I had promised my friend Laura alligators if we took a walk
at the Wetlands in the afternoon.
I figured it was sunny.
It was warm. It was the perfect
time to see gators and we were not disappointed.
We passed a few lounging in the grass, just off the road and
near the water. They gazed up at us,
sleepily blinking. Laura gave them a
wide berth. I got a little closer and
took a few pictures. I was used to
drowsy gators.
And, as I have always explained to Laura, she doesn’t have
to outrun the gator. All she has to do
is outrun me, which shouldn’t be a problem.
Gators aside—everyone wants to see the gators—what I really
wanted Laura to see that day were several nests, anhinga and Great Blue Heron
nests. The Great Blue Herons couldn’t
really be called babies anymore but they were still nest-bound, still dependent
on their mother for food.
I pointed out one nest, sitting high in a palm tree and
Laura took out her own camera and snapped picture after picture of the
juveniles.
I stayed quiet, allowing her to just soak in the
moment. The anhinga nest was up ahead
and I was squinting in the sun, trying to see if the babies were out and
visible.
After a minute, we started walking again, me focused on the
road ahead and Laura still mesmerized by the Great Blue Heron nest.
And that was when it happened.
Godzilla, previously hidden in the grass, decided to wake up
and walk across the road, not twenty feet in front of us.
Now all the alligators that we had seen up until that point
had all been medium-sized gators, six-footers, large enough to be impressive,
but not terribly scary. And also—they
had been sleeping.
This guy was easily ten foot-plus, although admittedly
gators are always going to look big when they’re walking right in front of
you. But he was at least a ten-footer
and most importantly, he was wide awake and moving.
There was a car coming down the road toward us and the
driver stopped, opened her door and carefully stepped out, using the door as a
shield as she held up her own camera.
But Laura and I didn’t have a car. Our cars were back in the parking lot, a good
half-mile away.
And though I had slowed to a stop, Laura was still looking
at the heron nest and continuing to move unknowingly toward the gator.
“Laura, stop,” I said, slapping at her arm. “Stop, stop, stop.”
It took us about a second to start taking pictures.
Godzilla ignored us, moving into the grass on the other side
of the road and collapsing just inches away from the water for his nap. When you’re cold-blooded, a walk across the
road is exhausting.
Laura and I just stood there, stunned. Our hearts were hammering in our chests. I think I might have been laughing, because I
am one of those weird people who laughs when confronted by alligators, or
doctors, or strangers or anything else my brain deems terrifying.
So, what is the first thing you do when you’ve had an
encounter with a gator?
You start talking.
You can’t stop talking.
You have to tell everyone you know what just happened.
The first person, Laura and I stopped was the woman who had
been hiding behind her car door.
“Wasn’t that amazing?” we said to her.
She was smiling and shaking her head. She couldn’t believe it either.
Then we stopped a couple who was walking toward us to tell
them about the gator too.
“It’s still there,” I said, pointing them to the large,
shadowy lump in the grass.
Frequently, when I’m at the Wetlands and I am blessed with a
wonderful photo opportunity, I cannot wait to get home and share the picture
with everyone I know. Often, I am so
anxious to share those pictures of eagles and deer and alligators that I will
take a picture of the picture on my camera with my cell phone so I can text it
quickly to friends.
But, of course, there is something more here than just
alligators, than just herons and bobcats, eagles and turtles. There is God, the Divine Artist.
Every morning, I am out somewhere, taking pictures, but most
importantly every morning I am out there somewhere spending time with God.
Photography has become a prayerful practice for me.
In fact, there is a name for it, contemplative photography.
Let me try to explain.
This past Friday was a rough day. I was worried about a friend and her husband
who was having surgery that day. I had
another friend text me that a former coworker of mine just revealed that he had cancer. That of course brought
up memories of my mom’s death from cancer.
And all of that was a reminder that I had my own biopsy upcoming.
Life is fragile.
We know this, but some days life seems paper-thin, ready to
depart and leave our world in a literal heartbeat.
That morning, I was out at the storage ponds next to the
Viera Wetlands watching hundreds of birds, Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets, Ibises,
both Glossy and White, Little Blue Herons and Black-necked Stilt Walkers, feed
in the shallow waters.
