Cat memes are fun any time of the year, but there’s something special about cats and Christmas ornaments …
At our house, we somewhat solve the problem of cats vs. holiday decor by placing our little tree up on a table in our sunroom and tying the ornaments to the tree. But it’s still possible to find a stray cat toy (oops, I mean ornament) on the floor from time to time.
Cats will be cats, after all. And even at their orneriest, they still love having a lap to sit on.
What’s there to do on a sunny 70-degree day in November, besides grab a camera and go to the park?
While a hard freeze wilted all the flowers about a week ago, the leaves have only gotten more vibrant and colorful. The prairie grasses and hydrangea blossoms remain pretty, even as they look more like the dried flowers one would put in a centerpiece. Here in central Illinois, many of the ducks and geese stick around for the winter.
Praise be to God for gorgeous November days!
Thirty-eight years ago today, I married my best friend.
We met at work, where I plotted to make sure my cute new colleague’s desk was placed next to mine. The scheme worked. Before long, we were doing lunch together, then hanging out after work, then introducing each other to our respective families. Besides being handsome, he was charming and witty. I was smitten.
When we vowed to take each other for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, we embarked on a journey. And what an amazing journey it’s been!
Pete and I have been lucky to experience lots of the “better” over the years – good times with wonderful friends, successful careers, a beautiful home, amazing vacations. We’ve also weathered our share of the “worse” – workplace drama, health problems, the loss of loved ones – and survived stronger than ever.
In our early days we were “poorer than church mice,” as the saying goes. Since we both worked for small faith-based not-for-profit organizations, we were fond of joking, “Actually, we are church mice!” But while we were never filthy rich, we’ve always had enough.
Like a gazillion other couples before us, Pete and I chose 1 Corinthians 13 as a reading for our wedding. And the more anniversaries we’ve celebrated, the more I’ve come to appreciate the standards this Biblical passage sets for the kind of love that makes a marriage last.
Love is patient. Pete’s taste in clothes and home decor is strictly “plain vanilla,” while mine tends toward “hot fudge sundae with a cherry on top.” I love carrots and beets, but detest peas and green beans. Pete thinks peas and green beans are at least okay, but would eat beets only if truly starving. And has anyone ever noticed how compulsive neatniks inevitably wind up with people whose standard of neatness is decidedly more … um … casual? At some point, we figured out these differences were not about right or wrong, but were simply preferences. The way to work out differing preferences was through compromise. And compromise, as we’ve learned over the years, takes considerable patience.
Love is kind. I first fell in love with the man who would go considerably out of his way to give me a ride to work when my car broke down. (I was driving a real lemon in those days, so it was always breaking down.) Little kindnesses have continued to be part of his charm. I still adore the man who serenades me with his dulcimer or harmonica when I’m doing morning meditation in front of the fireplace.
Love does not envy. Pete and I do have a bit of a competitive streak. We’ve been known to laugh as we sing to each other, “Anything you can do, I can do better!” And I’ve always suspected he was secretly charmed by the fact that I wasn’t the kind of girl to let the boys win at checkers. But underneath the friendly competition, we have always supported each other’s career choices. We take genuine pride in each other’s accomplishments.
Love does not boast. If there is one thing our marriage journey has taught us, it’s humility. Part of humility means that sometimes we must give up our insistence that our own way is the only right way to resolve a contentious issue. In fact, there have been times we needed to s-t-r-e-t-c-h our thinking enough to acknowledge that the other person might have a point.
Love does not dishonor others. From the time my sibs and I were old enough to date, our mother warned us to watch how a prospective partner treats other people besides us. Why? Because that’s how this person is going to treat us once the newness wears off the romance. Fortunately, one of the things that impressed me most about my sweetie was how much of a gentleman he was. He has always been unfailingly polite, diplomatic and respectful in his interactions with others, no matter who they are.
Love does not insist on its own way. During a required prenuptial counseling session, the minister who officiated at our wedding said, “I always tell young people they’ll need to compromise more than they’re used to doing.” He turned to his wife of 60 years. “One of the things I learned to do early on was say, ‘yes, dear.’ Isn’t that right?” His wife promptly replied, “Yes, dear.” To this day, Pete and I chuckle at the memory, and have been known to say to each other quite often, “Yes, dear.”
