I get so weary of what comprises most sermons and teachings in most churches today. It is of no practical benefit to me whatsoever to sit and listen to someone preach for an hour about all that is wrong with religion, or anything ELSE for that matter. I already KNOW what is wrong with religion…probably better than most preachers who are preaching against it. It serves no practical purpose for me to go to church and listen to someone drone on and on about what is WRONG with ANYthing. I dare say that there is very few, if ANY of us, who aren’t quite clear about what is WRONG…with ourselves, our families, our friends, our circumstances, our jobs, our churches, our lives and this present world in general. Tell us something we aren’t already quite painfully aware of. Instead, give us some PRACTICAL information that we can actually USE to cope with and/or possibly even CHANGE, all that’s “wrong.”

It seems that “religion” has become the new satan. BTW, the word satan is not, nor has it ever been a proper name for one individual. It means simply…ADVERSARY. Your “adversary” could be anything or anyone, including your own SELF. The adversary is neither he nor she. It has no burnt red skin nor horns in its head. It doesn’t cause little girls to vomit green muck nor spin their heads round and round. But as usual, I digress…

Religion does today, and always has, served a very valid purpose, however lowly. It is a but stepping block in the progressive spiritual evolution of the individual and of mankind as a whole. It was never intended to be an end in itself. And this is where it has become demonized…where man has MADE it to be an end in itself…similarly, just as christianity has made the term “salvation” an end in ITSelf. To understand salvation as an end in itself is to effectively bring the whole PROCESS of salvation to a screeching halt, because it is NOT an end in itself. The word translated from ancient texts as “salvation,” almost always denotes in actuality, a living, moving, breathing CONTINUOUS state of progression toward an ultimate state of wholeness (HOLYness). I absolutely CRINGE when I hear someone ask another person, “Are you saved?” Of COURSE they’re not “saved.” Newsflash: neither are YOU. If you were, you would not be clothed in mortal flesh and subject to illness, injury and death. You would not require sleep nor food for sustenance, nor would you have any need to eliminate whatever sustenance is not utilized by the organism in which you live. You, like the resurrected Christ, would be able to appear and disappear at will (wouldn’t THAT come in handy?!). You COULD share a meal with your friends, but would not have NEED to. You could move quite freely between the unseen world AND the seen, and everywhere in between. I don’t know about you, but personally, I don’t know anyone who has yet achieved such a state of being. And again, as usual, I digress…

Religion is not the enemy. Friends, family and co-workers that use you, lie about you, lie to you, and stab you in the back at every opportunity, are not your enemy. The lightning that runs in on your heat pump and sets it on fire, is not your enemy…nor is the wind that blows down giant trees on your pasture fence nor the beavers that build damns that cause your pasture to flood. Your enemy is not your liberal black, Democratic President, nor is it the conservative white Republican President that he replaced. It’s not even some ayatollah, caliph, imam, mullah or sheik who hides in the desert and extols hatred and death to all who differ from him as being the ultimate solution to all the world’s problems. The enemy is not the religion that preaches your present belief system, nor is it the religion that preaches everything that is OPPOSITE of your current belief system…not the race of mankind whose skin color differs from yours, or the peculiar individual who lives in a culture that’s different than yours…and one that you don’t understand.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, because to all appearances, we still aren’t “getting it.” “Our struggle is NOT against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Ephesians 6:12) The most powerful, fearsome and destructive of these aforementioned rulers, authorities and powers of this dark world reside quite comfortably in the “heavenly realms” of your own soul, and in your own thought processes…yours AND mine. And their greatest power is in our PERCEPTIONS of what they are, where they come from, what their purpose is and how they work to accomplish it.

GOD’s solution to all that is “WRONG” is so simple, it defies comprehension: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with GOOD.” (Romans 12:21). THIS is the gap that all preaching and teaching needs to be bridging… the gap between all that is WRONG, and HOW we might EFFECTIVELY and PRACTICALLY walk out the command to “overcome evil with good” in each of our own everyday lives, thereby making what is WRONG, right. Now THAT would make RELEVANT subject matter for a sermon.

May he who has ears to hear…HEAR…what the Spirit is saying.

So many things and so many people demand our attention and our energies. Each claim equal importance over all the others. Yet our present reality is that no one can be everything to everyone all the time. Not you, not even me. Though it may often be quite difficult to convince others of this (especially when you have made a habit of attempting to MEET all unreasonable expectations anyway), you must realize this yourself and periodically take stock of your many endeavors and re-prioritize your focus, based upon your OWN goals, not everyone else’s EXPECTATIONS, challenges and demands.

You must remember that your own sense of self-worth must not be tied up in comparing yourself to others, or their accomplishments. You are on your own path of destiny…don’t allow passersby to distract you, challenge you, OR discourage you to get off course. Just as importantly, neither should you allow those behind you to give you an over-inflated sense of your own position.

