Drafts are just drafts; not part of The Text.
Posted by Ardie Bea in Books, Computers and Internet, Poetry, writing on August 8, 2022
So I was writing over the weekend. And, of course, I was writing on a word-processor programme. By the end of the weekend, the chapter I was working on (the first chapter in the second book of a larger work) was twice the length, and had assumed a completely new shape, and become the launch-pad of an entirely unforeseen series of events and characters. It was a different chapter to what I began with, and the original was lost. Lost forever since I don’t use the ‘track changes’ function as a matter of course.
During one of my breaks I was pondering the writing process (I’ve recently read two Stephen King stories about writing – ‘Misery’, and ‘Rat’) and found myself remembering something a lecturer had said in my undergrad days. It was a Sociology of Art class, and he was bemoaning the emergence of the word-processor because it eliminated so much of the working process. He mourned the loss of those draft manuscripts with scribbled notes and crossed-out passages and lists of names that might do (but never did) for a supplementary character. He feared that in losing this archaeology of art we would lose some important insights into the artistic process.
I guess I can sympathise. I’m constantly curious about other people’s process, and love to listen to writers talk about how they do what they do. Especially when it’s people like Stephen King, or Neil Gaiman who basically say, “Write a word. Make it part of a sentence. Give that Sentence a home in a paragraph, and then discover the nice little suburb-chapter in which that home has its address. Once you’ve done that, you’re ready to explore the city. When you’ve thoroughly explored it, you have written the book – only you may want to re-map your imaginary landscape so that others can find their way around it more in more interesting ways. But start with the word, and see where it leads you.” And, no. they didn’t ever say that; that’s my paraphrase of everything I’ve heard/read them say. Basically, ‘Begin, and keep going till you’ve come to an end.’.
Which is the wisdom I think most of us need most often; that it’s persistence which is essential. Everything else relies upon that one thing. But I digress…
So, yeah, what writers say about writing is worth listening to, but we know that people aren’t always accurate reporters of events, especially events in which they are personally involved, and maybe especially when those people are, after all, creators of fiction. Having actual objective material (‘This page dated thus shows this passage crossed out that later reappeared in the author’s next novel on page so-and-so indicating that she had a supplementary practice of recording extraneous ideas for future use…”) does make it possible to see more accurately something of the writer’s actual practice rather than their reported practice. So, out of respect for one of the most engaging teachers I ever had, I save drafts of my completed works between edits. I have half a dozen versions of my first novel and nearly twice that of my Thesis. Any hypothetical person who is, for some bizarre reason interested in how I think, can follow the development and refining of my written work.
But I don’t want you to.
I’ve heard of authors who have left instructions in their wills for every last notebook in their desk to be burned upon their death, so that there can be no archaeological digs into their works. And I begin to feel the same way! Because that first seed of a chapter was wrong! It was wrong in so many ways. It was full of foolishness and solipsism and poor punctuation and repetition and redundancy and was just boring. If I’d been writing on paper, I could have used that first draft to kindle my next fire – it would have been completely overwritten and valueless by the time I’d actually completed the chapter. I would hate for someone to find it and think they’d found ‘the original first chapter’ of my next book.
And it’s even more the case with poetry.
My final assignment in that sociology class was to produce a volume of poetry. I write poetry badly, but I do know what I want – the very best words presented in the most effective way. If I cut out any words, it’s because they were wrong! And I would hate for anyone at some future date to look at that poem, and think of that excised word. I cut it out! Don’t try to put it back in!
So I’m glad for the word-processor.
Not only does it give me the ability to shift whole chunks of text around willy-nilly, correct my idiosyncratic spelling and even question my grammar, but it produces clean copy, shorn of history. The history is not the work. The work is what you get when the history has happened. Please, please, don’t confuse the two.
The work is not what went into it; history, cultural context, authorial intent or biography (Neil Gaiman is neither Aziraphale nor the Sandman, Stephen King is neither the Gunslinger, nor IT) – none of those things are the work,, just as iron ore and intense pressure and eons of astronomical observations and the superb skills of slick-fingered workers are not a watch. The work depends upon all these things, and in a sense embodies them, but is distinct from them all. It is itself, and, along with Tolkien, I OBJECT to the ‘nothing-buttery’ by which some attempt to reduce the works of our hands to a mere assemblage of atoms. The music is more than the written score, and the score is more than the ink of which it’s formed.
So I shall hide my workings-out in the immaculately empty memory of my word-processor programme, and present to you merely the work. That is yours to love or to hate, to ignore, despise, or exalt. But the working is mine.
