Lenses and Lookingglasses

Breadsmith: Preview

2012-01-09T17:22:00.000-06:00

Excited about this essay, coming soon.

Both/and

2012-01-05T22:37:00.000-06:00

Twenty Twelve. Two things.

Stand up. Walk forward.

Sit down. Be quiet.
Steady.

A Year Poured Out

2011-12-31T08:23:00.001-06:00

Honest

Earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,

in your Name I will lift up my hands.

Pie & Sky

2011-12-30T20:05:00.000-06:00

PIE

It's the day before the day before the first day.

The hushed lull between the birth of a Child and the birth of a new year. I've experienced much over these few weeks, I'm still ruminating over the stories and songs.

I love Christmas.

And I love this time of the year, even if it's a little odd without any snow.

Speaking of a little odd, here's a recipe I'm posting for you. Yes, a recipe. (I know, odd.)

It's a Brink family tradition during the holidays (and any other day, for that matter) and one that I've been attempting to perfect (with much help of my Grandma) this Christmas season. Enjoy.

"Be good for each other. Be better than you need to be. Make pie."

- A Prairie Home Companion

Apple Pie Cuts

Filling:

10 medium sized apples

(Peeled, sliced)

1 cup of sugar

2 teaspoons of cinnamon

Crust:

2 ½ cups of flour

1 cup of shortening

1teaspoon of salt

(Mix together like pie crust, until granulated)

1 egg, separated

Place yolk in a 1 cup measuring glass and fill with milk to the 2/3 cup line. Whisk together. Set egg white aside in small bowl for later.

Take the crust mix and make a small well in the middle of the bowl. Add the egg and milk mixture all at once. Stir until completely incorporated.

Roll out half of the dough on a floured surface, on a 10 x 15 pan.

Place in pan and sprinkle 2 handfuls of dry flaked cereal (rice crispy, cornflakes etc.) on top of crust. Add apple mixture. Roll out remaining crust and place on top.

Beat egg white until frothy and smear over the top of crust.

Bake at 400˚ for ten minuets and then turn down heat to 375˚ and bake for a remaining 20 minuets.

Glaze:

1 generous cup of powdered sugar

Add a little bit of half& half so the consistency is thin enough to drizzle

Add ¼ teaspoon of vanilla.

Glaze immediately

From the kitchen of Grandma Jan Brink 2007

SKY

Waiting for the breaking

the heavenly host singing

glory

churning for this coming

air and planet humming

glory

to God in the highest

and peace

to those with whom He is pleased.

50mm, f/3.5 @ 1/40 A mid winter ev'n sky

Come and take Your Place, Jehovah Shammah

Oh and quite possibly the best wedding party ever:

2011-11-30T21:52:00.000-06:00

I've been dreadfully behind in blogging weddings from this summer, slow catching up under a mountain of school and work and a lot of Monday-Tuesday-Wednesdays. However, please enjoy this image. Quite possibly the best wedding part picture ever. Ciao.

Remember

2011-11-30T19:58:00.000-06:00

That moment when you realized your life was about to change forever:

3:31pm

2011-11-29T11:31:00.000-06:00

A shadow's opposite 1/125 @ f/2.8

Affections

2011-11-22T19:19:00.000-06:00

‎"The worship service is not a concert hall but a banquet hall..."

Bifrost Arts from josh franer on Vimeo.

upon seeing the water

2011-11-08T22:43:00.000-06:00

All men dream:
but not equally.
Those who dream by night
in the dusty recesses of their minds
wake in the day
to find that it was vanity:
but the dreamers of the day
are dangerous men,
for they may act their dream with open eyes,
to make it possible.

T.E. Lawrence

Portrait of a November Self

2011-11-05T00:48:00.000-05:00

Photoshoots and winterboots.
Learning to cook and hardcover books,
of Lewis and Langston Hughes.

A soft song rising, an Autumn sun shining.
Preparing for winter, out side

Perpetual cold may hit the globe
but my Fire still burns, alive.

Summer

2011-11-04T15:11:00.001-05:00

Summer.

