Monday, October 13, 2008

Another Praying Mantis: More Strange and Frightening Beauty



It seems to be my destiny to run into large praying mantis' in public places. I ran into this one in the parking lot of a park about a week ago. I actually had to chase him away from the front of my car so I wouldn't run him over when I was pulling out. I cropped these photos and adjusted the brightness and contrast some so that the mantis stands out better against the dark background.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Images of Creation: Strange and Beautiful

Here are a couple of photos I have taken recently that I liked.



Saturday, September 6, 2008

Traces of Illumination: A Blog

So, I've started yet another blog. I just spent the last half an hour or so trying to come up with a name for it and I'm still not sure I like the name I picked. I want something evocative, something that will convey both the thoughts and images inside my head and the subject matter of this blog. I've created it with the hope that I can take some vague impressions and ideas I've had floating around inside my mind and turn them into something, if not more solid, then at least that others can draw from or enter into or receive from. My idea has been to start a blog that would combine spiritual reflections from both the Bible and thoughtful Christian writers, photography (not necessarily my own), and my love of ambient and ethereal music into a space that in some way reflects or communicates something of the sacred.

I want this blog to be, if not itself a holy place, something that intimates the holy, and that allows it to be expressed and seen and heard in ways that might draw people into the experience of it in the reality of creation and the ordinariness of their daily routines.

This, of course, on the face of it, seems like an absurdly pretentious notion, that a blog can draw us into the holy. It probably is. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to do this, not out of some narcissistic need for self fulfillment, I hope, but out of a desire to communicate the beauty and goodness of God's world, and out of a desire to hopefully give others a glimpse of those things, to the degree that I am able.

I hope that if you find this blog that you will find that it communicates something good to you, that it leaves you with an impression or intimation of the holy and beautiful. If not, I hope you find those things somewhere else. If so, then I am glad.