In the Frame

Local librarian and FB friend Tomi posted two pictures of sunset (or was it sunrise?  sometimes it’s hard to tell), one zoomed out, the other closer in, of the same scene – the Highlands in the quietude of day’s end (or beginning), mists clinging even as they dance and shift.

Tomi’s own take on the contrast between the two pictures is that the wider perspective includes more color and less drama.

My own response is to think that perspective makes all the difference in life as well as in the photographic images we create.

It’s the same scene, but our focus changes everything, so that the fallen tree trunk in the foreground of Tomi’s photographs takes on mystery or sorrow or loss or ominous threat or curiosity in close-up, but disappears into a morass of other details blurred from a distance.

Both vantages are in the frame.

Both are true . . . simultaneously.

A tree fell in the field one day and for some time and some time yet to come, there it lay, and will, always in the frame, but seldom remarked upon.  Does it need noticing in order to be?  No.  But in the noticing, something changes in me.


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Photos by Tomi Herold

Sapcicle Hunting

“I want to tell you what I saw yesterday,” said Laura* last night.  “You know where all the trees are down around Ramsey’s Draft?”

“Yes.”

“Well, there were these amazing . . . well, I always called them sapcicles.”  

“Sapcicles?”

“Yeah – when the sap’s running in the maples and it gets cold again and where a branch has broken, little sap icicles form.  Sapcicles.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.  They were amazing.  There were so many.  It was beautiful.  I wish I’d had my camera with me.  But I wanted to tell you that when we used to live in the manse, we’d fight over who got the sapcicles.  They’re soooo good!”

“I can’t believe I’ve never even noticed.”  (Sigh)

“Well, if it gets cold again tomorrow, you should look for them.”

So I did.  I went sapcicle hunting today.  No luck.  Will try again later.  Still can’t believe I’ve never noticed, never reached out and tried a sapcicle.  Can’t wait for my first taste of spring.

UPDATE 2.23.13: No sapcicile sightings as yet.  Still looking.


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Shout out to friend Laura LaPrade for introducing me to sapcicles.

Taking on Lent

Lent is about giving up, but this year, I think I’ll take something on.

I had already promised, half-heartedly, that I would give up sweet drinks (failed), chocolate (failed), maybe even cigarettes (not even tried).

Yesterday the thought came to me (Holy Spirit whisper?) to give up saying negative things.  That’s a good one.  I’m working on it.

But today, the thought (Holy Spirit, is that you again?  I’m already working on the negativity.  What more do you want?) came to take on something.  I’m not sure what.  But the companion thought was to move away from individual action towards the action of the gathered.

Maybe it’s prayer.  But I don’t think so: we all already pray.

Maybe it’s a project.  But that’s not it either – there are already plenty of projects.

So what is this taking on about?

What might we take on together this Lenten season?

What requires our concerted action?

What needs putting on rather than taking off?

What new thing might we introduce into our lives together that this thing called us might actually resemble God and God’s kingdom right here, right now?

Maybe it’s love.  Not the Hallmark card stuff (although that’s nice).  And not tough love either (sometimes necessary, but not so nice).

Maybe it’s the love of noticing.  Maybe what we can do together is notice each other better.  Maybe we can hear what’s being said behind the words.  Maybe we can respond to the unspoken – with caring action.  Maybe we can do the laundry for someone simply because we can and they can’t.  Maybe we can practice noticing, simply because when you notice things, it prompts an action and that, I think, is love at its most fundamental.

God notices us.  God takes notice of us.  And that is God’s love.

So maybe this Lent, we can band together and notice each other.

Maybe.

Noticing the Wings that Fly

Sunday, I travel 6 miles to Headwaters Chapel for the first of two church services.  I park along the road, in front of the Varner family farm.  Sometimes the cows are lined up along the fence in hopeful greeting; what they think I bring, I cannot say, but whatever they’re hoping for, I disappoint, turning away from them and towards the chapel.

Last Sunday was a beautiful, cold, crisp, clear winter day.  The cows had long since given up hope on me, so there was no greeting, or so I thought.

As I turned from the car door to swing my robe on at the road’s edge, I felt more than heard or saw movement.

And then I heard it . . . the sound of hundreds of birds’ wings beating . . .

The flock lifted up on waves . . . staying low, it was almost as if they ran rather than flew across the road to the field further away from this mid-morning intruder.

A smaller group held back, waiting until all the others had landed on the other side before lifting up in identical fashion. . . the staggered crossing created a long ten-count of beating wings . . . the only sound in that moment in the whole of the valley . . .

As they resettled in the far field, I realized why I hadn’t seen them before . . . even though I knew they were there, even though I watched them fly in and land, as soon as they touched down, one by one and in groups of hundreds, they disappeared into the short grass.

The wing sound was my only real proof that they had been there.

I was sorry I had disturbed them even as I longed to hear their wing song again.

If they hadn’t moved, I would have never seen them.

Ears are for hearing and eyes for seeing, but hearts that soar and feet that dance and wings that fly are for noticing.