13 Stunning Images for Photo Friday

– HMPC churchyard wall at the corner of Pitt and St. David

Words from the mouth of the wise are gracious,
    but fools are consumed by their own lips.
At the beginning their words are folly;
    at the end they are wicked madness—
    and fools multiply words.
Ecclesiastes 10:12-14

This morning I have been reading in Ecclesiastes. The book is part of the collection known as Wisdom Literature, and is best experienced as a single, complete, “big-picture” read. But I stopped for a few minutes here in chapter 10, as the words struck me as especially on point in this current political/social/cultural moment.

In terms of “Photo Friday,” there have been several images over this past week that grab my attention, tell a story, or continue to speak to me. I have included everything from two “memory” photos that popped up in my feed from years past all the way to the view of the back corner of our churchyard wall from early this morning.

What these all have in common is opportunity. I haven’t set out to “do” photography this week, but I have tried to keep my eyes open and then try my best to respond before the moment is past.

– if ever an images called for a caption!

The image of the birds on our feeder in Wake Forest is a great example. But even then, who knew that the one guy (there’s one in every crowd) would fly in and just sit there, upside down, long enough for me to take the photograph? There should – and I think I mentioned this at the time – be a caption competition to go with this one.

The photographs taken at night, walking Max around 10:00, always capture my imagination. Howard Memorial Presbyterian Church, Old Town Cemetery on our grounds, the square and county courthouse round the corner – wet paving after the rain.

Then there is Max, watching me work; date night together at Outback over in Greenville; one of our daughter Naomi’s paintings – pen, ink, and watercolor; the morning mist coming off the Tar, early today; our church at 7:30 am; me, parking on the roof again at Rex Hospital in Raleigh, visiting a friend earlier in the week.

Finally, another “memory” that showed up on Facebook, back when David and Beks were, it’s tough to say, maybe five and three? I’m not sure if love can be adequately described in a photograph? I also don’t know if it can be described any better….

Personally, I am grateful that we can experience this world via our traditional five senses, most of all that of sight. At the same time there is a compelling argument for expanding that list by at least two. I experience this world emotionally and spiritually too, working in concert with everything else.

I would even go so far as to suggest that our experience of life, of beauty, of the physical world and its people too, is potentially impoverished to the extent that we do not cultivate the spiritual sensibilities at the core of who we are as beings created in the image of God.

At least that is the invitation Jesus extends. Experience life in all of its beauty, and variety, and fullness. “Open the eyes of my heart, Lord…”