With so many birds, there was a lot of competition and a lot
of territorial squabbles, a lot of beating of wings and squawking.
But one of the things that fascinated me so much that
morning was how no matter how large the bird, from the crow-size Grackle to the
massive Great Egret or Great Blue Heron, all seemed capable of a singular act
of magic.
I would watch them hover—just hover over the water, or over
a branch or stick, beating their wings in great swooping, but slow
strokes. It seemed impossible that they
could stay aloft.
But they did, until their toes found purchase and they
steadied themselves.
When I got home, I pulled up those pictures. I was thinking again about how fragile life
is and yet how these birds seemed so steady.
What was God trying to tell me with these birds?
And so, I wrote this:
THE BREATH OF GOD
Even on the days
when any solid ground
feels unsteady under
my own feet,
I watch the birds
settle
on the smallest
perches
with barely a
flutter,
with barely a feather
displaced.
I watch them, both
the graceful Snowy
Egret
and the Angel Gabriel
of birds,
the Great Egret,
hover in mid-air,
as if the very breath
of God
were keeping them
aloft,
keeping their toes
dry.
And I know that God
cares
as much for the bird,
as He does the autumn
leaf,
as He does me,
bringing us
all safely and not at
all randomly
to where we need to
be.
This is how photography becomes poetry and how poetry
becomes prayer.
This is the essence of Contemplative Photography. To view the world through a lens and ask the
question, “What story is God telling?”
Or, “How is God speaking to me today?”
And making these questions something I ask daily has put me
in the presence of God in ways I could not have imagined.
When you learn that God is just as present in the small
moments as He is in the big, in the weddings, in the graduations, in the
birthdays and births, when you learn that God is there in the tiniest fly,
surfing the sunrise atop a leaf, then each day becomes special and worth waking
up for.
Some months ago, I was walking the prayer labyrinth at
Crossroads United Church of Christ and as I passed a hibiscus bush, I noticed a
tiny, no bigger than my thumb, tree frog curled up on a leaf, sleeping. If I have ever told you about tree frogs
before then you know I don’t call them that.
I call them booger frogs, because that’s what they look like, like a big
old piece of grey-green snot.
So here was this little booger frog. The sun was up. I think it may have been a little cold that
day and like most of us, he was not interested in moving until it got a bit
warmer.
“Wake me when it’s eighty degrees,” is the motto of every
Floridian, I think.
I just stood there, watching him, transfixed. I kept waiting for my presence to startle
him, for him to jump, but all he did was simply open his eyes just a crack,
like I used to do when I was a kid and my mom was trying to get me to wake up
and I wanted to see her, but I didn’t want her to know I was awake.
Later, when I sat down to write about that frog, I had an
old hymn playing in the background. Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.
And I decided to incorporate a line from that hymn into what
I wrote. Here is what I wrote:
This
morning I watched
a tiny tree
frog, curled
up on a
drooping, shaded leaf.
He was just
beginning
to blink
away sleep
and last night’s
dreams.
Around us,
the wind swirled,
and the
leaf shook,
but that
little frog,
nestled in
his hammock,
knew a
peace I long
to know,
Lord.
And so, I
must ask,
please,
Lord,
Bind my wandering
heart to Thee.
God always surprises me with something. In one of my poems, I wrote these words:
I am
looking
for the
incredible, the unexplainable,
proof of
God’s divine artistry.
I am
looking for perfection,
for color,
for song, for the symphony
that played
the earth into creation.
I am
looking for God,
and He
never disappoints.
I can’t tell you how many times I have been out at the
Wetlands or here at Hope or at the beach and uttered these words out loud—What
is that?
If I say those words, chances are I am seeing something
completely new and unexpected.
I was at the Wetlands one morning and noticed that the car
in front of me had stopped and that a fellow photographer was taking a picture
of a bird in a tree.
Now, I thought, oh probably just a hawk or an osprey. I was secretly hoping it might be the
Northern Harrier that had made the Wetlands its home this past winter.
But as I drove closer, and squinted at the bird, backlit by
the sun, I noticed that this bird was something new. It was large, like a hawk, but its head was
dark, almost like it was wearing a mask.
And here it was sitting at the top of this tall, barren tree,
unconcerned with me, and surveying the land around it for breakfast.
