"For unto us a child is born, for unto us a Son is given. And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Almighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Isaiah 9:6-7Heart felt wishes to all my blogging friends and family! Please take a moment to enjoy this Ode To Joy!
"Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee" God of Glory, Lord of love; Hearts unfold like flow'rs before thee, Op'ning to the sun above. Melt the clouds of sin and sadness; Drive the dark of doubt away; Giver of immortal gladness, Fill us with the light of day!
All Thy works with joy surround Thee, Earth and heav'n reflect Thy rays, Stars and angels sing around Thee, Center of unbroken praise. Field and forest, vale and mountain. Flow'ry meadow, flashing sea, Singing bird and flowing fountain Call us to rejoice in Thee.
Thou are giving and forgiving, Ever blessing, ever blest, Wellspring of the joy of living, Ocean depth of happy rest! Thou our Father, Christ our Brother, All who live in love are Thine; Teach us how to love each other, Lift us to the joy divine.
Mortals, join the happy chorus, Which the morning stars began; Father love is reigning o'er us, Brother love binds man to man. Ever singing, march we onward, victors in the midst of strife, Joyful music leads us Sunward In the triumph song of life. Henry J. Van Dyke 1907
Have a wonderful Christmas celebration! Blessings, Carolynn xoxo
In the coming week I will be linking with several of my favorite blogs. Many of them host weekly parties. I'd love for you to stop by my sidebar to linkup with them and say hi!
It was unaccountably spring when I stepped out of my door this morning. The earth was shades of brown and green, the snow completely gone, and the air warm. The gorgeous morning sunlight was on everything, turning the pines of the forest into almost a cathedral. A bird called sweetly and insistently from a distant tree. The crows called more raucously and clamorously.
The air smelt of spring, that fresh, alive, invigorating, earthy smell that feels as if it nearly imparts life with every breath. It was as if the earth had briefly shaken itself free from its winter slumber in impatient jubilation of the time when it would become a nursery of expectant life. Everything seemed excited, alive, waiting.
It was with great reluctance that I stepped into the door at work, knowing that it meant being imprisoned away from such beauty until it had shouted and skipped and flung itself away into night. But somehow just being there is enough. . .and I can see the gentle hand of its Creator on every branch, touching it in love. How much joy it must give him. . .
"he [Jesus] upholds the universe by the word of his power." (Hebrews 1:3)
This is something I wrote on New Year's Day, 2006. I found it this new year, and could not believe what a difference a year has made. I could not write this anymore. I post it here just to show what my life and my thinking was like a year ago, what it was for years, and how profoundly changed it is now. This was not written for publication, obviously, but since I'm not living it anymore I can publish it without fear:
I’m sitting here alone, in my rented room, high on the second floor of the house. My housemate and her guests were gone all afternoon and came back in a whirl of snowy laughter and left again just as quickly. I’m eating my not-too-bad packaged pad thai, cooked up for my evening meal. I feel as if I’ve spent the whole day cooking, and cleaning up afterward. Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. A significant portion of it more than usual, at least. . .
Alone. I’ve been alone all day, since coming home from church. I left early. It’s to be questioned if I really wasn’t alone there either. I went, took in the service, talked to a few people and said the expected “happy new years”. The profound sense of not belonging, not fitting in, finally became overwhelming enough to make me walk out, long before the social hour afterward ended.
The service was jubilant. The church was celebrating those who’d come to Christ in the previous year, and showed a video with highlights of 2005. The worship was exuberant, excited, and many people were dancing uninhibitedly, clearly enjoying God. I watched, the acute pain of feeling like an outsider in the midst of the celebration overridden in moments, but coming back with twisting sharpness just as inevitably. I watched with a smile on my face as Russell and his brother jumped, whirled, and clapped with fists raised in the air, totally abandoned to God’s worship at the front of the church, completely unconscious of what anybody thought. I watched as Megan worshipped God with arms spread outward and a smile of pure joy on her face. I watched as Seth received prayer from a group so large they were jockeying for position to lay hands on him. His hands were upheld and a peaceful smile of bliss was on his face as he received from God. How God must love that, I thought, and the whipping pain of realizing, “I’m not like that,” hit sharp as a fist. Why can’t I be like that? I wonder. How do some people sustain that? Why do some people have such tender hearts? Why do they have no problem allowing God to penetrate them? Why do they so easily bear fruit when I don’t? Hidden and shut away in loneliness and pain, I weep silently and nobody sees. I cry out to God but it seems to make no difference. Hidden from my sight, any prayers for help seem to be met with answers that cause only more pain and don’t bring the solution. Why, I wonder? Why?