Love is not easily angered. This can be a hard one at times, since we both have a bit of a temper. When I hear a couple claim they never fight, I suspect one of two things is true. Either someone is not being quite honest about their genuine needs, or they’ve been together long enough to work through most of their differences. Luckily, over many years, we’ve gotten pretty good at not pushing each other’s buttons – at least not too hard.
Love keeps no record of wrongs. If we must “have it out” occasionally, we try to avoid “kitchen sink fighting.” (A tactic where one brings up everything, including the kitchen sink, during an argument – as in, “Whose turn is it to do the dishes, anyway?”) And forgiveness is mandatory. Few things sink a relationship faster than holding a grudge. Ephesians 4:26 reminds us, “Don’t let the sun set on your anger.”
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth. While we may disagree from time to time about politics, standards of neatness, or which vegetables are tasty and which ones are gross, we thankfully agree on the important things. We’ve shared similar values from the beginning on everything from moral issues to priorities in life to the importance of giving back to the community.
Love always protects. One nice thing about being married to one’s best friend is that we can be relied on to have each other’s back. Pete likes to call me his therapy skunk, and he’s taken his turn playing that role for me as well. As the designated therapy skunk, our job is to accompany each other to doctor appointments, where we provide emotional support, ask the hard questions and insist that medical people take our needs seriously.
Love always trusts. I must admit, trust came a bit hard for both of us at first. We had each been hurt in prior romantic or family-of-origin relationships I can only call “challenging.” We each had to learn not to punish the other for someone else’s failings. I was not the overly demanding parent, and Pete was not the ex with the roving eye.
Love always hopes. Over the past year, Pete and I have both faced life-threatening health conditions. While we’ve gotten amazing support from family, friends and our spiritual community, possibly the one biggest thing we’ve needed is hope. For hope to happen, we’ve had to lean on a health care team we can trust, and more importantly, we’ve had to lean on and trust God to get us through.
Love always perseveres. It’s fairly easy to make a marriage work when we’re experiencing the “better” and the “richer” and the “in health” part of our wedding vows. It’s when we experience the “worse” – the sickness, the loss of loved ones, the COVID pandemic with all its stressors –that the rubber hits the road in a relationship. If the challenges of the past few years have done nothing else, they’ve convinced us of this: We’re an unbeatable team.
Love never fails. One can often hear couples say they love each other more after decades of marriage than they did when they first got together. That’s certainly true for me. After having been through both the “better” and the “worse” together, my love for this amazing man just gets stronger every day. I don’t think I truly understood real love when I was a starry-eyed twenty-something. Of course, I remember with fondness the heady infatuation I felt in the early days of our courtship. But real love? For me, anyway, that’s come with age and maturity. The initial idealization has become a deep connection built on trust, understanding, and a long history of shared experiences. Or, as Pete and I like to say, we had an office romance that grew up.
After 38 years of marriage, Pete is still at the very top of my gratitude list. He’s kind, generous, decent and caring, my best friend, the wind beneath my wings, proof positive that there are good men, and the best thing that ever happened to me. I love that man to the moon and back, and I truly consider him to be a gift from a kind and loving God.
And I pray every day for God to please watch over us and take care of us, because I want us to have many more years together!
For several years now, my number one priority has been to develop a better understanding of God, so I can fulfill God’s purpose for my life, discern what my core values should be and live accordingly. As I have sought to improve my relationship with God, a key part of my spiritual direction journey has involved exploring prayer.
My Bible study has yielded an abundance of models for how to pray – Matthew 6:9-16 gives us the Lord’s prayer, of course, and the Psalms provide dozens of other examples. At church, I’m invited to join the congregation in liturgical prayer. My 12-step groups introduced me to the Serenity Prayer, and my parents and grandparents taught me still others, from table grace to my favorite childhood bedtime prayer.