There are things we do well, and want to learn to do better. There are new things we want to learn and experience, at the same time we’re improving upon the foundations we’ve already built. There are some things that we don’t particularly WANT to do, but MUST do, nonetheless…at least for now. There are 24 hours in each given day. It’s up to us to find the balance for ourselves…and HOLD ON to it.

Sometimes, you’ve just GOT to stop, sit down, close your eyes, and get RE-FOCUSED on what exactly it is you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and where exactly it is that you want to go from here. Sometimes, the only way to get anything done is to simply STOP DOING, and remember where it was you were headed in the first place, so you can find your way back to the road that’s going to get you there.

Try as I might, I could not figure out how to get to that boat without violating the trespass signs, so I drove back up to the highway, parked on the side of the road, and ran back down the exit ramp to the place where I’d first glimpsed this find and shot with my zoom through the trees.

I got several peculiar stares, but I did, after all, have on my photographer’s vest, so perhaps between that and a big zoom lens, that made me look professional enough for them to dismiss my bizarre behavior as some crazed paparazzi, or maybe they thought I was a private detective. (My ex-husband once said I had quite a knack for detective work…he should know…such said talents played a big part in why he is my EX-husband…) Whatever the passers-by thought, I got my UNIQUE shot without being flattened into a road pancake by a semi. After all, how often is it that you see a boat afloat in a field of wild flowers?!

I deduce that having reached a stage in my pursuit of images, that I’m willing to risk life and limb…and PRIDE…to get “the shot,” I now declare myself a PRO.

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Have you ever been at a place in your life where you felt you were standing on the edge of a great precipice of decision? You know that where you are is just run down and worn out and abandoned. It’s time to move to a new place…a different place. The door is before you and all the expanse of the unknown challenges and rewards that it holds, but to step off that familiar ground…the drop is so steep.

I guess that’s sort of how the baby bird feels when it’s time to leave his nest for his first flight. He sees other birds fly. He sees his parents fly and they tell him that he too, can fly now. Even his brothers and sisters have taken the leap. But what if it’s too soon for ME? What if I fly in the wrong direction? What if the wind carries me off course? What if? What if I don’t?

“Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
~Mark Twain

Easier said than done.

(Click on the preview above to pull up a FULL VIEW of the picture.)

Campbell’s Covered Bridge is located in a small community in the South Carolina foothills known as Gowensville (also known by locals as ‘Dark Corner’). A friend (Karen Osborne) and I had explored it on one of our ‘photo hunts’ earlier that summer and I wanted to see it with autumn color, so I set out one Sunday afternoon with my grandson Kendall. By the time we reached our destination, the sun was setting and the lighting conditions were rather poor where this bridge is well hidden in a wooded area. Most all my exposures were way too dark so I had to do some rather extensive editing, as well as incorporating some painting techniques, and I took the creative liberty of removing distracting signage, barriers and parked cars. In recently looking at the original shot, I’m still amazed at how well I was able to salvage what was such a dreadfully black photo.

The bridge itself was built in 1909 and is the last extant covered bridge in South Carolina. It was named after its owner, Alexander Lafayette Campbell, who also owned and operated a grist mill on the site, the remnants of which are still in the woods beside the bridge for tourists to explore.

(Click on the preview above to pull up a FULL VIEW of the picture.)

I have a thing for old antique trucks. I discovered this particular treasure in the spring of 2009 on a trip from South Carolina to Indiana with a good friend. We had stopped at a Quick Mart in North Carolina for a fill-up, a bathroom stop and some travel snacks and I spotted this truck parked in an abandoned parking lot across the road. Because of it’s positioning and proximity to the highway, I had difficulty getting every angle I would have liked, but I shot as many as I could.

After returning home and browsing through my shots from the trip, I wanted to do something nice with one of the several I got of Karen’s favorite overlook on Skyline Drive in her hometown of Seymore, Indiana. Only a couple were even acceptably good, but the best of those were still in the ‘snapshot’ category…nothing really noteworthy.

Contemplating ways I might improve upon the mediocre scenic shots and somehow make at least ONE of them ‘special,’ I started playing around with positioning some cuts of the NC truck (a FABULOUS subject trapped in the horrible background of an abandoned parking lot) and came up with the perfect picture. This turned out to be one of those pics that you can almost see yourself in…smell the grass, feel the summer breeze in your hair, hear the birds, FEEL the history in the presence of the old truck and the past it bears witness to.

One year, the grandkids and I took a drive to the mountains to celebrate Kendall’s birthday. After an adventure at Chimney Rock state park, we drove toward Asheville, then hit the Blue Ridge Parkway for the drive home. It was the first time I had driven on mountain roads and I had not yet learned the usefulness of 2nd gear in my new compact car, so we had to stop several times after some steep declines to let my brakes cool off. This gorgeous stand of trees was located at a picnic area on the side of the road.

I suppose the composition of this shot is nothing spectacular, but nature’s blazing array of color certain was. Not much I could really add to that.

(Click on the preview above to pull up a full view of the picture.)