Your eyes are windows into your body. If you open your eyes wide in wonder and belief, your body fills up with light. If you live squinty-eyed in greed and distrust, your body is a musty cellar. If you pull the blinds on your windows, what a dark life you will have! – Matthew 6:22-23

Some of the photography I’m doing right now is a kind of discipline – to remind myself to open my eyes, and the eyes of my heart, more completely. You have already witnessed this via the Tar River, seeing the water in new and different ways even walking along the same stretch time and again.

This week I’ve been trying the practice with my immediate neighborhood. And by “immediate” I mean literally just walking around the one block.

What can I see, with new eyes, from day to day?

It was easy with the first photo – above. Our neighbors – John and Lydia – have had a travel trailer parked outside since before we arrived (they hope to take it on the road one day), and this weekend it got taken away for the first stage of the renovation. In consequence we have a new view so it didn’t take much spiritual discipline for my eyes to see that.

Then, round the corner on Patrick Street, there is this unoccupied old house that reminds Rebekah of her grandmother’s Georgia family homestead. So it is fun to look at the house and use our imaginations a little. Then, once we are looking with the right kind of eyes, it’s not so easy to be all judgy about something that’s been abandoned. Now what we find we are seeing is the redemption and the possibility!

Keep turning to the right and we find our way back around to our other neighbor, Debbie. Her lot runs all the way down the side of our house, from Church St. to Saint James. Here (right) is the side gate. She gave us a tour and it’s like stepping back into the mid nineteenth century. Not only has she taken on a mammoth project she has opened a window into some breathtaking workmanship. Her commitment to this house is very much an example of cultural and architectural stewardship.

One day I plan to ask if I can do a serious photoshoot inside. This is a story that needs to be told.

Not just photographs but stories:

This next shot looks back from Calvary Episcopal and down Church Street toward her home.

Then, of course, Rebekah and I walked through the churchyard, continuing to marvel at the dignity and loveliness of the place. We ran into the rector, Stephen Mazingo (no, he doesn’t hang out among the tombstones, he was on his way to meet with the youth!). Stephen was kind enough to share a couple of the stories.

Tragedy, love, romance, war, family, drama, loss, faith – it’s all there in the dashes, that space between “Born 1860”, and “Died June 26, 1875.” Dora Staton and Hester Pippen – both 15 – were best friends; they were born just months apart and died (together) on the same day. “They were lovely and pleasant in their lives,” the stone reads, “and in their deaths were not divided.”

Their story lights the imagination. Don’t you want to know more?

Finally, back in the garden patch behind our house, Max sits down in the middle of the wildflowers (photo in gallery, below). And I can’t help but think of those cartoons where animals (typically Pepé Le Pew) are prancing and dancing around in the flowers!

Like I said, there is so much to see and to document and to talk about and to let soak in.

Bottom Line:

The bottom line is this: I am paying attention more, and learning more, day by day. More importantly, and in sync with what we were talking about in yesterday’s post, the Holy Spirit of God is very much involved as I try to see this world through the eyes – the lens – Jesus would have me use.

There is so much of redemption, and of light, and of possibility. So much that God wants me to see… if only my eyes are open – DEREK