Ordinary BenchMarks is now available! Woot!

Plus some winter photography from the last few days

At long last, the book is out! It went live last night on Amazon! Here are purchase links if you are interested! There is a non-Amazon option for the ebook as well if you would prefer to not put more money in Jeff Bezos’ pocket (2nd link).

Paperback ($34.99) / Kindle Ebook ($14.99) via Amazon

Ebook (PDF) - $14.99 via my Square Site

This book is the result of about 5 years worth of noodling over the practice of contemplative photography, writing here on my site, and a deep desire to put something like this out into the world.

Anne Lamott, in her book Somehow: Thoughts on Love, quotes her husband as saying “Eighty percent of everything that is true and beautiful can be experienced on any ten-minute walk.” Within a ten minute walk of her their home is a bench that teems with life…After describing this bench, she says simply, “When we are paying attention, we see how much holds us invisibly. Love is a bench.”¹

I visited a bench near my home over 115 times at 7:45am throughout 2024 not sure what I would find there until I read Ms Lamott’s words and realized that what I was not only seeking but finding was meaning in each visit.

Our lives are lived in the ordinary and the everyday. Yet we look for so much that is extraordinary and unique. What if we explored the ways that deep meaning is found in the everyday and the ordinary?

Ordinary BenchMarks is a book of photographic and personal reflections based on photographs of an ordinary bench at an ordinary lake in an ordinary city at the very ordinary time of 7:45am on many mornings throughout 2024. But while the bench is so ordinary, this book helps to remind us of the ways that meaning is found even in these moments. Interspersed through the regular reflections and devotions are monthly introductions offering ways to go deeper with practices of contemplative photography.

Many of the reflections also integrate music, video, and other forms of media to deepen the experience of finding meaning in the everyday.

You can find links to the Spotify and Apple Music playlists, purchase links, and also images of all the bench photos here.

Thanks for being part of this journey!

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Speaking of the bench…

I saw something at the bench a few mornings ago that was unlike any other morning I’ve seen there. I was out at sunrise (surprise) but without Scout (way too cold that morning and the paths around Winton Lake had not yet been cleared) and there was just this stunning circular pattern on the water. I know there’s an explanation behind it but I’m just preferring to stay with the mystery of it and enjoying the uniqueness of this moment.

And then a bonus Christmas lights reflected in the snow that looked like the northern lights I saw in the Acadia National Park sky in October.

Grace, Peace, Love, and Joy,
Ed

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1. Somehow: Thoughts on Love, pages 1 and 6