Here a Cuppa...There a Cuppa

An assignment from Day 46 of Beyond Layers.  We were challenged to show off some of our favorite "cups" or "cuppas" through photographs...or if you did not own any, take some photos of cups in shops or displays.  These were my choices:

• A brightly-colored super summer flowerd "cuppa"
• A pastel pink "cuppa" with soft white polka dots
• A summery flowered "cuppa" with fun colors
• A green "cuppa" with leaves as the motif

What a fun project honing skills on setting up stills and creating beauty from something common.  By the way, I got all of my mugs from TJMaxx for a song!  Now that's a cuppa!

With gratitude,

Why? (Why DO I blog?)

Another assignment from my class with Kim and Xanthe.  We were asked to reflect and answer the question, "Why do I blog?" (Not to be confused as the same questions as How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.)

A flurry of reasons fly into my head, so rather than elaborate in detail, I will list them here in no particular order.

• To purposefully focus on the gifts bestowed on me daily because of God's mercy and share it with others
• To be heard and be known
• To create a place of solace and serenity in the chaotic storm of our society
• To relish in the passions of my life:  faith, photography, creativity, contemplative life, and family
• To commune with others who crave for other creative souls who march to the beat of a different drummer
• To leave behind a legacy to my children and grandchildren
• To glorify God
• And a bunch of other reasons that will come to me when I'm in the shower <smile>

With gratitude,

Behind the Scenes - Reflection of You

Gifts abound!!!!!  An amazing surprise occurred through Kim Klassen's e-c0urse Beyond Layers...and a brand spanking new course by Kim and Xanthe inspirational e-course on blogging!  Starting on June 26, the class, Behind the Scenes - Reflection of You, began.  And now I am ready to share!!!

So, how did I get to this point...to wanting to share my self, my journey, my faith, and my photography publicly on a blog and spend money on an e-course, to boot?  This is the timeline of my creative journey that brought me to this point:



I had no idea when I bought my first DSLR as a "congratulations" gift to myself for getting my dream job that it would be a ticket to an incredible journey.  Two months' after starting my "dream job," my father was diagnosed with glioblastoma, for which there is no cure, and died six months later...the day before my wedding...which I had planned to be a bigger affair so folks could see my father one last time.  Suffice it to say, I was in a world of hurt in grief, losing my dad...who had been available every day of my life, who was my connection to my mother, and who was always strong and never vulnerable.

By next summer, I picked up that DSLR and decided I would learn to use it beyond point and shoot.  Well, the bug bit!  And just to make it bite even harder...I joined Flickr!  Wow...what a wonderful community of photographers and creative artists!  Inspiration deluxe...  I started seeing some wonderful "art"-like photos...using textures... Note to self:  must investigate.  After experimenting with some freebies...and looking at others' work...a name kept surfacing..."Kim Klassen."  So...I checked her out.

I've always been creative...drawing stick figures at 18 months and able to draw Fred and Wilma Flintstone in Kindergarten (in 1962...wow).  Able to write stories and poems...evolved into fashion sewing...quilting...needlework...home decorating...but as a young adult, I had to focus on what would make a living.  Okay...back to the timeline...I digress.

I could feel myself beginning to change with every click of my camera...seeing things I had never seen, because I did not stop to see...I had never taken the time to look...and with this focus, a sense of healing began to take place.

I signed up for Texture Tuesday (free textures to play with!) and then took some free tutorials.  I invested some cash to take The Essentials to get a more structured approach to learning Photoshop (although I had learned SO much already on my own).  But still, although my photographic journey was expanding my creative self and bringing about a healing, there was still something lacking.

Since my father died, I had what in my mental health profession speak of as attenuation of affect...I did not feel bad - I did not feel good - I felt nothing.  Life had lost its zing!!  Other than my photography, I had lost my passion for everything.



While on vacation October 2011, the second anniversary of my father's death, I discovered a treasure and a new way of living in Ann Voskamp's book "One Thousand Gifts".

Though I had accepted Christ and have followed Him for 30 years, I was definitely in a dry desert of grief during the past two.  I read Ann's book aloud each day to my wonderful husband.  You'll have to read the book for yourself to fully understand...but the concept is to focus on the incredibly amazing gifts God gives us every day...that we fail to see because we fail to look!  And my ongoing quest to live a life of gratitude began and it has been transforming!

The combination of using my camera "to see" and to look for God's gifts to capture...was the recipe necessary to heal.  And I could not keep quiet about it.  I wanted to share it with everyone.

After weeks returning from our trip, a new e-course was announced, Beyond Layers - A Year of Art Full inspiration.  This was more than about photography or techniques, although that has been a part of it; it has focused on inspiration, on our creative life, and on our inner life, embracing the way God has made us.  And I am only at the halfway point...it's exciting to anticipate where the next six months takes me.

Now, I felt ready to "put myself out there" and start a blog combining God's gifts, my photography, my life, and all that God shows me day after day.  And then another announcement as mentioned earlier...a class with many others around the world like me ...which brings me to here.

From that day in Best Buy selecting my congratulatory Nikon DSLR to now...I see the hand of God gently guiding and gifting through it all...including the dark, dry, desert days and can proclaim that truly All is Grace!

With gratitude,

A Week of Quotes and Words - Day Four

Today's word from Kim Klassen's e-Course was focus.


She was like a camera chronically out of focus until someone came by and twisted the lenses into alignment.

-Deborah Harness

While this quote seems to be about focus, it is also about properly aligned priorities.  I wanted to capitalize the word "someone," as it was Someone who aligned things in my life so my perspective was corrrected.  As the great John Newton hymn says, "I was blind but now I see."  And when things start to blur, I know things are getting out of alignment once again, and that Someone becomes my focus and things miraculously line up again.  Beth Moore says, "Worship is focus."  And so when I am able to worship, I am able to focus, and I'm able to say Eucharisteo, and even though I may not see the ending or the final outcome, I am able to see His hand in all, knowing all has sifted through God's hands for my good and His glory.