And I know the answer is nothing. I don’t know what the answer is. I bear this pain with a silent grimace and cries inside too stifled to be heard or even felt. I buckle under my pain and settle for enduring it because it seems no help is to be found, no answer is to be had, no solution is at hand. Wretched and hopeless endurance of what I feel that I cannot endure is my life. No amount of prayer, no amount of prophecy, no amount of “inner healing” seems to make a difference. I know that the problem lies with my stubborn will and my refusing to allow God in. But even realizing that makes no difference. I can’t overcome it.
I live in pain. My days are spent in misery. I am eaten up with loneliness, with the longing for someone to see me inside as I am and care. I wish that someone could help me. I fear utter abandonment, total loneliness. My social encounters are meaningless and bored. I can’t recall the last real or memorable conversation I had with anyone. Glib exchanges focus on appearing as normal and happy as possible. Never do they dip beneath the surface because my highest value is self-preservation, my worst fear being found out. I keep polite conversations as short as possible, to minimize the length of time I have to make the effort to pretend. I hate parties, groups of people, and conversations where people ask about myself. Which is most of them, since all of us are polite enough to play that game.
Whatever. Even writing this provides no catharsis. I will go to bed alone, in sodden and sullen pain, and wake up in the morning, and go to work at my meaningless job, and come home and go through the routines of eating and cleaning and checking email and talking on the phone and getting ready for bed and going to bed and I’ll get up again the next morning and do it all the same. No light breaks into this darkness, no respite from the pain. Where this will go or I will go nobody knows. Stay tuned.
When I read this now, my only reaction is profound and absolute gratitude to Jesus. He broke in. He changed everything. That's the answer to anyone who wonders why I, or anyone else, would want to live for him?
Ah, photography. One of the greatest loves of my life and probably my favourite creative pasttime.
Ever since I was a child, I loved photography. The artist in me craved images, and I admired talented work. My primary outlet, however, was drawing, and I never had the opportunity to use a camera.
Until my tenth birthday, when the packet I opened from my aunt and uncle revealed a cheap little 110 toy camera (anyone remember 110s?) Aimed at the pre-teen girl market, it was hot pink and came in a blister pack complete with an appealing picture of a smiling girl and boy taking photos. I was thrilled with it, as it gave license to my long-held ambition to be a photographer. I longed to use it to emulate the beauty I'd seen in others' photography and to capture the landscape that I loved.
However, I quickly found the camera to be more frustrating than satisfying. Aiming it at a subject which I was certain would create the next award-winning shot, I would inevitably be disappointed to receive a print back which was nothing more than a fuzzy reflection of the glories I'd held in my mind's eye and my camera's viewfinder. What had happened? Determined to succeed, I'd try and try again on different subjects, with the same results.
I used that camera periodically until at the age of nineteen I moved away to attend Bible college in Toronto. I don't remember what happened to it. Probably it got left behind with the rest of my things, or sold at a yard sale.
At any rate, I am sure I never would have gone any further with photography had it not been for the friendship of a mentor who always encouraged me to pursue directions I would probably never have gone on my own. For that, I am eternally grateful.
It wasn't long after I'd moved to Toronto that he presented me with an old manual camera from his collection. He himself was an avid amateur photographer, and I'm sure we'd discussed my long-frustrated desire to pursue the art. The camera he gave me originally was nothing special. In fact, as I recall, the case had to be held together with a rubber band or it would fall apart, exposing the film. But it started me on the road to photography, and I won't ever be the same again.
Eventually I progressed to another of his cameras, a Russian-made Zorki which was an exact copy of one of the very best, the German Leica. That camera saw me through a couple of years, but eventually for Christmas my friend and his wife presented me with an almost unbelievable treasure. I opened the box to discover a Canon AE-1, complete with a 50mm, 28mm, and 200mm lens.