My first spiritual director was fond of pointing out that prayer is – quite simply – a conversation with God, and there is an almost infinite variety of ways to pray. We can offer up confessional prayers and liturgical prayers, prayers of intercession and prayers of thanksgiving, foxhole prayers and prayers of lament, nature prayer and even crowd-sourced prayers.
Types of prayer
Here are several types of prayer that I’ve personally engaged in.
Some prayer techniques worth trying
There are also several techniques designed to facilitate prayer that I’ve personally found helpful – some of them suggested by my spiritual directors and some that I’ve employed for nearly as long as I can remember:
I’ve used some of these prayers and techniques off and on for years, while others have been added to my repertoire more recently. I’d like to commit to doing them all on a more regular, disciplined basis as I continue my spiritual journey.
For a while now, my husband and I have been facing a series of personal crises that have left us only half-jokingly pondering whether the Biblical Book of Job was written especially for us. A cancer diagnosis. A heart attack. The deaths of multiple loved ones over a very short period of time. In the middle of all this, a pandemic with restrictions that felt like a prison sentence in solitary confinement. And we’ve been asking ourselves, “How do we get through this ‘midnight of the soul’ with our lives, our relationships, and our faith intact?”
When we sought professional counseling to help us process all this – a wise decision, I now believe – I sent a warning shot across the bow to Robin, our therapist: No toxic positivity, please. I wanted at least one place where I didn’t have to say “fine” when asked how I was doing. After all, anyone who attends 12-Step meetings knows what “fine” really means, right? (Clean version: A Frazzled, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional mess.) What I needed, I told Robin, was a place where I could say, “I’m scared. I’m overwhelmed. I’m exhausted.” And not be judged.
Far from being a sign of “adjustment disorder” – or any other pathologizing label insurance companies want mental health professionals to paste on people as a condition for covering the cost of therapy sessions – my attitude going into counseling may be entirely healthy, according to both secular and spiritual experts.
What is toxic positivity?
Toxic positivity is the demand that we project a relentlessly upbeat attitude regardless of our actual feelings and circumstances, says Miami-based psychotherapist Whitney Goodman. “Every day we’re bombarded with pressure to be positive,” she explains in her book Toxic Positivity: Keeping it Real in a World Obsessed with Being Happy. “Even faced with illness, loss, breakups, and other challenges, there’s little space for talking about our real feelings – and processing them so that we can feel better and move forward.”
Before I go further, let me emphasize that I’m not suggesting all positivity is wrong. I certainly am grateful for the get-well wishes and prayers, the delicious meals people have sent to our house when we didn’t feel like cooking, the many offers to assist with transportation and other needs, the cat photos and baby goat videos and bad puns posted to our Facebook pages, and the many other things our wonderful family members and friends have done to help us feel supported as we’ve moved through our recent crises. However, it is quite possible to experience “positive” emotions such as gratitude and “negative” emotions such as grief simultaneously. For example, when I’ve lost loved ones, I’ve felt both gratitude for their lives and grief over their loss. At the same time.
According to Goodman, positivity becomes toxic when someone seeks support, validation or compassion during trying times and is met instead with a platitude or a lecture, or is shamed for not being happy or positive enough.
Toxic positivity may be well-intentioned but often ends up feeling dismissive, she says. We may think we’re being supportive by offering platitudes such as “this too shall pass” when a friend is going through a difficult time. But in reality, we may be invalidating their experience by subtly suggesting that their feelings are somehow wrong. At worst, our good-vibes-only culture encourages emotional suppression and shames us for being too negative: You’re not the only one who has problems. Focus on the good things in your life and be grateful. It could be worse. Suck it up, buttercup. Spare us the pity party. Get over it already.
Toxic positivity too often has the effect of gaslighting people who have legitimate feelings or concerns, and may seem to imply that everything bad in their lives is their own fault, Goodman adds. Whether our goal is to help people feel better or to shame them, we tend to use platitudes and lectures as a conversation stopper. Always appearing positive and carefree allows us to deny our reality or the other person’s, rationalize unacceptable situations, or avoid taking responsibility, and can instantly shut down uncomfortable dialogue.