But how do I get this alignment in check...where everything is in focus?  It can only come by spending time with Him, listening to His heart through His word, and allowing Him to do what He needs to do in me to be able to align me as is necessary.  The alignment process is often unpleasant.  This is my greatest area of failure, and when I am not doing it, it shows.  And as a result, the enemy gets a foothold and I can no longer see anything properly.  And, boy, does it show!!!!!

Again, my time spent with God cannot be seen as optional but a spiritual discipline.  At times, though it should seem as natural as breathing, it can feel like work.  The rewards, however, are worth it and cannot be quantified.



With gratitude,

A Week of Quotes and Words - Day Three

Our inspired word for day three  from Kim Klassen was the word "change."  The hardest thing for any person is change:  changing routine, changing environment, or changing themselves.  At the same time, if viewed as a gift, change can also represent opportunity.

Often change can come in the cloak of adversity and events that seem contraindicated by God's character of goodness, lovingkindness, mercy, and everlasting love.  Yet it is very clear in James that these elements of change and loss have a Divine purpose that comes from the deepest part of God's heart.

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials  of various kinds, for you know that  the testing of your faith  produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be  perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Most often it is not the major trials that trip me up, but the day-in and day-out annoyances and irritants that diffuse the Light and Hope in me that I so desire to reflect.  It is the same things that I mentioned in my previous post ...also things like changing offices to a different building outside of the hospital, stretched thin because of staff on leave, computer glitches as we transition to electronic medical records, and the scale up a pound or two, that blinds my eyes to the gifts that God is giving by way of "change" to make me more myself.  That is, more like Him.



And so through these things I am constantly reminded of my sin...how much I miss the mark...and how much I need to embrace the "change" as God's way of completing the work in me that He has promised to do (Phil. 1:6).

With gratitude,

A Week of Quotes and Words - Day Two

The inspired word for Day 2 was the word, "peace." That word conjours up a myriad of images and thoughts.  It brings to mind sights, sounds, places I've known, a state of being, and most of all, thoughts that either help or hinder peace in my life.

From the moment my feet hit the floor in the morning, it's off to the races in my work at the hospital.  I have more "to do's" than I can fit in a day with competing priorities.  And if I stayed until all was complete, I would never leave.  And another word comes to mind:  enough.  What is enough?

Then I came across this quote as I ponder the word "peace."



I am only responsible for what I can accomplish in the day and that must be enough, as long as I have done my best.  We are all given only 24 hours in a day and each are given varied responsibilities from God to accomplish what He brings our way.  No more, no less.  And He stands vigil while we rest in His peace to be renewed for the next day.

As I continued my contemplation of the word "peace," it saddened me to realize how little peace there is in our lives.  As for me, I am always conneccted - either by pager, by cell phone, by computer, by cable news, by ongoing stimulation.  I would not say that I am a loner, but I do know that I find the greatest peace in solitude.  Or is it that I need the solitude to maintain my peace?  Often when I take time to slow down, disconnect, and get off the merry-go-round of dailyness, I am able to see more clearly the gifts and mercies God has lavished on me multiple times each day.  The clamour and demands and distractions of every day (don't even get me started on polarized political discourse that abounds), oppress my spirit, knowing Jesus has modeled what I need to do as reflected in multiple places in the Gospels.  Jesus, the God Man, needed to withdraw to a solitary place to commune with His Father.  How much more do I, a fallible, imperfect soul, need to do this?  How can I see from His perspective, if I never take time out to look at Him?

Turn your eyes upon Jesus.  Look full in His wonderful face.  And the things of earth will go strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.

Without this discipline, peace will continue to elude and the din of life will continue to oppress.  And so I see the mercy, the gift, of being welcomed into the solitude of contemplation and time alone with the Lover of my soul.



With gratitude,

A Week of Quotes and Words - Day One

In my eCourse with Kim Klassen in her Beyond Layers - 52 Weeks of Artfulness class I started in January, we have been challenged this week to focus on one word for each day and pair it up with a quote and photo representing that word/theme.

I've always been drawn to meaningful quotes, prose, and poetry...writing them down in spiral notebooks with red felt pen as a teenager.  I have collected them, printed them on decorated computer paper, cut into little pieces, folded them and put them in a jar, with a ribbon on top as a gift to special people in my life.  This challenge was going to be a pleasure.

The first challenge word is "life."  Every Memorial Day, I take some extra time off to decorate the graves of my relatives/ancestors in West Virginia.  Someone years before had planted these lillies in front of my Great-Grandfather Powers' grave...so gorgeous, rich in color.  I sat on the ground in front of the headstone at bloom level at dusk with my camera lens drinking in all this beauty.  And how poignant to think on the word "life" as I sat on the grave of a loved one who died long before.

 I heard someone point out that "life, at best, is brief."  The years blur and run together and before I know it, I'm eligible to order from the Bob Evans' 55 and over menu!

There really is no dress rehearsal for life...and it goes by quickly.  Not a single day is guaranteed.  I think of Psalms 90:12 that says,

So teach us to number our days so that we may get a heart of wisdom.

Once again, as I pondered the word "life," I reflected once again with the backdrop of a cemetery.  As a Hackers Creek Pioneer Descendant, my Memorial Day weekend ritual took me to Friendship Cemetery near Jane Lew, West Virginia on Hackers Creek.



Today I see the merecies of God that for a moment I am physically separated from those I love who have gone onto heaven, the relationship endures as I hold the memories close to my heart, knowing that what has been will always be, meeting again "on the other side."

With gratitude,