Sleeping Place

Day 83 of Kim Klassen's Beyond Layers e-course was a challenge to make a random mosaic using images, brushes and fonts.

I went through my archives wanting to use photos from earlier in the year...don't ask me why...probably to make it even more random.

I was drawn to these photos I had taken this past Easter weekend...

So a voice in me said, "Go for it!"

Do you know where the word cemetery comes from?  Some random trivia here ~ from the Greek word koimeterion meaning sleeping place.  How nice compared to "boneyard" or "burial ground."

This is Glendale Cemetery...in Downtown Akron.  It is home to Akron's old money...and American history...

such as:

F. A. and Gertrude Seiberling - Founder of the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company...

whose daughter-in-law, Henrietta, introduced an Akron surgeon and an unemployed stockbroker from New York visiting Akron, on Mother's Day, 1935.  Both drunks.  The surgeon agreed to give 15 minutes to the New Yorker...which resulted in 6 hours.  Alcoholics Anonymous was born.  This story from her own words is nothing more than amazing.

F. A.'s grandson, Henrietta's son, John...was an 8-term Congressman for Akron...a staunch environmentalist who was the catalyst to the government establishing Ohio's only national park.

One of  the approximately 1,200 Teddy Roosevelt's Rought Riders is buried here.

And Jason Brown, son of abolitionist John Brown is also buried here.  Present with his father at the Potawatomie massacre in Kansas, the first blood shed in the war against slavery in the United States.  Jason wrote his account in the Akron newspaper in 1880, 20 years after his father was hanged after the raid at Harper's Ferry.

And...moving on to the 21st century... the funeral scene in the movie based on James Patterson's novel, I, Alex Cross, (currnetly in theaters) was filmed here!

Yes...that's Ed Burns! (movie photos courtesy of Akron Beacoun Journal) where you can also read their story.)

Wow...I had no idea where I was going when I started this Mosaic this morning...wasn't expecting to end up with a rather violent Hollywood movie...

But I do have a point...

Cemeteries are amazing places!  You never know what you will find, what stories are there, plus the beauty, serenity, and natural oasis they provide.  Not convinced?  This wonderful 56 minute documentary, A Cemetery Special, available on Netflix, will change your mind.

And yes, even though it reminds us of our own mortality...doesn't  that cause us to embrace and relish each moment that remains?

It does me!

Three Gifts Redeemed ~ Day 6

I'm a little behind due to technical difficulties with my blog...but hopefully you have found me!

SO...three gifts redeemed...from the October Joy Dare challenged by Ann Voskamp.

I must admit that this one stretched me a little...less concrete...but I just needed to look...pay attention...see!

• My blog - redeemed!  I am so thankful that, despite the technical challenges I was having with it hosted on another site, God provided a successful transfer to a new location, losing very little of my past posts, links, and other goodies. 

• A rainy day redeemed.  It is hard when you have awaited for months for a much needed vacation, for a cold, rainy day to be the weather forecast and plans are altered.  Edster and I laid low today...I gave him extra time to lay down to get his chronic pain under control...then around 3:30 p.m., we wandered on one-lane backcountry roads throughout Tucker and Randolph counties.  Because it had rained and it was cloudy, the color was astoundingly brilliant with saturation.  An ideal alignment of details for a photographer wanting to capture Fall color.

• The redemption of a broken life.  Because of a mostly-inside day, Edster and I watched the movie, Amazing Grace ~ the story of William Wilberforce and his impact on the end of slavery in the British empire.  In the story, a man, John Newton, a former slave trader, who came to know Christ, and influenced Wilberforce in his long battle to abolish slavery in England, is featured.  John Newton wrote the words to the well known hymn, Amazing Grace.  And while the composer of the tune is named as "unknown," many believe that it was an African tune Newton had heard his slave cargo hauntingly sing in the bowels of the ships that carried them ~ the scale is consistent with African music of that time.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost but now I'm found;

'Twas blind, but now I see.

 

This is my story as well...to be redeemed, salvaged, healed, restored, found, saved, renewed, a new creation...though still imperfect and sometimes a mess...God's amazing grace continues to redeem me!







5 Fact Friday ~ On Friday!

It's that time again...and I'm actually posting it on Friday!



Well, as the summer ebbs away...and the autumn winds seems much more apparent...there's a bittersweet feeling, a touch of melancholy, in my anticipation of the season of colored leaves, the smell of apples, the glory of the mum, and the glow of spiced candles.

So today...my 5 Facts are about what is disappearing by October.

 

1.  One of my favorite things to witness in September is "whirling birdies"...a fun way to say goodbye til spring to these flying cigars.

2.  Bees, bugs, and dragonflies will no longer be found in my favorite bog.

 

3.  The blooming sunny sunflowers are now seeded heads, bowed over with frequent goldfinch visitors or headless, as the squirrels have chewed them off, scurrying off with their spoils, gleaning the seeds as they sit on the backyard fence.

4.  The butterflies are no longer frequenting my frontyard butterfly bush.

5.  I'm no longer hearing the sweet song of the brilliant Indigo Bunting.

But it is as it should be...all things are beautiful in God's time.

 

Dream-like in a Bog

Last Sunday, Edster and I went to Springfield Bog, along with my daughter and Bruno...Yes, it was hot!  But God's bountiful mercies were everywhere...this is my Father's world!

In my Beyond Layers e-course, Kim gave us a new recipe giving a dream-like effect using processing and two wonderful textures.  I thought I would apply this to three of my photos from my bog trip...along with some great quotes!

Take a look-see...

 




God is so good!

With gratitude,

Walk About Town - Part II

Continuing yesterday's post, along my photowalk, fire escapes were not the only architecture I saw, nor was Mike's art the only art I saw.

There was art on an old over pass...



Seeing the City through Lock 3...



The hospital where I work...



Including Air Bear...Ohio's only dedicated pediatric life flight.





And did I mention the canal?

Where there's water...there's ducks...
Juvenile Mallard Ducks, to be exact...



And of course, God poured down mercies through flowers...















And as is written in James, every good and every perfect gift comes from God!

With gratitude,