30 miles apart). Again, beauty connects.

So with all of that...maybe there is a deeper connection to what MaryAnn wrote as she included this shift in her section on communal values - that this isn’t simply an individual thing but something we do with others. Beauty is something that draws us closer and moves us out of blandness and the usual into something beyond ourselves.

To what does beauty connect you? And are there some examples of how you perceive beauty that you can share in the comments?

Here are a few others from Wednesday morning as I was pondering all this…Including Scout amongst the periwinkle...

Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed

Share

Also, this post has a few videos and a fair number of images. Likely going to be too long for email.

This is the fourth in my Holy Week series on ’s upcoming book Better Than Normal: Virtues for an Off-Script Life. It will be available in the coming weeks from all the usual booksellers, but you can order it direct from the publisher before the release date for 40% off if you use the code NORMAL40 and follow this link.

Onto shift #4

“What is truth?”

Those are the words attributed to a 1st century regional Roman ruler named Pontius Pilate. It is in part of the Holy Week stories of Jesus and is recorded in John 18. In that story, Jesus has just finished saying “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” and Pilate’s reply is simply, “What is truth?”

What is truth?

What is true?

What is real?

MaryAnn’s fourth shift is one that focuses more on community than the invididual and I believe that we are in a communal crisis of truth right now. With the spread of misinformation (a nicer word for lies), the increasingly imperceptible differences between human created and AI created media, and the general mistrust that is swirling around, Pilate’s question is pretty relevant.

What is truth?

So here’s a little experiment. Here are two videos of the tree that I have been photographing somewhat regularly so far this year. It is simply a slide show of all of the photos. See if you notice anything about one video instead of the other. You might need to swap back and forth a bit. But they are different…

What did you see?

Here’s are several of the photos in comparison with one another: (you’ll need to click the images to see the full frame - also the originals are on the left)

What you may see in there are some small changes - few things that are major but in one, the church on the left side of the frame is gone. In another, one of the smaller trees is gone. Others have removed the yellow glow of headlights in the fog, the path in the bottom right, and so forth. How did I do it? Well, I could have done it with some fancy photoshop work which is way above my skill grade. But instead, I did it with the new AI remove tool that is in Adobe Lightroom (the software I use for photo organization). All I had to do was highlight the area that I wanted removed and you see the results. And the same can be done with a trashcan that is in a photo that “takes away” from the scene or that one random person who walked into frame. Or even, as I have heard people doing, removing people from family photos after a divorce or some kind of indiscretion. I have even heard of a church that did that with removing a youth leader from a photo from a mission trip from years before.

Probably if I hadn’t said anything about it, no one would have noticed. But what you have in the edited photos is artifice not authenticity. What you have in the edited is trying to hide what is really there.

In this chapter, MaryAnn has this simple, yet profound statment about this shift...

[With] Artifice we need to hide what’s true from one another.1

One of the things that I love about the Holy Week stories is that they show the reality of the people involved. You have some of the religious leaders who are willing to go against their own beliefs in order to protect their power. You have political leaders who are willing to sacrifice an innocent in order to “keep the peace.” You have people who followed Jesus for years who betray and deny him when things start getting dicey. You even have Jesus himself pleading in anguish in the garden that a different way could take place. Whether one believes these stories are true or not, these are examples of authentic human actions and not just an artificial glossing over the hard stuff.

As Rachel Held Evans wrote in her beautiful book, Searching for Sunday,

And the truth is, the church doesn’t offer a cure. It doesn’t offer a quick fix. The church offers death and resurrection. The church offers the messy, inconvenient, gut-wrenching, never-ending work of healing and reconciliation. The church offers grace. Anything else we try to peddle is snake oil. It’s not the real thing.2

Amen. That’s authenticity, not artifice.

PS - In case you are wondering, in the vast majority of my photos, the only “AI edits” that I do are things like lensflares, etc. Beyond that, I try to let the image be as close to the real moment as possible.