I've never shot Summer in the Autumn before.
It's the Season that we love and a girl with eyes like jewels.
Summer. It was a beautiful day.

Madison

2011-11-04T09:20:00.191-05:00

Prologue

____________

I've got 3,762 photographs in a folder from this summer alone. Moments captured and then thought about then forgot about, ideas and accidentals and 'what...was I thinking...here' pictures. And because of a small sojourner's sabbatical -a trip to the eye Doctor to get new vision- they lie in my harddrive in neat, categorized order until I can properly articulate up close, the message that I saw far off. It's both a comfort and a jar to know that I'll always have images to fall back on.

I've finally come up for air, it feels. And pleasantly so.

I'm taking deep breaths of inspiration, feeding the cells of my imagination with the oxygen of Real things. Things that are in one sense just the same as the old things, yet at the same time they are now somehow different. Deeper, richer, truer. Lewis describes this sense of seeing things in a way that is "deeper, more wonderful, more like places in a story: in a story you have never heard but very much want to know."

My unlined journal is all filled up in black ink with theory's and charts and stats on the source of this story, but my heart is all filled up with the steady secret that this Story is a True one- this grand tale of Real things, A Real Man, Real Words, Real Love- it is not written about me, but I get to partake in the mystery of its unfolding. I stand, reading, singing, speaking, weeping at the beauty of the Truth.

A business/empire/marketing-driven, self-expressionist yuppie art endeavor will not hold up underneath the weight of this glor y. Mine didn't. I stand comforted by the fact that I don't have what it takes to make a name for myself. Only One man ever did, and he yielded his right to it. He was Real. He's making me Real.

...

Speaking of Real things. I went to Madison, WI this past weekend to experience the sensation of listening to REAL music: Opera. Puccini's LaBoheme was ripe and in season.

The sublime voices, wooshing out of well trained lungs could have just blown the watercolored leaves from their fragile clasps,

even the old oaks.

The rustling leaves kicked up by pedestrians,

synonymously sounding with the rustling ideas

clasping onto smiling conversations,

even the old jokes.

It was lovely.

A smattering of images from the weekend follows:

If I've ever loved anything truly

2011-11-03T19:30:00.002-05:00

If I've ever loved anything truly,
it is light.

It does not cease to captivate me
to silence me the truest feat
to bring every part of me quiet
to a gentle and steady hum.

Nor does it cease
to surprise me with its beauty, its facets
its ever changing visage
and thus, the words I bring forth
to recall it to you
neither match my feelings or its truth.

(I am not alone in my affection,
the clouds too hold its fleeting rosy tones,
this last bit of day as long as allowed)

The end of each day the most bittersweet
the long night laid out ahead,
just I and the dark.

Yet it dawns just the same every morning,
unless one does not wake,
and in its paleness filtered through the clouds
or in its brilliant cleansing scorch,
hot enough to burn away
all the bitterness built up in the dark,
I am burnt clean.

-Elizabeth Ashton

For with You is the fountain of life;

In Your light we see light. And the Life was the Light of men.

If I've ever love anything truly, let it be the True Light, which enlightens the world.

If I've ever love anyone truly, let him be the Lamb.

A Tennyson

2011-11-03T15:00:00.002-05:00

Break, Break, Break

BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

Break, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!

And I would that my tongue could utter

The thoughts that arise in me.

A new month, a million new words wake, crest, wain. November has always been my favorite month, for just that reason.

Nathan+Allison | Engaged!

2011-11-02T23:24:00.000-05:00

Go into all the world and get married.

Ready: Begin.

tensixteenpoems

2011-10-16T19:28:00.000-05:00

Turtle Bread Company 48th&Chicago

"Suzanne"
And just like that
a lonely (omelet) lunch turned upwards
feeding on the Fellowship with and unsuspecting stranger
seated at the same table
we worshiped with our words
speaking of the Sun, (93,000,000 miles)
the Light of the World (closer than these very words)
and of
His love
it changed the afternoon.

"The lady who rushed across the bakery"
Pink.
Her cheeks flushed, eyes focused
the light hue of her scarf
scooting quickly across the gap of building,
tables and chairs a corn-maze to the door.