Now, how many times do you suppose I re-wrote this entry?
From Darkness
Posted by Ardie Bea in Following Jesus, Theology, Worship on December 30, 2021
Why do we close our eyes when we pray? Why is it that when we seek to connect with the divine, we enter into darkness? Is it merely to reduce distraction and focus our busy-busy minds? Or is there some deeper wisdom happening here?
Before going any further, let me acknowledge that I broke my years-long evangelical habit a couple of decades ago, and taught myself to pray with my eyes open when I served as a pastor. In that role, leading a congregation, it was important to me that I didn’t distance myself from my fellow worshippers, but kept their individuality and communion in sight as I babbled into our Heavenly Father’s ear. Now, however, when I am merely one amongst many, I close my eyes, and shut out the light.
Sounds counter-intuitive, doesn’t it? That we should focus on being present with the one who said, “I am the light” by shutting our eyes? Shouldn’t we marvel at the light? Well, and we do. I am a photographer – literally, a ‘light-scribe’. And I enjoy few things more than a sinking sun glancing off the bellying storm-clouds or the play of dawn light skipping across the sea, or sitting gentle as a butterfly upon my grand-daughter’s face. But miraculous as they are, those experiences of light are not ‘God’, any more than the love I share with my wife is a direct experience of the God who is love. We do not cut out God when we close our eyes and settle into darkness. Rather, I believe, we enter into a place where we might be more ready and willing to meet with the real God.
And yet, darkness gets a bad rap across the whole of the Bible.
Darkness was one of the Ten Plagues upon the Egyptians.
Darkness is a metaphor for death – where the wicked shall be silenced (1 Sam 2:9), the place without order (Job 10), or knowledge – especially knowledge of God (Psalm 88:10). Not knowing God is the same as the darkness of death (Psalm 82:5) and darkness is synonymous with ignorance in general (Ecc 2:13-14).
Darkness is opposed to light, just as good is to evil and bitter is to sweet (Isa. 5:20). God’s salvation brings us from darkness to light (Isa. 9:2; 42:7, 16, John 12:46) and darkness is God’s wrath and punishment on those who reject salvation (Jer. 23:12, Lam. 3:2, Ezekiel, 32:8, Joel 2:31, Amos 5:20, Micah 3:6, Matt 25:30).
It symbolises the rule and victory of evil over good (Mark 15:33, John 3:19, Rom 13:12)
God is light, and in him is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5).
This is not an exhaustive list by any means, just an illustration of the persistent use of ‘Light’ for that which is welcome and good and wholesome, and ‘Darkness’ for that which is feared and dangerous and anti-life. But don’t take my word for it – look it up. Go to Biblegateway.com and do a search for ‘darkness’.
And maybe, when you do, you’ll notice something else. You’ll notice that there’s a minor note running through the scriptures that moderates this major key into something… else.
The first words of the Bible: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.”
A beautiful example of the parallelisms of ancient Hebrew poetry. ‘Heavens and Earth’ signifying totality. ‘Without form, and void’ – spoken in Biblical Hebrew are richly assonant, each word carrying the description a little further. And then the action: Darkness covers the face of the deep. The Spirit of God hovers over the face of the waters. Wow. Almost like… they are identical? Hold onto that thought…
Then God’s first word of creation is… light! And God sees that light is good and separates the light from the darkness – creating the first night and the first day, and building the stage for the rest of the drama of creation. On day two God divides the waters above from the waters below, by creating a firmament. Then divides the waters below from dry land. Three days of creation in which different environments are created for different creatures in the following (parallel) three days – the sun, moon, and stars to dwell in the night and day, the birds and fishes to dwell in the air and sea, and the creatures of the earth to dwell on the dry land. What is darkness here? A dwelling place for God’s creatures, the moon and stars. What is light? The means by which God created the separate dwelling places. One of the great themes of the Hebrew scriptures is the goodness of the distinctness of things. There is variety and difference and that is good!
There are echoes of darkness as God’s creation elsewhere in scripture, too (Isaiah 45:7, Amos 4:13, Psalm 104:20) but it never again takes on quite the same majesty and significance in this first chapter as a part of creation. Instead, we are more likely to see the majesty of darkness as an attribute of God!
The scriptures tell us that while, for fallen humanity, darkness may be a place of fear and danger, for God, it is merely part of creation, just as is the light (Psalm 139:11) and in fact, a source of riches (Job 12:22, 28:3, Isaiah 45:3). Other scriptures picture God as clothed in or upheld by or speaking from darkness (Psalm 18:11, 97:2, Deut 4:11-12, 2 Sam 22:12, 1 Kings 8:12, Genesis 15:12). And Darkness can be a means of salvation (Joshua 24:7).