Yesterday, one commentor asked about Scout dressed up in rainbows…ask and ye shall receive. Full disclosure, this one was rather posed and highly edited (background, etc - ironic considering what I wrote above).

Scout, a superhero for inclusion!

Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed

Share

MaryAnn quotes the wonderful Joanna Macy when reflecting on presence:

“Buddhist teachings say [maintaining] hope can wear you out...instead just be present...the main thing is that you are showing up, that you’re here, and that you are finding ever more capacity to love this world because it will not be healed without that.” (pp 57-58)

Here’s what I saw, heard, and felt this morning. Sorry for you having to read my handwriting. :-)

As I wrote this out and added the colors, I noticed something else that was not intentional. The colors that appear in the pages above are exactly the same ones that are seen in a Pride flag honoring the LGTBQIA+ community.

This reflection is being posted on March 31 - Transgender Day of Visibility. GLAAD shares that TDoV is a day “to celebrate the lives and contributions of trans people, while also drawing attention to the disproportionate levels of poverty, discrimination, and violence the community faces compared to cisgender (non-transgender) people.” This is an important day to give thanks for and to honor transgender individuals and also to lift up the realities that are being faced by people in the transgender community (as well as the LGBTQIA community as a whole) - discrimination, hate, and violence. If you have never been to an event on TDoV, look up ones in your area to, as today’s post shares, simply be present to love, support, and learn. In the Cincinnati area, there is an event at Fountain Square at noon as well as local ones in other communities throughout the day.

I am grateful for your presence with me in these reflections as well.

Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed

Share

This photo was from about 6 days ago. It was such an unusual moment to see the clouds so sharply defined. In reality, the bottom part of that “opening” is a bit of an illusion. There are some clouds on the horizon but they aren’t the sharply defined cloud front that the upper ones are. But it definitely created a moment that felt really unique.

It was this image that I was drawn to in reflecting on the 2nd of MaryAnn’s shifts in Better Than Normal - this one being Embracing Courage Over Comfort. (Preorder Better Than Normal here or at any other bookstore. BUT, If you order directly from the publisher at this link and use the code NORMAL40, you’ll get 40% off!!). It was notably in two quotes - one from Alexandra Rowland and one from MaryAnn. She shares of how Rowland created a term “hopepunk” to describe a new genre of speculative fiction. Rowland writes,

“Hopepunk is scrappy and loving, a conscious moral choice to be kind and to persevere. In hopepunk1, the outcome isn’t assured, yet nevertheless, we persist.”2

A specific choice to be kind and persevere even when the outcome isn’t assured. MaryAnn follows up on this with how “courage invites us to stay in the fight, to do the thing regardless of outcome, and to believe that sometimes things can go from bleak to transformed very quickly.”3

So many of the stories I love dearly have moments where a person is faced with this choice - of taking a leap into a new possibility or staying in what has become the “normal” even if it is uncomfortable, dangerous, or clearly wrong. This is very much a part of the traditional “hero’s journey” were someone has to make this choice without a clear sense of the ultimate outcome but knowing that it is the path that needed to be taken. This is seen in ancient stories like The Odyssey and in recent stories such as Tolkien’s Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, the Star Wars films, and even most recently (although in a slightly sideways way), Project Hail Mary.

In this final week of the Christian season of Lent, we yesterday remembered the story of Jesus entering the city of Jerusalem seemingly knowing exactly what was to come for him there. While there is one notable moment when the Gospels reflect conflicting feelings Jesus had about what was ahead, largely they show Jesus pressing forward even though he knew what he was to undergo. He enters into those final days with courage fully knowing the outcome.

In his book, The Spirit of Justice, shares story after story of women and men fighting for racial justice with faith, courage, imagination, and resilience. Most of those he profiles are people who don’t have any clear sense of the future outcome of their work but they continue on in a spirit of hopepunk long before that word ever showed up. They gave up so many aspects of “comfort”4 in their acts of courage not only for themselves but more so for others. The others that they were working for might be known but more so they were people they would never know.