Glancing up, I smiled at the fact
that her trio of bundled baguettes
slowly crafted, twisted, and coaxed
into becoming our daily bread,
somehow added a quiet comfort that no hasty travel could take her from.

Liturgy/October

2011-10-16T18:42:00.000-05:00

3:44pm f/2.8 1/80sec ISO 200

Be still.
Listen to the stones of the wall.
Be silent, they quietly
speak the Name.

Hush, heart.

Trust, my soul.

"It is I,

"It is I who built this house."

Bread

2011-10-14T23:23:00.000-05:00

Bread

October 14th

2011-10-14T22:23:00.000-05:00

4:10 pm

I'm up to my elbows deep into school this fall. Studying to show myself approved.
Studying to show myself how much I do not know.
I'm taking time to read real books about ideas and people and geographies and
not just blogs with photos of sorta-kinda's. I don't want to be a 'sorta kinda'.

I' taking time to write real things and not just updates and
silly sentences.
I'm working on working my words well.
Which is precisely why I've written less.

October is a month to be out and about, riding bikes through piles of leaves on Minneapolis streets, baking bread, and sipping hot coffee while the sun rises so late in the Eastern sky. Or inside studying the covenant structure of II Kings at 4:10 pm. Either or.

Pax,
Laura

Bethel

2011-10-03T00:46:00.000-05:00

"This is none other than the House of God and the Gate of Heaven." He said, as he set up a stone and called it Bethel.

I've had a summer of Jacob. A summer of wandering and working and thirsting and finding God in places where I wasn't aware of Him. A whole summer of dreaming and waking up and realizing it was more than a dream.

A whole summer of setting up stones, building up foundations on top of mountains, and naming places.

I've had a whole summer of real life (and sometimes surreal life) experiences that have lead me to many wideawake nights, remembering the Promise that is now mine through a Descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Summer stories coming in soon, like the Autumn Wind.

Bed & Board

2011-07-25T15:23:00.001-05:00

I'm home back in Minnesota for a few weeks and am finding inspiration in small ordinary house art.
Summer light comes in at different angles, making ordinary objects breathtaking at just the right moment.
The pile of laundry,
the cat on the bed,
the glass jelly jar on the kitchen counter, knife perfectly balanced, the strawberry preserves a smeared stained glass window into the ordinary.

Home. "Bed, Board, rooftree and doorway become the choice places of healing, the delimitations of our freedom. By setting boundaries, they hold us in; but they trammel the void as well. By confining, they keep track of us- they leave us free to be found, and to find ourselves." - Robert Farr Capon

Trench

"We need good liturgies, and we need natural ones; we need a life neither patternless nor over-patterned, if the city is to be built. And I think the root of it all is Caring. Not that that will turn the trick all by itself, but that we can produce nothing good without it.

True liturgies take things for what they really are, and offer them up in loving delight. . . . Culture is the liturgy of nature as it is offered up by man. But culture can come only from caring enough about things to want them really to be themselves – to want the poem to scan perfectly, the song to be genuinely melodic, the basketball actually to drop through the middle of the hoop, the edge of the board to be utterly straight, the pastry to be really flaky. Few of us have very many great things to care about, but we all have plenty of small ones; and that’s enough for the dance. It is precisely through the things we put on the table, and the liturgies we form around it, that the city is built; caring is more than half the work.” -Bed and Board: Liturgies of Home, Capon

-Laura

The weight of this glory

2011-07-23T18:33:00.000-05:00

“We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words – to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. That is why we have peopled air and earth and water with gods and goddesses and nymphs and elves – that, though we cannot, yet these projections can enjoy in themselves that beauty, grace, and power of which Nature is the image. That is why the poets tell us such lovely falsehoods. They talk as if the west wind could really sweep into a human soul; but it can’t. They tell us the ‘beauty born of murmuring sound’ will pass into a human face; but it won’t. or not yet. For if we take the imagery of Scripture seriously, if we believe that God will one day Give us the Morning Star and cause us to put on the splendor of the sun, then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and the modern poetry, so false as history, may be very near the truth as prophecy. At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendors we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumor that it will not always be so. Someday, God willing, we shall get in.” ~CS Lewis, "The Weight of Glory

Green Lake Part III [Celebration Wedding]

2011-07-05T14:09:00.000-05:00

"I'm surprised more people didn't leave married."

he professed on the drive home that night.