Moses and Abraham both encountered God in darkness. Darkness, like God, is dangerous. It is mysterious. It is a place of great potential wealth. When we meet God in darkness – whether it be the darkness created by the blazing fires of Sinai, or the more gentle darkness behind our own closed eyes – then we are less able to superimpose created forms upon the creator. We may become more able to hear the voice of God. We may be more open to the riches of mysterious darkness.
Temporary
Posted by Ardie Bea in Following Jesus, Theology, Worship on October 10, 2019
Resurrexit Christus
Resurrexit Hodie
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
(“Christ is Risen, Risen today! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!” Chant for liturgical dance)
Jesus hasn’t eliminated time, but it sure ain’t what it used to be. Today is the day of salvation. Christ is risen Today! Now is the hour of our deliverance. Ever since eternity was birthed into this Wednesday-aftenoon-five-in-the-morning world we’ve been haunted by the real possibility of freedom from the restrictions of the past and the obscurity of the future. Because the creator is now making all things new! Because we get sparks from the great conflagration of the end blowing back into our present day. In eternity, there is only one time – now.
You are the Word of God to a wounded world.
Posted by Ardie Bea in Following Jesus, Theology on March 31, 2019
So I’ve been re-reading Matthew’s gospel recently, and was blown away by what I noticed this last time.
You know the story Jesus told about the sower of the seed – how some fell on the path and was chomped by the birds, and some fell on the rocky soil and sprouted quick but then died just as quick when it got too hot, and some fell amongst the thorns and was throttled before it could bear fruit. And some fell on good soil and produced a harvest; 30, 60, 100-fold.
In that story the soil is our hearts, and the seed is the Word of God. Pretty straight-forward.
After explaining the story, though, he goes on to tell another – and this one is about how a farmer sows wheat and his enemy sows weeds amongst the wheat. The farm workers offer to pull out the weeds, and the farmer says, “No, if you do you’ll damage the wheat. Wait till the harvest, and then we’ll burn the weeds and harvest the grain at the same time.” Which is a good word to those of us who want to do God’s work of judgement right now – we usually do more harm than good when we try to separate wheat from weeds.
But what really struck me about this is that in this second story Jesus says that the seed he sows is “the children of the Kingdom.” That’s you and me, sisters and brothers. Jesus sows us into the world to grow and bear fruit.
I’m used to thinking of the seed that is sown as being the Word of God. That picture of Jesus casting grain all over and letting it fall where it will, knowing that though some won’t grow, some will fall on good soil and bear fruit. As a teacher of the word of God, that was an image that resonated well with me. I like to think I’m following in my master’s footsteps and scattering seeds of the kingdom that may or may not grow and bear fruit.
But the image of seed in the second story is so different. In the second story I’m not just scattering words around me carelessly, I am the word that is sown. It’s my job to grow in whatever soil I’m planted and to bear fruit – despite the weeds that might be growing alongside. And that gives me pause for thought. If I’m the word of God to the world, what does that look like? In the first picture, the word is something different to me – it’s something I spread or deliver. It’s the difference between the message and the messenger, the postie and the letter. I don’t usually judge my mail by what my local mail carrier looks like, and yet that’s the situation we have here. The one who carries the message is the message. In some ways I don’t like this. I like to be a bit detached. I like to think I can say one thing and do another. But it looks like God isn’t keen on that. He might even call it something like hypocrisy.
The apostle Paul was onto it; he wrote to the church of Corinth “…you are a letter from Christ…” (2 Cor. 3:3). It’s not just what we say or the message we deliver that matters; it’s us. How we live. How we let the gospel shape our lives into paths of compassion, healing, mercy, and righteousness. How we let the Spirit mold us to be like Jesus. In all our relationships, that should be the most obvious thing about us; that we are being remade in His image. Is that true for me?
It was true for Jesus. While he talked about sowing ‘the word of the Kingdom’ in that first story of the wheat-seed, his dear friend John later wrote, “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.”
That’s the path we are on. We aren’t allowed to just say words and let them fall where they will. We are to be that Word in the flesh. To fall into soil of all sorts, and to bear whatever fruit we can where we are planted. Not just saying the word but being the Word of God for those who would otherwise know only the rocks and the weeds.