Back to the photo...The illuminated path is narrow and narrowing surrounded by ominous clouds. This unique scene speaks to me of how this shift from comfort to courage often feels like navigating a narrowing path where the outcome seems less and less sure but still one must keep pushing forward. It is like the Death Star Trench Run where the seemingly impossible target must be hit or a ship called The Hail Mary being humanity’s “last, best chance.” There are plenty of other fictional stories that can be lifted up but this is the day-to-day choice of so many others, many of whom are inspired by the courageous steps of Jesus.

One of those people is Myrlie Evers-Williams who was pushed into the civil rights fight after the murder of her husband Medgar Evers. Tisby writes about her:

Myrlie Evers-Williams is a confessor of the civil rights movement. She went through pain and loss that no one should have to bear. With the crack of a gun, her husband became a martyr of the movement, and she became a widow and a single parent. In the face of this devastating theft of life, she continued her work for justice. Evers-Williams managed the first state office of the NAACP in Mississippi, a visible role that left her vulnerable to constant threats and intimidation. She persevered for thirty years while her husband’s killer walked free until a jury finally convicted him in 1994. She went back to school and earned her bachelor’s degree, wrote books, remarried, raised a family, and became national chair of the board for the NAACP, leading the organization her husband once worked for...5

As he then details the realities of how so much of the results of the civil rights movement has been upended over the last decade, he concludes with this:

At the precise time when successive generations should be gifting her the progress made possible because of her work, she once again must tap into the spirit of justice to continue the fight against racism. The same spirit of justice that empowered generations past is available to you today. It has been there for people across time whenever they needed it. It is here when you need it too. And, lamentably, it is always needed. So pause for a moment. Listen intently to the sound of your soul and the echoes of your ancestors. Listen closely enough and you will hear a still, small voice encouraging you to declare your dignity and stand up for righteousness.

The spirit of justice still speaks.6

This spirit is still speaking to shift us from comfort to courage and continuing to write more hopepunk stories…

A few more recent photos, including the required Scout image…

And Scout from Sunday morning as well - complete with lens flares…

Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed

Share

Better Than Normal serves as both mirror and map, reflecting the ways current systems fall short while charting a course toward genuine flourishing. For those ready to put down the script of normalcy and move into the radical possibilities of human dignity, this book is a catalyst for the collective work of transformation. Normal is a myth--and recognizing that truth might just free us all.

You can pre-order it now from bookshop.org as well as plenty of other retailers (both local and online). Click here for Bookshop’s link

In the book, she goes through six shifts from what is the “normal” to something more expansive and transformative. They are:

• Curiosity over certainty

• Courage over comfort

• Presence over productivity

• Authenticity over artifice

• Beauty over blandness

• Community over competition

So over the next six days of the Christian Holy Week, I am going to “play” with each of these shifts of what they spoke to me from the book but also how I expeirence them through the lens. Today, on Palm Sunday, I start with curiosity over certainty.

As I thought about this shift, I initially was thinking about macro photography and the ways in which getting curious about those tiny details that we often cannot see without getting close (and usually with a macro lens) is a way of experiencing this shift. But that changed when Scout and I went walking on Saturday morning. We went on one of our favorite trails but one that we have not been able to go on for over two years.

Two years ago, one of our local lakes was closed (and the beautiful trail around it) to undergo an extensive rehabilitation of the lake itself. Invasive plant species and algae had grown extensively throughout the lake and the only way that it could be eliminated was to literally drain the entirety of the lake to remove excess sediment that had collected. (Read about the project here). This trail was also one of the most beautiful trails in the immediate area during Autumn. But for two years, it was fenced off while the lake was drained and other improvements were made.

Until this week.

So, Saturday morning, it was clear and cool and I was able to walk to one of my favorite sunrise spots that I haven’t been to in a long time.