I suspect toxic positivity may be one of the drivers behind the nastiness of our current culture wars. In our day-to-day conversations, how long can we discuss news stories about tragedies such as floods or earthquakes, let alone “political” issues such as racism or gun violence, before someone subtly or not-so-subtly encourages us to change the subject? And while our society allows us few acceptable outlets for the legitimate expression of suffering and anguish, there is one negative emotion that is not only accepted but celebrated: Self-righteous outrage. We are allowed to call people names, hurl insults and assassinate each other’s character, but heaven forbid we break down and cry when we are grieving.
Putting on our ‘church face’
Unfortunately, even our churches – at least in the U.S. – often don’t do much better with strong “negative” emotions, according to Methodist pastor Abby Norman. “In church,” she says in the book Yes You Can Talk to God Like That, “we slap a smile on and wear the mask I have heard called ‘church face.’ As in, ‘I was crying in the parking lot, but I put my church face on and walked into the foyer and told everyone I was fine.’ Somehow, we’ve decided that church is where everyone is supposed to be OK, fine, great! We are afraid our church family can’t handle our sorrows.”
Church people can be nearly as uncomfortable with suffering and anguish as secular folks are, so we may also discourage overt expressions of strong emotions. The result? At church, we often get to hear still more dreadful lectures and platitudes: God is good, all the time! Everything happens for a reason. You mustn’t question God’s will. God won’t give you more than you can handle. If we fail to keep our “church face” properly pasted on at all times, it may be implied that we lack enough faith to trust God appropriately.
Some folks suggest that even our private prayers should reflect a good-vibes-only attitude. Prayers of praise and thanksgiving only, we may be told. If we ask for anything, we must only ask for knowledge of God’s will for us. Heaven forbid that we ask for something selfish, or admit to God that we’re afraid or angry. “Perhaps we’re afraid even God can’t handle the hardest stuff in our lives,” Norman laments.
This, she believes, is pretty unhealthy. “Imagine going to see your doctor, but instead of explaining what is wrong with you, you immediately tell the doctor you are fine or that it isn’t that bad,” she explains. “Why even bother going? Coming to God and to the greater body of Christ as though everything is fine when it is not fine is exactly what we do at church. Then we wonder why church doesn’t feel good or why we can’t heal.”
An antidote from the Bible
Fortunately, the Bible offers a healthy antidote to toxic positivity: Lament.
According to Norman, lament takes up a surprising amount of space in Scripture. “People giving God the what-for, while not taught in Sunday School, is actually almost a third of the Bible,” she points out. “When categorizing the Psalms, experts say that 40 percent of them are psalms of lament.”
Indeed, the Book of Psalms brims with prayers about pain, anguish, fear and grief. Take passages like Psalm 6:6:
I am weary with my moaning;
every night I flood my bed with tears;
I drench my couch with my weeping.
David certainly spews out some honest feelings in Psalm 22:14-15:
I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart has turned to wax;
it has melted within me.
My mouth is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
you lay me in the dust of death.
In fact, Psalm 22 continues in this vein for 21 verses before turning to expressions of faith that God will deliver him from harm.
Additional examples of Biblical lament abound:
In other words, Job and David and even Jesus were willing to talk to God in ways many of us can’t quite manage, and none of them were struck by lightning as a result.
Lament can be healthy
“Lament allows us to fully face and name our pain,” says longtime Bible Project Blog contributor Whitney Woollard. “It creates space for future resolution and hope without glossing over our trauma.”
In a post titled “Lamentations: The Volatile Voice of Grief” (link HERE), Woollard explains that lament “gives us permission to protest life’s difficulties, to scream, cry, vent, plead, and complain in the presence of God and others. It lets us ask the hard questions without condemnation: Why did this have to happen? How could you allow it? Where are you in the midst of it? It allows weeping without explanation. It might be messy and uncomfortable.”
By the way, God is quite capable of handling our negative feelings, including our anger, according to Jesuit priest Jim McDermott. “Most of us were taught being angry at God was taboo, at least a sin and at worst ‘duck your head because the lightning is coming’ dangerous,” he says in a recent blog post (link HERE). “But we have known hard times, some of us very hard times, or we have witnessed people we love ravaged by disease or addiction in ways that just seem cruel or malicious. It’s only natural in those moments to turn to God, who we hear over and over at church is here for us, loves us, walks with us, and ask, ‘Well? How about it? Where are you now that we actually need you?’”