The Joy of (sub)Creation
Posted by Ardie Bea in Books, Entertainment, Family, Health and wellness, Poetry, Theology, Uncategorized, writing on January 2, 2019
I’ve started writing again. Not just here (after a four-year hiatus!) but also I’ve picked up a little fantasy story I wrote some years ago, reread it, and loved it so much I decided to expand it. I want to know more about these people. More about how their relationships developed and the world in which they live. I want to know what happens next!
This has been a great start to 2019. Last year wasn’t actually that great. It certainly had some highlights (mostly family events) but it also had some of the severest challenges I’ve ever faced. But today… well, my kids noticed the difference. Their grumpy and mostly morose dad was outgoing again. I enjoyed myself at a party with friends. When it was time to sit down and write again, I actually had to stand up first and jump up and down with excitement. Literally. Jump. Up. And. Down. Repeatedly.
I’m teasing myself right now, by writing this before I return to my unfolding cast of characters. Oh, the anticipation! Not only do I get to find out more about them, not only do I get to see them responding to new challenges and situations, not only do I see them grow and change and develop in all sorts of ways, but I get to make it all happen!!!!
Besides being an occasional writer, I’m a bit of a computer game player. I like games with a ‘world creation’ aspect to them, or a strong element of story-telling. I can spend hours playing in Minecraft, or journeying in Skyrim. But you know what? I get all those thrills and more when I tell the story myself. When I build the story out of my very own words.
JRR Tolkien has always fascinated me, because of his talent for world creation, but it wasn’t until a little over a decade ago, when I wrote my masters thesis on his theological thought, that I was able to listen to what he had to say about the business of fantasy writing. He believed firmly that the writing of fantasy stories was a deeply Godly endeavor and that it provided for the human soul in several different ways; read his essay “On Fairy Stories” for all the detail. But one point I want to make here; he believed that we are creators of alternate worlds because we are made in the image of the maker. We can’t help but want to create worlds since the world-creator made us to be like Himself – and in fact calls us to join with him in the business of creating, sustaining, and redeeming the world in every possible way.
And you know what? Picking up a pen (or opening a word-processor document) might just be one way of doing that.
Good news for the creative soul!
Santa, Social Signals, and Expectations
Posted by Ardie Bea in Following Jesus, Uncategorized on December 29, 2018
So last weekend we took one of our classes to the park for a final lesson, including family and friends. We taught some now vocab, played games that reinforced the lesson (and were a lot of fun), picnicked and gave out Christmas gifts. Oh, yes, the gifts. I got to dress up as Santa for the second time in two days and pass out presents from a big red sack. Cool!
Only, the last time I’d done this it was in a classroom with everyone on seats, and the kids called forwards one at a time to get their certificates and gifts. This time I slipped off to a nearby garden, got into the jolly red suit (complete with fake beard), picked up the bag bulging with gifts brought by the parents and labelled with each child’s name, and headed back to the lawn by the lake where my fellow teachers were just wrapping up the games. Along the way I worked on the rolling gait and the ‘Ho Ho Ho’ obligatory to the role. And of course, the families I passed along the path were very happy to pause and give seasonal greetings (in the local language) to the man of the hour. In fact, by the time I got back to the lawn where we had set up our picnic, I had quite a little gathering…
This posed something of a challenge – more so for me because my fluency in the local language lets me say “Merry Christmas”, but not, “I’ll bring you your gifts later on this week – these ones are only for this English Language Class.” So, quite unlike our nice little closely contained classroom setting, I had the task of handing out gifts only to the kids from our group amidst an ever-increasing mob of avaricious kids. I’d call out the name on the gift, and hand it over to the appropriate parent over the increasingly frantic fingers of the small children dancing around my knees, and hope I’d got the right parent, and not an imposter. The task was made trickier because a few families had seen our class enjoying their games and joined in, so they were a little uncertain of whether or not they were going to get gifts.
But by and large, there was no uncertainty. The man in the red suit was right there in front of them, he had a huge sack of stuff, and he was handing the contents out. Of course they were going to get a gift! The day was rescued by a box of beautifully decorated and individually wrapped Christmas Cookies we’d prepared the day before. As the bag emptied of the pre-named gifts, it was thrust into my hands and I passed them out merrily, until it became clear to all that there was nothing more to be gained here but crumbs, and the crowds slowly dissipated back to their pre-Santa fun.
For which I was immensely grateful. There was one very persistent little girl who had been eyeing my enormously fluffy white beard and muttering ‘fake’ (in the local lingo) to herself for some minutes so I was more than a little concerned that I would be set upon as an imposter.