That camera was and still is one of my most treasured possessions. I don't know if I'll ever sell it, or if I could even get close to the price he paid in these days when digital is pushing 35mms out of the market. But it was, and is, a beautiful amatueur- to professional-quality camera. It really taught me what a camera was capable of, and I learned most of what I know on it.
But. . .the digital encroachment eventually overtook me. For a trip to Africa a year ago, I needed something small and light with which I could take nearly unlimited shots. The Canon A75 seemed like just the thing, the best quality in my very limited price range. And it served me well despite its limitations.
But even after I came back from Africa, it slowly became my primary camera. For a long time I carried it in my bulky Black's camera bag along with the AE-1 and its various accessories, and took the same shots to compare. Eventually, the AE-1 started being left at home. For most standard shots, the digital was of reasonably comparable quality, with none of the cost or wait time associated with 35mm. I could shoot unlimitedly and delete the ones I didn't like.
Now, sadly, the AE-1 languishes at home in its bag, awaiting some unforeseen "special occasion" which will demand its use. I'm afraid I just can't stomach film and processing costs and wait times anymore, or the multiple envelopes of negatives. Added to that the fact that the last batch I got back were of lower resolution than I can take with my Canon digital and at a jaw-dropping price, I decided that for now I have to sacrifice the more powerful capabilities of the SLR for the convenience of digital.
And wait. Wait until I can afford a digital SLR. I am nearly hyperventilating with desire for one. I long for a camera which affords both the power and capability of a 35mm SLR, and the benefits of digital. A Canon digital SLR represents the mountain's pinnacle for me. The problem is how to get one. . .on my current budget, it is not possible. But I can hope and dream, and pray. . .for now, that's my only chance, because I know God is fully capable of giving me one, if he wants to. Price isn't an issue with him. . .and I'd love to be surprised.
Anyway. . .a few of my favourite recent shots. I may post a few more later on:
These two were the result of a nighttime photo shoot a couple of nights ago:
An interesting bridge I'd long thought I'd like to photograph. It's even better at night and the steady stream of traffic ensured some neat light trails with the long (15sec) exposure.
Some amazing shadows on the road on the way back home
And these were shot this morning:
It's not the best photo, but I like the colours and the light, and the sky
I was just heading off to work when the sight of this sunrise over the frozen pond across the road stopped me. I trekked through somebody's yard to get the photographs. This is when I would have killed for a telephoto lens. The seagulls you can barely see in these pictures were sitting in the ice all flapping their wings rhythmically (to stay warm?) They would have been fantastic close up.
Greetings on this WINTRYWHITEDAY! The snow is falling gently on this December morning. This Christmas I pray each one of you are blessed to spend time with family and friends to celebrate the season. Christmas services... Caroling Exchanging gifts... Dining together... Helping the needy... Celebrating Jesus birth.
Several years ago I made this little Christmas quilt. I added hand embroidered touches, buttons, tiny charms, soft flannel, festive homespun prints and a cheerful Christmas theme.
"Every time a bell rings an angel gets it's wings..." from "It's A Wonderful Life" One of my favorite Christmas movies
"Mother in the kitchen now baking pies and cakes, cookies, candies, goodies, too. That only Mother makes."
Can you smell the sweet aroma from Mother's pies and cakes? I enjoyed hand embroidering the steam escaping from each pie!
I love embroidering french knots! They make the prettiest snowflakes.
Baby...It's cold outside!
The winter weather has arrived in style. We have a beautiful coat of white puffy snow blanketing the landscape. It's definitely mitten weather!
"Over the hill and through the woods... to Grandmother's house we go..."
"WINTRY WHITE STUFF" Having a little fun with picmonkey... Would you believe it's snowing inside???
Merry Christmas!This year my husband is home.I am so grateful and never take it for granted.I recall the year that he was deployed overseas.Please remember those who are serving away from homethis Christmas.May God bless them and their families. Blessings,Carolynn xoxo
"Joy to the world the Lord has come... Let earth receive her King!"
This Christmas I know many of you will be remembering the families who have suffered tremendous loss. May God give them comfort.
I'm linking to all my favorite blog parties and giveaways for this coming week. I hope you will stop by and visit with each lov ely blog. Thank you, Meri, for sharing so many of your sweet vintage images. They all speak of a simpler time. www.imagimeris.blogspot.com
