Window or Mirror?

 

“I feel it’s healthier to look out at the world through a window than through a mirror. With a mirror, all you see is yourself and whatever is behind you.” 

Bill Withers, from Garden & Gun interview

My husband thinks it’s funny to tease me about taking selfies, but honestly I don’t do it very often. I joined a group in B’ham a few years ago  and got some great tips from on self-portraits, but I can’t remember most of them. And, like I said, I don’t take many. I much prefer to be behind the camera. So, it’s with much trepidation that I present this picture taken with my cell phone. It  isn’t the best quality, but I like it.

 

Odd Ball Photos

 

These are my contributions to Cee Odd Ball Photo Challenge.
I guess you could say I have a cat theme. You can read about the challenge  HERE

On a Savannah street in 2009

An old “Stuff on My Cat” pic circa 2009

 

 

One Ray of Light

“You only need one ray of light to chase all the shadows away,” she said to him once, when he asked her why she had to be so upbeat the whole time.   – from A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

 

Editing and Grace

Last week’s lesson for my #capturetheham group was on editing. Our fearless leader (yes, the one willing to step into the road for a good photo op) gave us all kinds of tips and app recommendations for editing our photos right on our phones.

                    photo by Jamie Golden

I’ve downloaded one called TouchReTouch – I have an android and it was $1.99. Check out the before and after below:

       before – Taken at Cahaba Lily Park

                              after

Jamie also applied the idea of editing to not just photos but to life. I think her take was on the idea of editing out unimportant things and keeping the important ones. Which to me means taking a look at my life and seeing what I need to edit out. There isn’t an app for that. There also isn’t an app that can edit our past to make it look better. Oh, I think we all often try to. And it would be wonderful to be able to edit out all the bloopers like I did in the photo.

The better thing is forgiveness. God can and does forgive sin. My job as a Christian is to work toward the goal of having less that needs editing, less that needs forgiving. I think that’s called growing in grace.

but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever         2 Peter 3:18

Shadows and Reflections

I’ve been thinking about this picture I took on Thursday of a little boy walking along the water at Railroad Park. He probably didn’t even notice his shadow or reflection, but I did. The first thought that popped into my mind was the poem My Shadow by Robert Louis Stevenson. My daughter memorized this in elementary school for a talent contest.

It starts like this –

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,

And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.

Today we hear people talk about “shadowing” someone. It means to follow around someone who is in a career you are interested in. In this case, shadowing is a choice. But, when it comes to our physical shadow, we have no choice – it follows us no matter what. It may be in front of us or behind us and we can’t outsmart it. Most of the time, like the little boy, we aren’t even aware of it. And when we do notice it, we may see it doesn’t even look like us. It may be taller, or shorter, or wider than we really are.  Our shadow is kind of like what people think of us. They may see our shy shadow and think we’re stuck-up; or our laughing shadow and not realize we are covering up our hurt.

You’ll find the word shadow many times in the Scriptures. Here are some of the most comforting –

Keep me as the apple of Your eye; Hide me under the shadow of Your wings,

Psalm17:8

How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Your wings. – Psalm 36:7

And most pointed –

Man is like a breath; His days are like a passing shadow. – Psalm 144:4

The little boy also has a reflection in the water. Now, our reflection looks more like us, though the reflection in the water is kinder than the one in the mirror. I’ll REFLECT more on this in another post. 🙂

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Two Colors

Scissors from another era