This is what troubles me about my identification with the real ‘reason for the season’. Everybody, even here, knows a little about that baby, born into poverty and laid in a manger, and who he grew up to be. They know that he embodied love, kindness, generosity, and integrity. And for those of us who are called by His name… well, actually, we often don’t embody those things. Not as often as we’d like to, anyway. Certainly not as often or as consistently as those around us would wish. I can get away with the ‘Santa’ sobriquet for a little while – so long as no-one actually tugs on that false face. But to call me a ‘saint’ – as the scripture writers do? Surely that’s stretching it.
From the perspective of heaven I am a saint – I am seen as belonging to the One who has adopted me into His family, and therefore as sharing all His goodness and grace. And because I really am part of that family, because I live in that atmosphere of love and acceptance and creativity and joy, I do manage to be a lot better than I might otherwise be. But I’m also still me. I am yet a long way away from perfection.
Adopting the name of someone so well-known is a challenge that I want to duck. I don’t want to have to deal with the disappointment and even anger of those who find I am not yet very much like the one whose name I bear. The signal it sends is that I am ‘like’ Him. And I wish it were true.
CS Lewis once wrote about someone in the trenches alongside him during WWI who saw him as better than he really was. Someone who expected far more of him than he expected of himself. He surprised himself by trying hard to live up to that expectation, even though within himself he felt it to be false – as though he were wearing a mask. He realised that over time, by acting up to those expectations, he was actually becoming a better person. He was growing to fit the mask. As AA puts it, sometimes you gotta ‘fake it till you make it’.
I guess that’s the privilege as well as the peril of identifying myself with my Lord. I get to be called by his name, and so I have to deal with not just the odd disappointment in those around me, but also the reality that I really do behave better when I try to conform to others expectations. And when my bag of goodness is all empty…
Well, those are the times when someone tucks ‘Christmas cookies’ under your arm and keeps you going just long enough. If there’s only a few crumbs left at the end of the day, remember, you got to the end of the day, and tomorrow will look after itself. We got a promise on that.
Blood Moons and Remote Control.
Posted by Ardie Bea in Uncategorized on October 16, 2014
I was watching the moon being hidden from sight last night during the eclipse – when it was suddenly hidden from sight! By clouds. I had been expecting a smooth transition that I could photograph bit by bit and then a gradual re-emergence (you can see the little I did get here) but instead, I only saw half the show, and then it was curtains. No more eclipse for the rest of the night, no photos of a ‘blood moon’ and nothing to do about it but go to bed.
It was a great reminder that we don’t actually have a remote control for life. I may be able to browse dozens of TV channels, hundreds of DVDs, and millions of web pages, but I only have one life. And it isn’t entirely in my control. Events that I think are going to go one way may well go differently! I may think that I can see everything in order, only to discover that the curtains are pulled on life half-way through. I’m glad I got the photos I did. But real life is about so much more than a photographic record.
When we have taken teams to India, I’ve insisted (especially on our second trip) that most people keep their cameras away most of the time; we had one photographer (Lynette) and her photos would be our official record and everyone could have them – and great photos they are, too. The reason for this insistence is that it is too easy to put a screen between ourselves and life – check out this commentary: – if you’ll excuse the irony that, once again, it’s on a screen. We have become so tied into our media that we frequently cease to be present in the real world around us. We are… remote, and that helps us to feel that we are in control. But we are meant to be present. And when we are, we discover that we are not in control; we are dependent. Dependent upon the weather, upon the world around us, upon our upbringing and inheritance, upon the treasures that have been stored in our hearts, and upon the generosity of others. Most especially, dependent upon God. As the song says, “Be still and Know that I am God…”
Many commentators have said that the prime sin – the one from which all others spring – is our refusal to let God be God, and the way in which we wilfully put ourselves, other people, and myriads of ‘things’ into that gap. In a word, Idolatry. In the modern world, we have an idolatry of self. We expect to be God in our own lives. To have complete control, and to be able to do it …remotely. But in Jesus Christ, God confounds our mistaken view of Godliness. Jesus is not distant and controlling; he relinquished control, became subject to all that troubles humanity – even death – so that he could be present to us. That’s Godliness. Present. NOT in control. But trusting. Even unto death.
Dare we put aside our remote controls, be they cameras or cars, cash, or cocaine, careers or caring for others, and be truly present to one another so that we can also be present to God? And perhaps we will find (again, as the old song says) that if we ‘draw near to him, he’ll draw near to us…’ and we will see by his light exactly how silly our little idolatries really are – and
how awesome and extravagant is his Grace.
how awesome and extravagant is his Grace.
