Kill me with their Love

In the movie the Green Mile, John Coffey tells Paul Edgecomb(Tom Hanks) that Wild Bill  Wharton killed the two little girls with their love for one another.
At times, I feel that as a grandpa, I am being "killed" by my love for two very special little children, Nathaniel and Ava.

When A Grown Child Dies

by Aurelia D.Wallace

After the Black Death, after
Lister, after doctors learned
To wash their hands
---Began to hope
The bloodied spawn might live,
Might starve, for once, the empty plots
In family graveyards
(Birth ten, get four
if you are lucky)
The natural extravagance
of evolution
---Kept on hoping
After polio, after Salk,
After Spock, Gesell, and Gerber,
How better it would be,
A queer economy,
If babies lived
---When my turn
Came, given the laws of probability,
(Buy one, get one free)
---Came to expect
Him to live to grown,
Marry, produce his own,
Bury his mama and daddy
Instead of babies
Under the family's whited stones
---But when
grown child dies...
B

The General's wife

The Union and Confederates were in the cemetery at Olustee paying tribute in a service to those who made the sacrifice of their lives here 149 years ago. I stood over by the fence with General Todd Jesse's wife Helen Case Jesse and the General's attendant of the horses, James Rourks.
The General's wife was of fiery red hair and beautiful blue eyes, an appearance befitting a General's wife.
She was most kind and gentle to Beauregard, the General's horse. I was honored to capture the moment.

Ruined from behind

 f
This is a fine example of how intrusion into your background can ruin a photograph. I was busy concentrating on the expressions and position of the three and failed to notice the spectator
peering into the scene. I suppose he could be blurred out, but best to be aware of ones background and avoid him all together.

ask,askance,glance

Awaiting the mustering of the Confederates to march to the battle on Sunday, I enjoyed photographing these young people selling period garments. There was another fellow in other photographs, but this triangle was my favorite, plus there was a background free of spectators.

Thine hands unto

Thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God, in all that thou puttest thine hands unto.---
Deut. 12:18

Christ, when He blesses, blesses not in word only, but in deed. The lips of truth cannot promise more than the hands of love will surely give.
Spurgeon

When I was young at my grandmothers steep yard in West Virginia, it was a pleasure to mow the soft bluegrass with her reel mower.
When I was older and we moved to Florida, it was pure drudgery to mow the hard bahia grass with the reel mower.
Same blades but very different results. I liken the Bluegrass to a life where Christ both blesses in word and in deed. Even upon hills, the cutting is a joy.
When one works in his own effort, apart from the proper tool, (the spirit), toil and sorrow ensue.

Into Olustee Shadow

Is it actually essential to carry the sharpest lenses and the latest gear? When I returned from the Sunday Battle of Olustee 37th re-enactment of the 149th year after the actual Battle, the photographs that piqued me the most were those I had deliberately blurred and panned slowly. It evokes more of a sense of the time to me. I did not take enough of this type as I should have.
For the 150th next year, I hope to concentrate half of my exposures to the ethereal and mysterious.
 

Consider Him

Consider Him.
Hebrews 12:13

Believer, who art weary and disheartened because of the roughness of the way, look at the Master's footsteps, and see how He suffered.
Spurgeon

I must constantly remind myself, my path compared is primrose strewn and soft with pine needles.
What gives me the audacity to go about in a state of sorrow and pity for my minor scratches?
Could it not be the enemies tactic to sideline us in our own misery?
I think so.
Morning by morning I rise and cast away the pity, the woe is me countenance I so love to parade.
And so again today,
I consider Him.

Alligator Day

In the latter afternoon, knowing a front was moving in, I went out to Alligator Park to see what developed. Went on foot with the vest, the D40 with the manual 180mm and 2x extender, plus the Canon S100 and iphone4. I had hoped to see the White Pelicans but I assume the fishing was not to their liking, or they were on the deeper Southern side of the lake.
I was able to capture the two alligators in a one minute video that was uploaded to Utube within minutes after filming. That is what I want in a camera, which is there.
In all, a few promising shots that I later worked in the computer with the HDR setting.
Going more for the graphic look.

Cross Crow

This reminds me of Rev Whitney Dough, an old time Methodist preacher that had a talking crow.
He wrote a book about his adventures with that crow. I thought in our day and age of whacky so-called in the name of Christ things we do, why not an amazing crow. Whitney Dough I am sure would approve.

Fruits of righteousness

 

The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.
James 3:18

The way of peace we cannot know till we find our peace, where our immortal aspirations place it, in the fulness and the friendly eternity of God.
Bushnell

We carry about sack loads of our sorrows, our ill wills, our pride, our vanities all in the name of our own self-righteousness. And we wonder why there is no peace, no peace. Why things just never work as planned, why the constant sadness, despair and sense of foreboding.
We have failed to place the seed sack upon the back of the sower, the only one able to
make fruit from all our vain attempts.
No good thing comes from us. It all must come from the hand of the friendly, eternal God.    

In my infirmities

More gladly, therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
2 Corin. 12:9

Work in me, Lord; I would labor
In Thy vineyard for a while,
Thou my feeble faith rewarding
With the bounty of Thy smile.
Work in me.
Anna Shipton.

Gus was shot twenty-two years ago, leaving him paralyzed in a wheel-chair.
He lost both legs due to gangrene setting in.
He lives in a tiny, ramshackle home just North of the tracks.
Daily a caregiver comes to clean and bring food.
And through all the infirmities, still I look forward to his
infectious smile and good cheer.


Anna Shipton(1815-1901)was an English religious writer who, from a relatively early age, wrote essays on Christianity.
"Fellowship with Jesus lies not alone in pleasurable emotions; you must learn it in suffering and in service."