The little red car, riding low to the ground

from all the wares of the wedding day packed tight

inside

I thought about that idea

as I rest my tired, smiling head on the window looking out at the stars

at the future

at my two friends

now mysteriously One

And I agreed.

"What we do in this life echos in Eternity."

even something like getting married and throwing a huge party.

Big thanks to my fantastic sisters, Emily & Bethany for shooting with me this day while I enjoyed life outside the viewfinder.

Green Lake Part II [Doxology]

2011-07-02T16:01:00.000-05:00

Fireflies/Prayer

Micah Behr

O God

grant that I may never enjoy

the smashed glow of fireflies

for a season

when You offer

in this field alive with flickering

Pleasures Forevermore

You make known to me the path of life;

in your presence there is fullness of joy;

at your right hand are

pleasuresforevermore. ps.16

Green Lake Part I [Cottage]

2011-07-01T22:28:00.000-05:00

It was Christmas time, the northern landscape was covered in snow and I was working when my phone rang.

I answered to hear my friend Hannah on the other line, bubbling over with lovejoy:

"We're getting married!" she exclaimed, in all wonder, all excitement.

"Were getting married in Green Lake!"

________________________________

It's one thing to photograph one of your best friend's weddings.

It's a whole other thing to photograph one of your best friend's wedding in Green Lake, WI. Where every day seems like the first and best day ever created, where family and friends abound, where you can't stop smiling because you might explode with excitement, where you understand the concept and admire weddings in the Bible when they lasted for weeks on end. It's a whole other thing when you arrive a week early, and every evening meal, gathered around feels like holy communion. The table leaves at maximum capacity. It's a whole other thing when the nights are filled with conversations and stories and songs and poetry and the 'tap tap tap' of the classic DeLuxe typewriter on the front porch. It's a whole other thing when you look up at the stars and are taken back, when you look into your friends eyes and see something new. It's whole other thing.

And for good reason, at the cottage we forget to count the days.

"There may be many Green Lakes,

but my Green Lake is in Wisconsin."

- Claribel F. Dick

H&B

2011-07-01T00:12:00.000-05:00

"I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me forever...." Jer.32

For all you waiting, more coming soon.

[For all you waiting

for love

wait thou only

upon God.]

STEP it up[date]

2011-06-03T21:43:00.000-05:00

This past month and coming summer I've recieved the immense privlige of being able to work with the STEP program at the International ALERT Academy in Big Sandy, TX. Skills Training for Emergency Preparedness (STEP) is a four-week outdoor adventure program for young women ages 15 and older. This challenging program is designed to build confidence on individual and team levels, in preparation to respond to life’s emergencies,while learning to put their trust in the Lord. I'm having a bunch of fun with the girls in my group learning ropes and knots and canoeing and search and rescue and a whole ton of other things.

Please pray for my group and I as we continue to prepare to serve others in emergencies this next month and learn again and again and again what this means:

"Love the Lord your God with all your

heart, soul, mind and strength."

Devra | Portraits

2011-04-10T00:37:00.000-05:00

Her name is Devra Clawson.

We've got the same last name.

Rightfully so, since she's my cousin and a particularly awesome one at that.

We had a family get together in St.Paul this afternoon and Devra and I escaped to the river walk of the Mississippi for a mini portrait session filled with wind, winding walkways and water. Approximately 99,000 gallons of it rushing by every minuet, actually.

I love Devra. She and I have logged countless hours of laughing, photoshooting, swinging, attempting to ride strange three wheeled objects, you name it. Most of our adventures usually started somehow with "Hey, Dev. I've got a good idea." and ended with "Let's never do that again." She is adventurous and perky, intelligent and kindhearted. Our calendars keep filling up, rendering us more and more busy everyday and yet, at family gatherings, Devra reminds me of my childhood, when things were slower. We've always been able to pick up where we left off and I love it. She is steady in that way, timeless.

