Calling conclusion take one

 

Part of my calling is the craft of preaching.  On Sunday mornings I engage the art of weaving the threads of scripture and life together, the holy moment of inviting and inspiring people to remember who and whose they are.  Alongside my love of Sunday morning worship of prayer and praise and preaching is an amateur interest in photography.  In taking photos I am seeking or searching to find, focus, and frame what is calling out to me.  I pay attention with my eyes, ears, smells in the air, and whole self for what is stirring and swirling. 

 

For example, look at the above photograph. 

 

You could say, it is trees in some forest…nothing new there.

 

Or maybe you want to focus on the ways the light shines through the trees.

 

Or maybe you notice the tree in-front has no leaves while the others do, which maybe is a parable for how you feel in your life.

 

Or maybe you are drawn to the neon green of the leaves so brilliant that have now become hues of red, orange, brown to fall to the ground leaving that tree barren.

 

Or maybe you look at the branches jetting off in different directions as a metaphor for your life.

 

One photo…can provoke and evoke even more than a thousand words.

 

Every Sunday, I use words to connect the scripture to life through finding, focusing, and framing.

 

I want us to step into the sacred story of scripture, explore, and encounter just like you are doing with this photo.  I want to create word pictures in your mind.  For today, I invite you to be awake and aware of what you are finding, focusing, and framing.  Where your attention goes, so your energy flows.  You are not some computer that can just take all the data of the world in and process it only in your mind.  Your mind and heart and soul are interconnected and intertwined.  Take time today to pay attention to where and what you are paying attention toward.  For example, if you are only watching the news with its drastic and dramatic music every other minute proclaiming some new tragedy, I believe that weighs on your soul.  You are finding, focusing, and framing your life in a relationship with what is around you.  The exterior of life impacts the interior…and our interior has an impact on the exterior.  Science now knows that my interaction with that group of trees in the forest above was not neutral, I had an impact on that forest, left my foot and finger prints literally and metaphorically. 

 

Where are you finding, focusing, and framing?  May that question continue to stir within you every day this week.