A love that endures...is a love that binds!

Reflections on Love and life on Valentines Day.

This is a picture of our neighbors, Ron and Dorothy, opening gifts at their 50th Wedding Anniversary party almost 4 years ago. 50 years of marriage -- Wow, what an achievement!!

In addition to that lifetime of love and labor, another thing that made this a special day was that the party was something the entire neighborhood shared in. The party was hosted at the home of their next door neighbor (who lives directly across the street from us), and in addition to their family, pretty much everyone in our little cul-de-sac community was invited (and most attended); binding us all together to share in the celebration of their love and life.


Switching gears, the second picture is one of two siblings that I was able to capture not long ago. I was at the library shooting birds and they were with their mom and I shot them because the three of them (the kids and their mom) startled the birds so that the birds flew away. And when the mom stopped to take pictures of them, since I no longer had subjects, I shot pictures of the three of them and then the two kids. It was a fluke moment, but I thought it captured the essence of happy siblings loving one another.

You see, Valentines Day doesn't have to be about romance (although Hallmark and the candy companies want you to think that). Quite often we forget that love also means family, siblings, and friends too. Don't get so caught up in the marketing of love by the Vermont Teddy Bear company (among others) that you forget to appreciate your siblings, parents, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends and even neighbors who love you too...

"When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love." (1 Corinthians 13:11-13)

Something to think about.

Lost Camera Found!

Its amazing how the Bible speaks to us wherever we may be in our lives.

Some time ago, I was searching diligently for my first Digital Camera, an Olympus 765 UZ. It was a good little camera and it got me started in Digital photography and after coming home from one of our vacations, I was looking for it and it disappeared.

I had looked off and on for a good while and to no avail it never turned up. I asked the kids and no one had seen it. Being that I had moved on to the Nikon and now Olympus, I just accepted that the original Olympus was gone and had moved on. And since most of the pictures I had taken with the camera were saved on various flash drives, the sting of the lost Olympus was not as deep as it otherwise could have been.

However, yesterday while preparing to leave the house, I moved one of the bags in our closet to get a shirt and believe it or not, the Olympus rolled out! It along with the wife’s old Kodak had been stowaways in that bag, trying to flee one of the wife’s cleaning spirit frenzies! *LOL* Had I not been looking for something else, I don’t think I would have found those camera anytime soon. And just like the Bible says I was overjoyed with my find and wanted to share my joy with my friends:

“Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it? And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost. Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.” (Luke 15:8-10)

And while my search wasn’t as diligent as the woman in the verse above, my joy of discovering the long lost Olympus was just as exuberant. Indeed, this entire episode has given me new insights as to how the Bible can speak to use all the time; we just have to be listening! And to show you just how great a camera the Olympus was (and still is), note that the picture of the youngest (above) was taken with the Olympus 765UZ a few years ago!

Rejoice with me friend, for I have found the camera that was lost!!