I took picture after picture after picture. I had no clue what I was taking a picture of,
only that it was something new.
It was only later that I was able to identify it as a
Peregrine Falcon, my very first.
All I day, I thought how proud he looked, sitting in that
treat, how majestic and I wrote this:
On
Wednesdays,
the
Wetlands are silent
and still
with alligators,
sitting
like stone-faced,
gargoyles,
guarding an altar
of green
and seeming to dream
with eyes
half open—
it’s a
skill, I’m told.
And birds
alike stand
in their
nests, high above
the waters
and do not bend
or sway in
the wind
but instead
fulfill the words
of Isaiah
... “My lord, I stand
continually
on the watchtower ....”
On
Wednesdays.
Of course, my biggest, “What was that?” moments have come
here at Hope with my encounters with the bobcats here.
Although there had been rumors of bobcats here for years, it
was only two years ago that I almost literally stumbled across one in the
prayer labyrinth for the first time.
I was here early one morning to take pictures and when I
rounded the corner up by the front of the church, I saw something brown moving
just behind the bushes in the labyrinth.
I thought it was a rabbit at first, but I took out my camera, zoomed in
and was shocked when the face of a bobcat filled the frame.
He was a big guy.
I started taking pictures and then texting Pastor Debbie.
“There’s a bobcat in the labyrinth,” I wrote.
“Don’t get too close,” she wrote back.
“I think if you’re close enough to identify it as a bobcat,
you’re probably too close,” I answered.
But he wasn’t interested in me. He wasn’t skittish. He got up and left the labyrinth,
sneaking through a spot in the bushes.
In the past couple of years, there have been many sightings
of various bobcats here at Hope, from the one that infamously strolled past the
sanctuary windows during communion, to the siblings, the trail camera caught
playing on the bridge behind the church.
They have run from me, they have posed for me.
I haven’t seen one, though, in months and when I go that
long without seeing one, I do get anxious.
I wrote about that restlessness in this poem:
MATTHEW 5:3
Blessed
are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
It is a
restless spirit
that sends
me searching
for You,
Lord, that makes
me hold my
breath
as I wait
for the sunrise,
as I wait
for the clouds
to lift and
the fog to clear,
as I wait
for the winter
birds to
return to the Wetlands,
as I wait
for color to return
to a place
somehow both
sunbaked
and overwatered,
leaving the
land looking
both gray
and pale.
So, I wait,
Lord, for You.
I search
the skies for You.
I smile at
the speckled kestrel.
My heart
races, my breath
catches in
my throat as I watch
a bobcat
emerge from under the trees.
I am
restless, Lord,
until I
find You.
Most days, though, you are going to find God in the
familiar. Not every day can be a bobcat
day or a Bald Eagle day or gator day.
There are swans in the neighborhood just down the street
from me. People rarely pay them much
attention unless they are nesting, then all of a sudden, the streets are lined
with paparazzi on baby-swan watch.
The swans are pretty tame and I’m fairly certain are fed
regularly by the people in the neighborhood.
I say this because when I stopped one day to get their
picture, the swans swam right over to me with no fear.
And, I have to say, swans are big.
I don’t want a swan running up to me, pecking me for food.
But these two stayed in the water, mere feet from me and I
got this lovely picture of the water dripping from the swan’s beak.
What an image.
I wrote this:
MATTHEW 5:6
Blessed
are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be
filled.
Lord, I am
not thirsty,
I am
parched.
Lord, I am
not hungry,
I am
starving.
In other
words, I am desperate
for You,
Lord.
I long for
Your righteousness.
I long for
Your strength.
I long for
Your presence.
And so I
look for You,
in places
of silence and stillness.
And I wait.
This is all of us just about every day, isn’t it? If we’re being honest?
Don’t we all have this hunger, this thirst to be close to
God?
We all know that in order to be happy we have to make sure
we are taking care of our physical and emotional needs.
But there is a real danger in ignoring our spiritual needs.
Contemplative photography is the way I meet my spiritual
needs, but I would encourage you to explore your own spiritual needs and what
it would take to fill these needs. Maybe
just a morning walk. Maybe a trip to the
beach. Maybe just a few deep breaths.
To purchase my latest book, The Divine Artist, click on the link below.
The Divine Artist
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