I love her. You would too.

Essential to the Eyes

2011-04-09T20:06:00.003-05:00

Unseen. Things Unseen. Invest in Things Unseen

Portrait of Self | 12:14am

2011-04-08T00:22:00.000-05:00

I pack up for Texas in eight days and between now and then, I've got a double-sided, enormous paged do-to list that will not tolerate anything but extinction.
Needless to say, I've been working around the clock to get projects finished. Please excuse the irrational, erratic, and/or confusing posts. Everything happens at one time.

-Laura

Where, then, can we find life? What is life?

2011-04-07T15:09:00.000-05:00

"What is life? Life is more than profound than thought; thought never surpasses life. It also is deeper than emotion; emotion is superficial in compassion with life. Whether thought or emotion, it is relatively external. What, then, is life? The Lord Jesus declared: "I am the life."
We should not hastily conclude that we have met life when all we meet is a kind of hot atmosphere, such as a so-called spiritually hot atmosphere. We should ask instead, whence does such atmosphere arise? Plenty of experiences confirm to us that many who are skillful in creating hot atmosphere know very little of the Lord, many excitable persons are quite lacking in the knowledge of the Lord. Only Christ is life, the rest is not.

We need to learn the lesson of knowing life. For life depends not on how enthusiastic is our emotion or on how manifold is our thought; it rests exclusively on whether the Lord has manifested His own self. There is therefore nothing more important than to know the Lord. As we are knowing Him, we are touching life. We ought to see before God the meaning of Christ our life. Those who are easily excitable or especially clever are not necessarily people how know the Lord. Knowing Him requires a spiritual seeing. Such seeing is life and it transforms us. If we know the Lord as our life , we realize the utter futility of all natural efforts in spiritual matters. Hence, we look to Him alone."

-Watchman Nee, Christ, The Sum of All Spiritual Things

Page 13, April 6th

2011-04-06T20:53:00.000-05:00

In one sense we are always traveling
and traveling as if we did not know where we were going.

In another sense we have already arrived.

We cannot arrive at the perfect possession of God in this life, and that is why we are traveling in darkness. But we already posses Him by grace, and therefore, in that sense,
we have arrived and are dwelling in light.

But Oh!
How far I have yet to go to find You, in Whom I have already arrived!
-Thomas Merton

Shall We Dance

2011-04-03T21:55:00.000-05:00

I'm 22 and my pre-teen heart still skips a beat at the sight of her dress in full motion, spinning wildly around the ball room.

Better Late Than Never

2011-04-01T13:53:00.000-05:00

I finally got my plan laid out for this year.

About time.

It's a huge weight off my shoulders and really, really, really

exciting

things to come.

April 1st is the new January 1st.

All my life I've searched for an adventure like following Christ.

As Kingfishers Catch Fire, Gerard Hopkins

2011-03-30T17:15:00.004-05:00

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells

Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s

Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad it’s name;

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same;

Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

Selves – Goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,

Crying What I do is me: for that I came.

I say more: the just man justices;

Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;

Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is -

Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

Black March

2011-03-29T16:34:00.000-05:00

Black March

Stevie Smith, 1902-1971

I have a friend
At the end
Of the world.
His name is a breath

Of fresh air.
He is dressed in
Grey chiffon. At least
I think it is chiffon.
It has a
Peculiar look, like smoke.

It wraps him round
It blows out of place
It conceals him
I have not seen his face.

But I have seen his eyes, they are
As pretty and bright
As raindrops on black twigs
In March, and heard him say:

I am a breath
Of fresh air for you, a change
By and by.

Black March I call him
Because of his eyes
Being like March raindrops
On black twigs.

(Such a pretty time when the sky
Behind black twigs can be seen
Stretched out in one
Uninterrupted
Cambridge blue as cold as snow.)

But this friend
Whatever new names I give him
Is an old friend. He says:

Whatever names you give me
I am
A breath of fresh air,
A change for you.

"A good poem ends in clarification of life- a momentary stay against confusion." [Robert Frost], Laura

Nothing snow can stay

2011-03-28T18:06:00.000-05:00

For my southern friends,

its been warm for months.