Woollard believes we could benefit from including elements of lament in both our individual and congregational lives.
“Incorporating prayers of lament into a Christian worship service or small gathering is a way to give voice to hurting believers,” says Woollard. “It says, ‘We see you and we grieve alongside you.’ In a global village where disasters, wars, shootings, and famines are brought before our eyes daily, it’s natural that we should weep with one another by sharing in the God-given language of lament and crying out ‘How? Why?’ alongside them. Lament then, is a powerful practice that gives voice to our grief and initiates the healing process.”
On an individual level, “if you feel alone, forsaken, or abandoned by God, give honest expression to those feelings,” Woollard suggests. “If you’re exhausted by life’s blows, having lost all endurance or the will to go on, tell it to God. Really. The Bible wants you to do this.”
If we can trust God to handle our anger and our sadness, we can avoid using these emotions to damage other people or ourselves by bringing them into our prayers, says Kaya Oakes, a contributing writer for America magazine (link HERE). “Yes, you’re angry,” she points out. “Yes, you’re sad. God is present to us in those states of emotional turmoil, too. But God isn’t asking us to move on or let go; like a trusted friend or a good therapist, God simply receives our sorrow and desolation, and gives it a place to go.”
We need not edit our prayers
In other words, we need not edit ourselves when praying, but can be as brutally honest as we need to be when life gets painful. “As in any meaningful relationship, sometimes taking the risk of saying what you actually think and feel is itself the path out of the desert,” says McDermott. “What is shared is no longer carried alone; in fact, it’s often released.”
Woollard concurs. “If you’re not used to this kind of raw honesty in God’s presence, it might seem scary at first. That’s okay. Just know that lament isn’t irreverent; it’s biblical. Going to God in your grief is an act of faith all on its own.”
This all sounds very reassuring to me because I must confess that, during a crisis, most of my prayers tend to be of the foxhole variety:
Dear God, please get us out of this jam. Help!
One time, while I drove to the emergency room in the wee hours of the morning – for the fourth time in two weeks – I just plain screamed:
DEAR GOD, MAKE IT STOP!!!!!!!!!
My prayers have also sounded a lot like lament on numerous occasions:
Dear God, I’m tired of cancer. I’m tired of heart problems. I’m tired of arthritis pain everywhere that’s so bad I can’t sleep. I’m tired of test results with nasty surprises. I’m tired of fighting with insurance companies every single time a doctor changes one of our medications. I’m tired of doctors who don’t want to communicate and collaborate because of turf issues. I’m tired. I’m tired. I’m tired.
So, here’s another heartfelt prayer.
Dear God: To be perfectly honest, I’m scared. I’m overwhelmed. I’m exhausted. Thank-you for listening. Amen.
Every year in August, we get to celebrate International Cat Day – established in 2002 by the International Fund for Animal Welfare to promote caring for and protecting the rights of our feline friends.
But if you ask my little Champie Cat, he would say we should make the whole month of August Cat Month. Or better yet, make every day of the year Cat Day.
Of course, several of my Facebook and blogger friends used the occasion last week to share photos of their own adorable fur babies.
Then there were the inevitable cat memes. Tons of them. And there’s always room in my day for more cat memes, because … well, who can resist the indignant look on a little cat’s face when he discovers a possum stealing his food?
So, in the interest of extending the celebration of kitties for a few more days, here are several of my favorite memes.
As for the last meme in this post? Yep, I’m one of those people. Anytime I leave the house, I tell my sweet Champie that I love him and I let him know when I’ll be back.
In my last post, I wrote that I’ve come to consider photography as a form of prayer, because of the way it encourages appreciation for God’s creation. This idea was first suggested to me by Howard Zehr, author of The Little Book of Contemplative Photography.
Zehr offers several exercises in which he encourages us to put aside any specific goals we might have for a photo session and simply pay attention to what presents itself. I really like that approach. One thing my own photo sessions have taught me is to pay attention. To notice.