Going from automatic to manual
Posted by Ardie Bea in Uncategorized on July 22, 2014
So I do digital photography. And when I started it was with a ‘point-and-click’ fujifilm. Which was cool, and it had a lot of scene-settings (snow, beach, landscape, portrait, etc) that I used, and I loved it. I learned to compose my subject in the frame, and how to use the light in the scene. Then I got my first DSLR (actually my only DSLR, but I’m scheming an upgrade) and once again, it had all the same settings – and then some. I learned about shutter priority mode, and aperture priority mode (which meant learning what apertures and shutters do) and programmed modes aaaand …manual.
That was a big, scary step. Going from pre-set modes to manual, and having to take responsibility for exposure, and depth of field, and focus. But it also (after some photographic fumbles) marked the transition to much better and more interesting images. The old automatic presets worked in some situations – but not in many others. But by first noticing that my camera had more settings on it than I was using, and by reading the manual, and by asking experienced photographers who were further along the track than me, and by joining a community of photographers who could encourage me and give me feedback, and by getting out there and doing it I have got so much more out of my camera!
It’s like that with God, too. When I was first introduced to the possibility of knowing God, it was through religion. Religion provided me with the automatic settings I needed to be able to focus on the point of it all – God! Through religion I learned the basic disciplines of focusing and framing my life in the light of Jesus Christ.
But religion is limited. It’s a series of presets. It’s all automatic, and it doesn’t actually work in every situation. God calls us to more. The apostle Paul said that the Jewish Law was like the servant whose job it was to take the child to lessons and bring him (it was only boys who had lessons back then) safely back home again. The job of the old religion is to get us to where we can learn what we need to know, so we can grow up into our responsibilities and privileges as citizens of God’s kingdom – and as children of God (Galatians 3:23-26).
Jesus coming changed everything. He said very clearly that nothing of the old law would pass away as long as earth endured. But he was also very clear that the role of the law had changed. The servant who used to take the child to lessons still has a role to play in the family even after the child has grown. When the child has grown, the servant is subject to the child, not vice versa. And it’s the same with the Law. Jesus said, “The sabbath was made for people, people weren’t made for the sabbath.” Sabbath-keeping, circumcision and a kosher diet were the essential markers of law-abiding religious people in Jesus’ day. All these were explicitly set aside by Jesus himself and his apostles after him. Not because they were wrong or bad, but because God’s children were learning to live in a new way; not according to the automatic presets of the old religion, but according to the more nuanced, person-focused way of Jesus; the way of Love.
As followers of Jesus we must move beyond religion and into relationships. It’s not enough to stick with the presets. There is more. It’s not about making great photographic images; it’s about being conformed to His image – the person of God’s own son, Jesus Christ. This isn’t something that is achieved through the cookie-cutter processes of religion, but by the manual settings – the ‘made-by-hand’ individualised attention of someone who loves us and calls us to live within and live out of that love.
It’s harder work, taking photographs in manual. I need more people in my life to help me do it well, and I have to work much more carefully with the people around me to get the images I want. I have to give each situation more thought, and it takes a lot more practice than the old preset automatic mode. But it’s infinitely more satisfying. Come and try it.
Vespers
Posted by Ardie Bea in Uncategorized on July 14, 2014
Something gentle and true…
But when I became that man the hope said Don’t be afraid. So I unprayed the sinner’s prayer, trusting the truest salvation lies in losing oneself to this world that is too much,
filled with the laughter of summer children backlit by our gorgeous dying sun.
The Parrot and the Fisherman
Posted by Ardie Bea in Following Jesus, Humour, Uncategorized, Worship on July 2, 2014
Colossians 1:11- 14
I saw the old fisherman again as I sped to my first appointment of the day.
He was standing as always, dressed in a battered green jumper and grey shorts, bushy eyebrows peering from beneath a terry towelling hat, and rod pointing to some place between the horizon and the heights of heaven.
“Keep your eyes on the road!” squawked the parrot beside me.
“Lucky beggar,” I grumped to myself as I negotiated the next curve of the coastal highway. “Nice for some.” And then carried on to do business as best I could in the more isolated settlements of the north. It wasn’t a bad day, and it wasn’t good. I probably paid my way. But not much more than that. Maybe a little less. “Awk! Loser!” squawked the parrot.
Driving home at the end of the day, I saw the fisherman again – in a different spot now. Read the rest of this entry »
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