A spring of breezy days.

For us? Oh no!

Spring's been real slow.

Time's up.

Nothing snow can stay.

( A snow man Allison and I made in the middle of the town square. Is there such thing as apocalyptic hope?)

Steady

2011-03-27T21:34:00.001-05:00

It's a goal, a focus of mine this year: Steady

It's a verb, an action word. But it's also a description: direct or sure in movement : unfaltering
firm in position : fixed, showing little variation or fluctuation: stable

"To know God is to know Him in every facet of our being. It is to know him in our mind, heart, emotional life, in our private world at home and in our public world, in worship, in Christian service, in the arena of ideas, in the conflict of world views, in the competition between religions. Because it is the same God whom we know in each of these ways, through the same Truth he has given us, a person of integrity will be the same person in all these arenas. The point about hypocrisy is that a person is different in different contexts. That person creates a pose or an image, to gain some advantage with some audience. The person and the pose however, are two different things.

The point about integrity is that a person is the same, even when audiences may not be pleased and when there is, as a result, some cost to pay. "

-David F. Wells. The Courage to Be Protestant

I want to be steady:

In my sanctification- being conformed into the image of Christ.

In my worship- Christ in the 10,000 moments of my days.
In my art- making true and beautiful and good things that show the way the world really is.

In my studies- thinking right thoughts about God and this world.
In my theology- God as center, Christ as glorified.

In my emotions- purifying my perceptions, aligning my feelings with the truth of reality

In my relationships- Christ as the subject of my conversations, the object of my thoughts and affections

I want to grow, steady.

What are some actions and expressions of steady people you know?

Virtue

2011-03-27T17:51:00.000-05:00

Patience is the capacity to wait and endure

without murmuring and disillusionment.

To wait in the unplanned place and endure the unplanned pace.

-piper

Love and Marriage | Benjamin+Savannah- Preview

2011-03-26T16:24:00.000-05:00

This weekend I had the wonderful opportunity to shoot a wedding in Fargo, ND.

Benjamin and Savannah are a breathtakingly beautiful couple with heart for people the size of North Dakota. It was a lovely wedding. More to come soon!

The Beach and Reality

2011-03-24T01:06:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago I accomplished one of my goals for this year:

See the ocean again.

My sister Emily and I took the Amtrak from Minneapolis to Portland to visit friends and help with the Beneath the Surface girls conference. The conference was one of the best yet. The time spent with with friends, the moments, the coffee shops, the conversations- all like 100 dollar bills being stuffed in my box of memory-treasures.

And I got to see the ocean again.

I like going to the ocean because it reminds me, if even for just a moment, who I am.

I like the ocean because it gives me a smart slap of reality.

I topple over the wet rocks to get to the beach- balanced- and am reminded that I am movable, a person. A body with a beating heart wrapped in skin.

Fearfully and Wonderfully.

I run my way to the water and meet the sea foam with an introduction. "Hello!"

I extend my hand to scribe the sand, the ocean boldly washes up, wets my hand and touches my boots.

Hello indeed.

I am made devastatingly aware that I am weak. This is the ocean. I cannot stop it.

I look up and out, trying to decide where the water ends and the sky begins. Is that a whale? a bird? a ship? My eyes crossed from trying to see the end. This water tosses too far. I am reminded that I am small.

A child in an ancient land made wild for the glory of God.

I walk down the beach, loving the details of life on the coast and am reminded of Clyde Kilby's resolutions. With a pastoral heart and a poet’s eye, Kilby wrote a list of 10 things to help remind himself of the burning moment that is now. I stand on the beach and go over them in my head, wondering how I had been so blind all my life....

__________________________________________________________________________

1. At least once every day I shall look steadily up at the sky and remember that I, a consciousness with a conscience, am on a planet traveling in space with wonderfully mysterious things above and about me.

2. Instead of the accustomed idea of a mindless and endless evolutionary change to which we can neither add nor subtract, I shall suppose the universe guided by an Intelligence which, as Aristotle said of Greek drama, requires a beginning, a middle, and an end. I think this will save me from the cynicism expressed by Bertrand Russell before his death when he said: "There is darkness without, and when I die there will be darkness within. There is no splendor, no vastness anywhere, only triviality for a moment, and then nothing."