Most of my best photos over the years have not been the carefully choreographed panoramic views of tourist attractions taken on vacations or the posed “grip-and-grin” shots taken at family gatherings. Instead, unexpected photo opportunities presented themselves and beckoned me to pay attention or miss out. I like to think of them as “God’s photo opportunities.”
Below are a dozen of my favorite examples.
While on vacation in Ireland, Pete and I trained our cameras on stunning emerald-green scenery, entire fields of furze, notable landmarks and castles galore. I almost failed to notice the pigeons populating the sidewalks of Dublin. This one seemed to say, “Hey, look at me!”
Likewise, Jerusalem offered a gazillion holy sites for everyone to dutifully photograph for the folks back home. But how could one possibly ignore His Majesty, the Cat? People in that part of the world seemed to like their cats, by the way. As we toured the Holy Land, we spotted several cat colonies among the tourist attractions, and the feral kitties always appeared healthy and well-fed.
Of course, some of God’s best photo opportunities have landed right in our own backyard. Small mammals may not be so glad to see this guy, but Pete and I think our resident hawk is magnificent! Pete likes to joke that we’ve provided a nice backyard deli for him by attracting all the other critters. I don’t like to think about that part. I just notice – and admire – the hawk.
In a project I like to think of as “God’s work, our hands,” Pete and I have been growing milkweed in our backyard for several years in an effort to protect the dwindling monarch butterfly population. It took nearly two years for the monarchs to find our plants, and we were beginning to wonder if they would ever show up. Then finally one day, I was SO excited to notice this little guy.
This busy little bee was so absorbed sipping nectar from one of my milkweed plants, he didn’t even notice me – which gave my camera ample opportunity to notice him and zoom in before he flitted to the next flower. He looked so cute and fuzzy that part of me wanted to reach out and pet him gently with my finger like one would do with a furry caterpillar, but the much-wiser part of me was content to admire him from a distance with my camera lens while he did God’s work of feeding the world by keeping everything pollinated.
Is this dragonfly magnificent or not?? I spotted him while walking through an outdoor labyrinth at Jubilee Farm – a little piece of Eden established by our community’s Dominican Sisters as a center for ecology and spirituality. Fortunately the labyrinth’s design invited me to spend as much time looking down as looking around, and I had my camera with me to capture this little beauty.
I used to get so frustrated with the squirrels in our backyard because they wouldn’t stay out of the bird feeders, and I tried everything I could think of to thwart the furry little trespassers. Finally I decided to enjoy the squirrels instead of fighting them. After all, I’m pretty sure our bushy-tailed buddies never got the memo that all the enticing delicacies were for birds and not for them. So these days I entertain myself by taking full advantage whenever God presents them to me for a photo opportunity.
We’ve traded in our neatly manicured lawn for a wildflower meadow since we stopped using chemicals of any kind in our yard. (Don’t worry, we do mow the lawn. But we don’t try to keep out the “weeds.”) Now the grass is interspersed with violets, white clover, dandelions and assorted small wildflowers that provide both nectar and pollen for our pollinators. This cute chipmunk inserted himself into the middle of things while I was photographing the wildflowers, and seemed to like our new lawn as much as the bees and butterflies do.
We all know how dark and depressing things can seem in the middle of winter. But one morning, in the midst of a bleak midwinter backyard scene, I spotted this brilliant flash of red.
I just love snowdrops! As soon as I notice these popping up out of the ground, I know that a long hard winter is coming to an end and spring is on its way.
For years, a gorgeous Rose of Sharon bush sat on the front corner of our house. From midsummer until the first frost, this lovely little show-off greeted me with hundreds of blossoms each time I pulled into the driveway. Its abundant profusion of blooms seemed to shout, “Glory to God!” The bees and the hummingbirds loved it. Then, a couple of years ago, an unusually harsh winter killed it. I’m so glad I was inspired the previous fall to pause my busy schedule long enough to take these photos of the bush and of a single perfect Rose of Sharon blossom.