We walked onto a new over-the-lake path that had been built that will be a perfect place for people to fish and that also created what I am sure is going to be a reflective autumn photograph several months from now.

Both of us were pretty excited about this. I was excited to walk this path again and see what improvements had been made. Scout was also extra-sniffy almost as if she knew this place and was excited to take in the scents on this trail that she had missed for the last two years, including something right at the base of this tunnel that I had a hard time pulling her away from.

But there were some other wonderful changes that I had no idea were going to be there. There was another over-the-water path that was created at another part of the lake and surrounding it were what I think are going to be the foundation for some new marshy areas.

And the trail changed a bit as well at one point. One whole section of the path had been dug up with trees planted where the path used to be while a new section looped up in a new way (the new trail was outside the left frame of this photo).

And other improvements were made including some beautiful new spaces to simply rest and take in the beauty of the lake as well as creating a fully accessible boat launch area so that more people can enjoy paddling on the water.

And there was this spot that I am pretty sure will be a prime spot for some autumn photography later this year (along with the one I noted above).

It was a lovely 3 mile trek around the lake.

But where does this shift of certainty to curiosity come in and what does it have to do with Palm Sunday?

For me it was in the spirit of how I approached the new adventure we had ahead of us. As we started to walk, my (and I think Scout’s) sense was about experiencing not only what we had missed for the last few years but also an openness and excitement about the new. As I walked through that tunnel (photo above), I was excited to see what was around the corner and then was delighted to see what I think will be the foundations for new marshy areas along with the new-over-the-water path. There was a great sense of expectation and (yes) curiosity about what was ahead throughout the entirety of our time at the lake and also what it will look like in the months and years ahead. I won’t lie, I am already excited to be back there come Autumn to take in the beauty that this place has during my favorite season of the year.

I could have, however, approached it with a sense of being frustrated about the two years that we missed walking there and being cranky about the changes that were made. In fact, I was a bit cranky about the part of the path that had been dug up. That was one of my favorite parts as it was where I most often saw turtles and other wildlife. But it likely was changed to protect the lake from erosion and maybe for other reasons as well. My certainty of what I wanetd for myself and what I thought the way should be could have won the day but I am grateful that it largely lost out to curiosity and wonder.

In the story of Palm Sunday, we read of Jesus entering Jerusalem to crowds of people shouting out to him, waving leafy branches, and laying their cloaks on the road before him. But the thing about that procession was that it was imprmoptu - it wasn’t advertised for weeks ahead - it just happened. And it likely grew because people were curious - Why are people shouting? Who is this Jesus guy? What is he about? What is he going to do? What they would come to see over the next few days is one who engaged people in radically new ways while also saving some of his strongest words and actions for thsoe who seemed to be more about certainty than about curiosity. Their anxieties about Jesus and the ways that he lifted up wider understandings pushed them into a cycle that MaryAnn writes about in Better than Normal...

Instability breeds anxiety and the more anxious we are, the more rigid we become in our thinking. Anxiety decreases flexibility and our ability to learn.

I am grateful for a space on Saturday that affirmed curiosity and wonder and I hope to hold that sense through the days ahead of this week (and beyond).

Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed

Share

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one.

The documentary was Fukuskima: A Nuclear Nightmare on HBO Max and the movie was Project Hail Mary. In both we have stories of people being faced with a choice that could (or would) cost them their lives but would save the lives of so many more. (Those who have read PHM or seen the film know that the previous sentence has some nuance to it with the story but I am trying to avoid spoilers).1

At Fukushima, Japan in 2011, following the 9.0 earthquake and resulting tsunami, there were 60+ workers at the Fukushima plant who chose to stay and continue to do everything they could to prevent a nuclear meltdown which would have rendered most of the northern part of that Japanese island uninhabitable. The documentary largely focuses on their courageous story and their willingness to make this sacrifice. (While none of them died in the immediate, they were all subjected to high doses of radiation and, as a result, have been suffering the side effects since and will continue to do so the rest of their lives). One of the workers shares about a final series of emails he sends to his wife and children, not knowing if he would ever talk with or see them again. It was a heartbreaking thing to watch.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one.