3. I shall not fall into the falsehood that this day, or any day, is merely another ambiguous and plodding twenty-four hours, but rather a unique event, filled, if I so wish, with worthy potentialities. I shall not be fool enough to suppose that trouble and pain are wholly evil parentheses in my existence, but just as likely ladders to be climbed toward moral and spiritual manhood.

4. I shall not turn my life into a thin, straight line which prefers abstractions to reality. I shall know what I am doing when I abstract, which of course I shall often have to do.

5. I shall not demean my own uniqueness by envy of others. I shall stop boring into myself to discover what psychological or social categories I might belong to. Mostly I shall simply forget about myself and do my work.

6. I shall open my eyes and ears. Once every day I shall simply stare at a tree, a flower, a cloud, or a person. I shall not then be concerned at all to ask what they are but simply be glad that they are. I shall joyfully allow them the mystery of what Lewis calls their "divine, magical, terrifying and ecstatic" existence.

7. I shall sometimes look back at the freshness of vision I had in childhood and try, at least for a little while, to be, in the words of Lewis Carroll, the "child of the pure unclouded brow, and dreaming eyes of wonder."

8. I shall follow Darwin's advice and turn frequently to imaginative things such as good literature and good music, preferably, as Lewis suggests, an old book and timeless music.

9. I shall not allow the devilish onrush of this century to usurp all my energies but will instead, as Charles Williams suggested, "fulfill the moment as the moment." I shall try to live well just now because the only time that exists is now.

10. Even if I turn out to be wrong, I shall bet my life on the assumption that this world is not idiotic, neither run by an absentee landlord, but that today, this very day, some stroke is being added to the cosmic canvas that in due course I shall understand with joy as a stroke made by the architect who calls himself Alpha and Omega.

Love you and the beach and this picture of my sister,
Laura

Beneath the Surface Conference

2011-03-22T15:48:00.000-05:00

Confession: I think I'm a conference junkie.

I've been suspicious of this for a while, but this past February I had the remarkable privilege of being a part of the Beneath the Surface Conference in Portland, OR and it was confirmed.
I'm practically addicted.
It doesn't help that Portland is one of the best places on this spinning globe and that some spectacular individuals who love God like it's serious business were putting the conference on.

So folks, Beneath the Surface is a girls conference for for 13-18 year-old girls and their moms. But it's more than just another girls conference. Beneath the Surface has a vision for girls to start living their lives in light of eternity. The real lives and stories and examples stir up a desire to walk worthy of the calling of Christ today, pulling all areas of life under the light of eternity.
The vision catches. And spreads. And soon, before you know it, you have all of these girls running around radically committed to living a life that makes a difference.

A life that walks in the Light.

See? This kinda stuff is addicting.

The Beneath the Surface 2011 Spring Conference, Ladies and Gents:

The talented Leslie Reavely lead us in Worship.

"Now unto the Lamb who sits on the throne be glory and honor and praise."

Sarah Harris's dramatic Interpretation of "The Room"

Speaker and co-founder Elizabeth Knopp spoke with passion on beauty and the lies we believe.

David Knopp brought a compelling message on family relationships and holiness in the home.

Rowan and Jocelyn Gillson held us all captivated during their session on boys and romance.

Walk in the Light,
Laura

Love and Marriage | Al+Christy

2011-03-17T23:46:00.000-05:00

Another Texas wedding! I'll never tire of shooting weddings in the Lone Star State, especially if it means shooting the weddings of my friends. Al & Christy were amazing. Perhaps the most relaxed and (down right happy) bride and groom that I've shot so far. It was a lovely day, a breathless blue sky and the sun shining bright with it's approval of this stellar match.

Great things happen when great people get married.