When it comes to paying attention, my little Champie Cat reminds me to do this constantly. His whole personality seems to call out, “Notice me! Notice me!” And my camera loves him almost as much as I do. But he doesn’t stay in one place for long, so I need to be quick. He loves to turn pillows into cat beds and this is one of my all-time favorite photos – I like to call it “the Prince and the Pea.”
One thing I’ve learned about God’s photo opportunities is that – unlike tourist attractions or neatly lined-up groups of people – none of them are “posed.” They just appear, often when least expected – photobombing a scenic view of Jerusalem or swooping into my backyard or howling at me from the bedroom to get my attention. To capture them, I must pull myself away from my screens and my busy schedule long enough to notice. Or risk missing out.
Note: I’m taking a short break from writing in July to focus on some pressing personal priorities, so for this month, I’m reposting some of my favorite blog pieces from earlier days when I only had a few people following my blog. This was first posted in September 2020.
Can photography be a form of prayer? Howard Zehr, author of The Little Book of Contemplative Photography, thinks so.
Photography can serve as a medium for reflection and meditation, and encourages mindfulness, he says. “By slowing down to reflect and meditate, by heightening our visual awareness and our imaginations, by cultivating receptivity and a more holistic way of knowing, we can renew ourselves while gaining new insights into ourselves, the creation, and the Creator.”
Some photographic subjects present themselves in an obvious way. An amazing sunrise practically screams, “Quick! Grab your camera.”
As do the brilliant fall colors in this park scene.
However, mindfulness is also about “being aware of and appreciating the ordinary, of being open to beauty and insights in the commonplace,” Zehr says.
For example, who knew that chives going to seed could be so pretty?
“We often overlook things that we experience as ordinary or everyday,” Zehr says. “We tend to make preconceived judgments about what is worth looking at or photographing, valuing the ‘picturesque’ or ‘spectacular’ and failing to recognize many of the visual possibilities around us.”
How about a coneflower blossom?
Throughout his little book, Zehr gives us exercises designed to increase our awareness of the visual richness of ordinary objects and scenes. One exercise: Set out to photograph without a specific subject in mind, remaining open to whatever seems to present itself.
Like a leaf that has floated to the ground.
A pair of acorns.
Or a single perfect rose.
“To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place,” Zehr says. “I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.”
Like bright red berries against a deep blue sky.
Or a starkly bare tree with a cloudy sky shortly before sunset serving as a backdrop.
“Ordinary things, when really seen, make extraordinary photos,” Zehr says. “Such photos seem to make themselves. They seem like presents that were given.”
I snapped this photo of icicles dripping from a twig on a bush next to my porch.
These fall leaves still flashed their brilliant colors as they peeked out from under a very early snowfall.
“One must always take photographs with the greatest respect for the subject and for oneself,” Zehr says.
Of course, one can’t help but respect this goose walking straight toward me in the park, who just begged to be noticed … and photographed.
“A contemplative approach to photography is an expression of wonder grounded in respect and humility,” he says. “As such, it calls us to live in right relationship with our Creator, the creation, and our fellow human beings.”
An attitude of wonder “requires that we look anew at the familiar, that we stop taking the world around us for granted,” he adds. “An attitude of wonder is essential if we are truly to experience the creation and the Creator.”
Note: I’m taking a short break from writing in July to focus on some pressing personal priorities, so for this month, I will re-post some of my favorite blog pieces from earlier days when I only had a few people following my blog. This was first posted in June 2019.
Martin Luther is said to have observed, “God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars.”
Tertullian is quoted by Galileo (link HERE) as saying, “We conclude that God is known first through Nature, and then again, more particularly, by doctrine; by Nature in His works, and by doctrine in His revealed word.”
In other words, one can think of nature as God’s “other book.”
Regardless of the weather, I like to start my day by feeding the birds (and squirrels) while my morning coffee brews. During the growing season I tend several veggie, herb and flower beds. On warm sunny days, I take walks along an amazing tree-lined bike trail that runs beside a creek near our house. Sometimes I grab my camera and visit a neighborhood park.