Project Hail Mary tells the story of a solar-system-level catastrophe hat would devastate life on earth. In the story, three astronauts are sent on a one-way mission to a distant star to try to discover a way to turn this around. They go knowing that they will not be able to return home. Along the way the film also centers on themes of connection, moving beyond barriers, and much more (again - I am avoiding spoilers but you really should see the movie and read the book). It was the parallel of the story of personal sacrifice that continues to speak to me.

The needs of the many outweight the needs of the few. Or the one.

As Christians come to the final week before Easter (known as Holy Week), we center on the story of a man named Jesus who did that very thing. Christian theology speaks of how Jesus gave his life so that others would have life. In the Gospel of John, during the teaching that Jesus gives at his last meal with his friends, we have this line:

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15:13)

I have long wrestled with that line becuase I don’t like the implication that our sacrifice should only be made for “our friends” because that’s not what Jesus did. Jesus gave his life not only for those friends around the table, but for those who were his enemies and those who were strangers to him. Those who stayed in that control center at Fukushima were giving their lives not only for their friends and family but for their enemies and for strangers. The astronauts who went to space in the fictional Hail Mary were giving their lives not only for their friends and family but for their enemies and for strangers. I would like to think that I would make that same choice if the opportunity arose. But I cannot say 100% that I would because I have never been put in such a situation.

This image gives me a sense of that choice. This was from walking around the lake a few mornings ago. The water was so still and reflected the morning sky so nearly perfectly. I got a bit of a sense of vertigo walking along because it was so clear. But the path was solid and secure and the direction ahead was known. Looking over into the water felt like looking into the unknown.

Here are a few other images and videos from the last few days for me.

And then these two videos - one of a plane’s contrail moving along in the sky (But looking like cursive on the water) and then the energy of the water on Tuesday morning

And of course, Scout. Enjoying a beautiful early Spring afternoon

Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed

Share

1

Just a heads up - and I will be digging deep into the film of PHM on Monday afternoon at 3 ET - spoilers galore but lots of fun conversation about this great movie! In addition if you want to read a great reflection on the film from a theological point of view, check out this reflection:

Holy Pop Culture, Batman!

Project Hail Mary

Project Hail Mary absolutely dominated the box office this weekend, a rare feat for a non-franchise film. It’s received rapturous reviews, and rightly so. The film has a good bit of God talk in it, but I didn’t explore that. Instead, I reflected on how the film depicts the necessity of empathy for human survival. The full article is live at Sojourners. …

Read more

a month ago · 3 likes · JR. Forasteros

Meanwhile, there is this invitation
to grow into peace the way real flowers grow—
from dirt into air. With blight
and drought, beetles and hail.2

We are in the season of flowers starting to emerge from the winter soil. Unfortunately, we had a hard freeze the last two days and those bright, standing-straight daffodils and other flowers are all bent over and some flat on the ground. I’m hoping that they will resiliently bounce back once the weather starts to warm, but I could add “freeze” to that last line of Trommer’s poem where it could read:

Meanwhile, there is this invitation
to grow into peace the way real flowers grow—
from dirt into air. With blight
and freeze, drought, beetles and hail.

Tuesday morning when we had the first of the freezes, I saw these daffodils on my morning walk.

The light shining in from the top of the image was not an “in real life” thing but instead a smudge on my iphone camera lens but wow did it feel perfect for speaking a message. That morning I had read Psalms 61 and 62 in my daily reading (interestingly, I had read and written about the same Psalm on the same day 12 years ago when I first began my move into contemplative photography). In those Psalms are these lines:

Psalm 61:1-2, 3-4
Hear my cry, O God;
listen to my prayer.
From the end of the earth I call to you,
when my heart is faint...
for you are my refuge,
a strong tower against the enemy.
Let me abide in your tent forever,
find refuge under the shelter of your wings.