Love and Life | Hannah+Bryan

2011-03-16T12:40:00.000-05:00

Ah me! why may not love and life be one? ~Henry Timrod

It's one thing to shoot engagements. It's another thing to shoot engagements of some of your best friends in life. Hannah & Bryan are getting married. So much happy. So much wonderful. Love them special.

march fifteenth

2011-03-15T22:48:00.000-05:00

I love photography for moments like this. No, I take that back. I love GOD for moments like this. May my feet carry me on the path of eternity.
-kiki

A King

2011-02-05T09:45:00.000-06:00

I am not a Christian because there is a God, but because there is THIS God.

Work

2011-02-03T22:07:00.000-06:00

There are somethings the mop just won't pick up.

Scratches of crayons, dried coffee stains- linoleum floors attract such. They require extra attention, a closer look. Hard bristle brush.

I was thinking about manual labor today, while on my hands and knees, scrubbing the floor of a Minneapolis home. "Working with your hands is satisfying." I thought.
Now, I love photography. I love pictures. I love cinema and I think it's amazing what we can do with new advances in digital imaging. But.
There is something about working with your hands- throwing a bowl, penning a letter, crafting a bookcase, cleaning a house, weaving a blanket, digging your hands deep into the earth- there is something about creating that is buried deep inside of human beings.
I like to unearth the CREATE gene in myself daily.

I also get really excited when I see other people creating true and beautiful and good things well. For example, the gentlemen over at Grain & Gram.

Watch these: Fascinating men, sweet tunes and beautiful imagery.

Go makes something,
Laura

Grain & Gram: Blair Sligar, Woodworker from Grain & Gram on Vimeo.

Grain & Gram: Nick Sambrato, Printmaker from Grain & Gram on Vimeo.

2.1.2011

2011-02-01T17:20:00.000-06:00

you may delay but time will not

deathtakesnobribes

Eyes Open

2011-01-26T19:58:00.000-06:00

"All the technique in the world doesn't compensate for the inability to notice."

-Elliot Erwitt

The Boyum Family

2011-01-22T23:38:00.000-06:00

Every every year I have the pleasure of shooting one of my favorite families.

I met the Boyum family when I was 16 years old, a punk sporting bright red bangs to try to make up for my shy personality. They immediately welcomed me into their circle of friends, involving my sister and I in worship, small group bible studies and acts of service to the community. The Boyums have a vision and a passion for young people that I've seen grow the longer I've know them.

They are some pretty sweet people with some crazy travel stories (Note: the crutches) and if you ever get the chance, you should stop by their home and listen. I'm blessed to be a part of their lives and to help tell their story.

(SKILLET in Thai...I guess)

The VonTrapp Family?

Beautiful Family.

Beautiful People.

Love,
Laura

Snow and Snow

2011-01-22T22:34:00.001-06:00

I know. I know

Another poem?

I'm sorry, so, so sorry.

More images coming soon.

But, I thought that because today was one of the coldest of the year, (and one of those Saturdays that makes you feel...bleh..) and because this is a beautiful example of personalization, here you are.

SNOW AND SNOW

by Ted Hughes

Snow is sometimes a she, a soft one.

Her kiss on your cheek, her finger on your sleeve

In early December, on a warm evening,

And you turn to meet her, saying "It''s snowing!"

But it is not. And nobody''s there.

Empty and calm is the air.

Sometimes the snow is a he, a sly one.

Weakly he signs the dry stone with a damp spot.

Waifish he floats and touches the pond and is not.

Treacherous-beggarly he falters, and taps at the window.

A little longer he clings to the grass-blade tip

Getting his grip.

Then how she leans, how furry foxwrap she nestles

The sky with her warm, and the earth with her softness.

How her lit crowding fairylands sink through the space-silence

To build her palace, till it twinkles in starlightÂ—

Too frail for a foot

Or a crumb of soot.

Then how his muffled armies move in all night

And we wake and every road is blockaded

Every hill taken and every farm occupied

And the white glare of his tents is on the ceiling.

And all that dull blue day and on into the gloaming

We have to watch more coming.

Then everything in the rubbish-heaped world

Is a bridesmaid at her miracle.

Dunghills and crumbly dark old barns are bowed in the chapel of her sparkle.

The gruesome boggy cellars of the wood

Are a wedding of lace

Now taking place.