Whether I’m feeding the critters, admiring the flowers in our backyard, snapping photos of flora and fauna at the park or strolling along the bike path, experiencing God’s creation with all my senses ranks as one of my favorite activities. Not to mention one of my most effective forms of relaxation and stress relief. (It sure beats arguing with complete strangers about politics on Facebook.)
Immersing myself in nature’s majesty continually reminds me there is an ultimate Creator. As I’ve said before, I find it almost impossible to deny God’s existence when I’m outdoors with the evidence all around me. So, to ward off those nagging doubts that surface from time to time, I try to get outside as much as possible and engage in what has become my most potent form of prayer: Nature prayer.
According to the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest, author and editor-at-large of America magazine (link HERE), nature prayer is simply being “attentive to the presence of God in nature.”
For me, this form of prayer doesn’t even necessarily need words. Just looking at the vibrant colors of spring blossoms and fall leaves. Listening to birds singing and cicadas humming. Drinking in the scent of lilacs. Feeling a gentle breeze against my face. Tasting the sweetness of a vine-ripened strawberry.
I’m aware some Christians eye nature prayer with suspicion. Isn’t it too “New Agey?” Too “pagan?” Aren’t we worshipping creation instead of the Creator? Resistance to nature prayer has always baffled me, frankly, because the Bible itself is chock full of passages that extole nature and invite us to immerse ourselves in it, appreciate it and learn from it.
Psalm 19:1 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”
Luke 12:27 says, “Consider the lilies, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.”
Being in nature not only brings us close to God, but can restore us physically and spiritually. The opening verses of the 23rd Psalm affirm, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul.”
Psalm 104:24 exclaims, “O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.” In fact, Psalm 104 in its entirety presents one long ode to the natural world – mountains that smoke, melodious birds, wine that gladdens the heart, trees and streams that protect and feed wildlife of all kinds.
Even Jesus found nature conducive to prayer and meditation. After a long day of healing, teaching and preaching to crowds, “he withdrew himself into the wilderness and prayed,” says Luke 5:16.
For those interested in pursuing nature prayer from a Christian perspective, the Web site Busted Halo (link HERE) offers suggestions for an “outdoor retreat.” Designed to “deepen our relationship with God and nature,” this retreat has three parts, each involving prayer and reflection – seeing God, listening to God, and breathing in God. To access the retreat guide, click HERE.
As I engage in nature prayer, I sense God speaking to me every bit as directly as God speaks to me while I’m in church or reading the Bible.
When I watch a brilliant sunset dance along the tops of rioting fall leaves, I sense that God loves beauty.
When I watch a hummingbird flit from blossom to blossom sipping nectar while its tiny wings flap 70 times per second, I sense that God wants to inspire awe.
When I observe the more than three dozen varieties of flowers just in my own backyard, I sense that God prefers diversity.
When jonquils poke up through snow, I sense that God encourages us to feel hope. No matter how cold, dark and bleak life may seem, spring will come eventually.
Most importantly, when I’m immersing myself in nature, I understand at the deepest level that we are meant to appreciate and care for God’s creation. Because nature is part of God’s creation and a gift to us, we have an obligation to protect and preserve it.
My husband and I finally seem to be turning a corner. I hope!!
Slowly but surely, my Sweetie Petey continues to make progress in his recovery from the complicated cancer surgery he had in April and the three months of chemo he had prior to the surgery. He’s eating better and starting to move around with a little less difficulty, thanks to regular visits from the physical and occupational therapists sent to our house by our fabulous home health care team.
As for me, the exercise portion of my cardiac rehab program continues to remind me that I need to get into much better shape. I’ve discovered muscle groups where I’d forgotten I have muscle groups. Ouch. I’m getting some pretty good nutritional advice as well, and educational sessions on how to live with a heart condition.
We’ve both greatly appreciated all the many prayers we’ve gotten as we travel through this uncharted and often frightening and frustrating territory. ❤ Do keep the prayers coming. ❤
Meanwhile, Facebook friends have been cheering us up with some truly awful puns. I must share!
Okay. We’ll get back to our healthy eating and exercise program. Cheers!
Seriously Seeking Answers 