Psalm 62:1-2
For God alone my soul waits in silence;
from him comes my salvation.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall never be shaken.

Those flowers feel like they are calling out as their “hearts” are faint seeking protection in God’s tent, under the shelter of God’s wings and the light feels like the salvation that shines down.

And the thing about the photo is that the light was there all the time but only became visible in this way because of a smudge on the lens. Reminds me of how, even in imperfection, we can see the beautiful, the holy, and the hope. And how we sometimes are that imperfection ourselves that allows the light to be seen, felt, experienced…

So for these flowers and for all those who are feeling bowed down by the weight of the(ir) world, I am praying for light (even one that became visible because of a smudged lens) to lift and strengthen, even coming through the imperfect love and care that each of us can offer.

Tuesday was also St Patrick’s Day and Scout (reluctantly) got into the spirit of the day…

Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed

Share

Dear Ed,
Keep the Canon firing through the lens of a poet.
Peace be with you.

And then she signed it. Those 10 words that make up the heart of that note were such a beautiful gift to me that morning (and still today). I was grateful to see her a little later in the morning and share how grateful I was for the blessing.

The second was a beautiful email of affirmation of one of the things I do for our local denominational body. It wasn’t just a “thank you for doing this” but instead it said:

You do such a good job with these! I don’t tell you enough. (Have I ever told you?) Anyway thanks for this ministry!

And then was this video shared by Diana Butler Bass in her post from Monday morning that I didn’t get to until Monday night. She shared a video created by Brother David Steindl-Rast’s organization, Grateful Living. It is a visual and spoken celebration what it means to bless.

So, my plan tomorrow is that I am going to send some very specific messages of blessing to some people in my life. I wish I could send ones to everyone I know but there’s not enough hours in the day to do that. But I can do for some. And maybe each of you who reads this can do the same to people in your life - share something(s) with others that are specific of why you are grateful that they are in your life or what they bring to the world. See what happens.

The video above ends with this beautiful encouragement:

May blessings help to sharpen your taste for the gift of life
in its immeasurable facets.
May you go ever more blessed, ever more able to bless.

And since I know that one thing that I can do to bless others is share what I see through my lens (keeping the Canon firing through the lens of a poet), here’s some blessings from the last few days.

And then the blessing of this fuzzy friend as she welcomed me home today with her plush elephant, Sebastian. (And in case you are not familiar with Sebastian… he is the "stuffed fren” of the Thoughts of Dog page-a-day calendar from We Rate Dogs (the greatest social media feed on the Internet)).

Oh…and MaryAnn and I had a AMAZE AMAZE AMAZE1 conversation about the novel Project Hail Mary in preparation for the movie release this weekend! Click here to check it out.

Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed

Share

It was such a beautiful gift of wisdom, hope, courage, and of joy even as they talked of lament and despair. I hope that CAC will offer it as a recorded download for those who didn’t get a chance to participate. Here’s a screenshot from the latter part of the conversation.

There were so many nuggets of wisdom that were shared but here are a two that stood out to me:

In defining both hope and despair, Cole Arthur Riley said that “hope is one’s ability to believe in a specific future whereas despair is the inability to see beyond the catastrophe.” Her definitions aren’t direct opposites but I hope you can see the ways that there is a flip-sides between the two.

At one point Jon Batiste said that “we are all stardust and water - we should always be shining and flowing all the time.” Shining and flowing - yes!

As I receievd the wisdom of these four amazing people, I was going back to the poem I wrote about in my last post - Hope by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. What I didn’t share in my last post were the notes I took as I was working my way through the poem. Here they are:

I took these notes after an insight from a recent episode of the Poetry Unbound podcast by where he talked about the ways that poets use line breaks to give multiple meanings to phrases. Such as in the first two lines of the one above. The first line says, “Hope has holes” and then continues to finish the sentence with “in its pockets.” However, that can also be read as first a statement about hope in general - it has holes. It isn’t perfect. It isn’t infallible. But then with the 2nd line it is that the holes are in hope’s pockets that are leaving trails behind for one to look back and see from where they’ve come and can return along that path.

