I can't wait to buy some film and enjoy having some photography adventures real soon. I'd taken about a two week break from spending money on it, but I'm feeling the itch again... It's almost pay day. I'm so glad I picked up this new film hobby - it's been really fun and life-giving for me. And I need to continually work on doing purposefully life-giving things.
Colorado circa 1901. "Ouray from Blow-out Canyon." 8x10 inch dry plate glass negative by William Henry Jackson, Detroit Publishing Co. (I also find this photo from that site really poignant and sad - sorry if that's weird. I feel like it's this really feeling picture of life when everything has fallen apart and your very last hope seems gone.)Omygoodness this photo is so precious! I've become slightly addicted to browsing flickr for inspiring film photography, and this one really caught my eye today. I looove the deep green, and that chair, and this kid - what a cutie!
(And come on Julie, doen't this make you want to have little bitty kiddos?)
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The Life-Giving Words of JesusThe two verses are John 6:63 and 68. The link between them is that both refer to the words of Jesus as life-giving. Verse 63: “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”
Then, after “many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him,”
Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, 69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:67-69)
No One Like Jesus
And for many of us, what keeps us from going to any of these is the same thing that kept Peter. Verse 68: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” In other words, we may not have all the problems solved—the problems of following Jesus and saying yes to his teaching and his Lordship and his saving work. He may confuse us at times, and baffle us with things he says, and provoke us, and offend us.
And yet, we say with Peter, “To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” No one ever spoke like you. No one every acted like you. No was ever so strong and meek, so tough and tender, so authoritative and gentle, so profound and simple, so powerful and so willing to be killed, so just and so willing to be treated unjustly, so worthy of honor and so willing to be dishonored, so deserving of immediate obedience and so patient with people like us, so able to answer every question and so willing to remain silent under abuse, so capable of coming down from the cross in flaming judgment, and so committed not to use that power.Come Back, Like the Prodigal Son
Where shall we go? There has never been anyone like you, Jesus. No one ever taught like you teach. No one ever loved like you love.
This is how thousands of people come to Christ. Not without tremendous struggles as they look around for a philosophy of life, a god, a world without God, a world without the sovereignty of God, a world with some kind of explanation that makes more sense of more things. And they come back, like the prodigal son, and say, “Where shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
Today I developed 7 rolls of film. As I've begun hoarding film cameras and venturing out more with them, I've been thinking about how (obviously) film involves some type of patience that digital does not. Especially w/ these plastic lensed toy cams, you just don't know what you're going to get, and that's part of the beauty. In life, for me patience usually seems overrated, but today I was reminded (in an everyday way) that waiting is a good thing. I took this picture almost two weeks ago during a super fun lunch break, and had only a hope that it might turn out well. Today when I popped my cd of new pictures in and saw this, I was just so... happy. Something there just makes me lift my shoulders up and in, and sigh, and... relax. Rest. Open up.