There’s a similar thing later when it says, “...that all roads // begin with one // “ There, what is the “one” - one voice, one person, one group, one church, one action? It is continued with “foot in front...” Ah - a foot stepping forward. Is it stepping out to be in the front of the pack, to be the first to step up, to begin the march, to make the choice? It could be but then when it continues with “...of the other” it is sending a message that hope here is also just the daily one step after another after another...

That was the sense of the whole of the conversation I received today as well - there were the pushes that hope arises out of people being bold and courageous in difficult times, but also hope is the individual writing a song to express what is deepest within them or in my case to photograph and to write.

Drew Jackson shared at one point in the conversation:

Our responsibility is to pay attention to the beautiful with the same attention we pay to the terrible - the world is on fire as it always is. The world is still beautiful as it always is.

I know I shared these the other day but they are still working on me right now and I’m seeing hope in both - the narrow path rooted in something strong but stretching out over the waters and the singular plant growing in the midst of something bigger.

And in case you need a weather forecast for the Cincinnati area, Scout’s right ear is sharing it pretty clearly… windy…

Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed

Share

I am writing this some 35,000+ or so feet above the intersection of NE Wyoming, Western South and North Dakota, and SE Montana. I’m on my way back from a gathering of pastors with whom I’ve gotten together annually every year since 2000. This year happened to be in the Pacific Northwest but each year we gather where one of us serves in minsitry. We all gratuated seminary together and we have made this ongoing commitment to one another. It is not an exaggeration to say that I would not be where I am in life and ministry without this group of men. We drew our group’s name from the Greek word, ὑπομένω (hupomeno) which means to voluntarily choose to endure through trials1 - and we made our group name Hupomen as a result...or Hupo for short. We have been through a LOT together over the decades - births, deaths, joys, sorrows, changes, transitions, breakdowns, triumphs, comings, goings, and the list could go on.

One of the things that always happens when we gather is that we go back and look at the crumb trails of where we have been. We laugh and share pieces of our lives that are behind each of us and have led us to where we find ourselves both as a group and as brothers. Our Hupo hats also show some of these crumbs of where we have been and what we have shared.

As we each have our hour-long sharing time, we reflect back on our respective years but often those sharings are looking down destination-less roads that seem uncertain - be they are exciting roads or anxious ones. These roads usually have to do with our relationships and families, our ministries, or our health but a few other roads have snuck in there from time to time. But if there’s a theme that arises out of the questions and the prayers that follow it is that we take these journeys one step in front of the other and moment-by-moment knowing that nothing shifts immediately and the destinations are never immediately clear. But we continue to take those steps on our own and with one another.

I was the last of the group to depart Seattle and, courtesy of a lengthy repair delay on our plane, I finished two books I was reading and began another. I began a book of poetry called How to Love the World edited by James Crews. The first poem in the book was called Hope by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. Here’s the poem:

Hope has holes
in its pockets.
It leaves little
crumb trails
so that we,
when anxious,
can follow it.
Hope’s secret:
it doesn’t know
the destination -
it knows only
that all roads
begin with one
foot in front
of the other.2

I noticed something with the word Hope in the poem. It is only one letter different from Hupo. And hope is what has been at the heart of this group for me. They have been hope for me through so many things that have arisen over the last 26 years especially in the seasons when the roads ahead were filled with anxious and fearful energy.

You may have noticed several words along the way in italics. Those are the words that came from the poem. And here are some images from our time together that line up with the poem.

(Side note - we each have these hats and we get a pin from each place we have been - there are pins all around the side of the hat - our little crumb trails)

Here are a few others from the trip:

Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed

Share