The Day

The day, where did it go?

I stay so busy that sometimes it is so easy to look up and another day has quickly faded away. Even now as I began this blog I decided to go get a quick glimpse of the sunset only to find that it had slipped away as well and the sky was beginning to fade into the early shadows of evening.

Where does it go? One minute it is there and the next it is gone. A shadow, a whisper, a fleeting moment. There, then gone. I wish that I knew. The breeze stirs and I catch myself just trying to freeze the moment so that it can be enjoyed. Always fleeting, always just beyond my grasp, always............

The day, it is now gone.

Hope lingers though, for tomorrow is a whole new day.

GW



  

What do you see?

What exactly do you see here? Before you read on, just stop and slowly take a look at the picture that is attached.

What do you see? A fireplace? An old building? Rocks? Wood? What do you see. Just tag along for a few minutes and we will return to this question.

My wife has asked me on many occasions whether my writings inspire my photography or my photography inspire my writings. The truth is that there are times that I will take a photo and it will cause that quirky little gear in my head to begin to churn and suddenly there is this crazy thought for a blog. Then there are other times that I will think about something that I want to write about and then I will go through some of my favorite photos and see if any of them tie to what I am wanting to write about. If not, I grab my camera and away I go, looking for that photo that expresses what I want to write about. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

Today the photo inspired the blog. I have recently began to go through my numerous photos and to eliminate a lot that just need to be deleted. In the process I have come across a lot of photos that I had forgotten about and some that I had never even looked at. This is one that I had forgotten about. I have a good friend that I have known for twenty years and we will occasionally go and find those little out of the way places that you can stumble across interesting photos. This particular one is the inside of an old abandoned log cabin in a little community just north of Comanche, Texas.

I am not sure what you saw when you looked earlier, but look again. There just above the fireplace. Do you see his face. Who is this person? Is it really a face? Is it a ghost of those who lived here long ago? Who really knows.

Our mind is a powerful instrument it can create and it can destroy. Take a look at this photo and just let your mind be creative. You never know what you might discover.

GW

Anger Revisited

When a man does the right thing because he knows in his heart that it is the right thing to do, I respect and admire him.

When a man does the right thing because it is the only thing left for him to do, I despise him.

I have lived my life with one constant and strong message to my Children. "Just do what is right.".

GW

Behind The Veil

It is a rare opportunity to truly see behind the veil of most people. That might sound like an odd statement, but please allow me to continue.

We are all very unique individuals. God created us with no two of us the same. He made us where we have unique fingerprints, palm prints, facial features, DNA, etc. With that being said, why are we all placed into a cookie cutter society where we all have to think, act, talk and behave the same. It is ludicrous to think that the God that created us so different from each other would then put  us in a position where that uniqueness separates us from others. That however is the truth. If you conform you are accepted and normal, if not, you are either a radical or a free spirit. Often times frowned upon by society, and sometimes even rejected.

I know there are people out there that have never allowed others to see them for who they really are. I know that they are out there. I have seen them, I have talked to them, if I were completely honest with myself, I am one of them. In a previous blog I was speaking of my anger and I was just releasing this anger and I wrote the following words "Ok, so I let the door swing open today. I have reached out and grabbed the handle and pulled it closed.". As I looked back upon that post, I realized how tightly I held that door closed and for it to escape me that day even for just a few hours was unusual for me.

 I know that there are many of you out there who can completely relate to this feeling. You never really let people see you for who you really are. You guard your thoughts your actions your feelings, you guard everything that you do. You literally spend your life with that veil pulled up so tightly around you that people will never even get the chance to appreciate the real you because you are so afraid that the real you is not good enough or perfect enough or whatever else there is that doesn't measure up. The irony is that the veiled you that you put out for the world to see is experiencing all of the things that the real you is avoiding. The veiled you is liked by some, hated by some and some just really don't care anything about you.

As I said, it is a rare opportunity to see behind the veil of most people. Maybe life is just a masquerade. We put on our mask and we step out the door and we pull the veil tightly around us never realizing that we are the ones unable to see because the mask and the veil have clouded our vision and even our thoughts.

I challenge you today to lower the veil and to remove the mask and to just be yourself. You might be surprised what an unobstructed view of others will do for your opinion of yourself.

"It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for something you are not." ~Andre Gide

GW

It's Cold Outside

It is cold outside. The winter that I have looked upon with dread has finally arrived here in Texas.

Of all of the seasons, Winter is probalbly my least favorite. That does not mean that I hate winter it just means that in a four horse race it finished fourth.

I love the hot weather so much better. If the temperature gets below 80 degrees, I begin to get cold. So you can imagine how I felt the last two mornings when the temperature actually got down to the upper teens. I am sure that the people up north would look at that statement and say "what a pansy". I would however encourage those same people to come help me mow my yard this summer when it is 110 degrees in the shade and I am enjoying my warm weather.

Summer is a clear winner in the race for favorite seasons with Spring and Fall in a dead heat for second. In the Spring it wins out over Fall but in the Fall it jumps back ahead of Spring. I really like both of those seasons almost as much as I like Summer. Winter has placed itself with a death grip on the last and final place in my seasons favorite category. Like a cold icy hand frozen in place it will never relinquish that position.

With all of that being said, I would like to clarify, I do not hate the winter, it is simply my least favorite. If I would allow myself to be honest, there are actually things about Winter that I like. Come along as I remind myself of the things that I like about Winter so that I might endure until the Spring arrives.

I like that first really cold blast of air when you say to yourself that Winter has finally arrived.

I like the feel of a really cold brisk morning when the sun is rising and trying to overpower the cold but fails.

I like the feeling of snow as it lands upon my face when I look to the sky.

I like the sound of sleet falling in the cold quiet of winter. It has such a soothing rythmic sound.

I like to see the fresh fallen snow as it transforms the gray and desolate world that winter has created.

I like to see a childs face as he explores the excitement of the new fallen snow.

I like to see the things that are revealed when the leaves are gone from the trees and bushes.

I like the fact that every day of Winter brings me one day closer to Spring.

I like the thought that this too shall pass.

So you see, I really don't hate Winter. Actually, without Winter I would never look forward to the Spring which makes me look forward to Summer which makes me look forward to Fall which inevitably brings me back to Winter.

So with that in mind, let me get my coat because after all, It's cold outside.

Feel free to share with me the things that you like about Winter.

GW

Inspired by the Inspired

WOW!!!!!!!!!! Have you ever just read something that someone has written that is so moving that it captivates your entire being?

This is where I find myself today. Last night as I was meandering through a few of the blogs that I follow, I casually began to read through the most recent post of "BB" and all I could say was WOW!!!! I have not been able to get it out of my mind. It has so captivated my thoughts and emotions that I myself have had, it was inspiring but unsettling all at the same time.

I usually quietly admire the work of the bloggers that I follow. My comments are not scattered out freely just to be commenting. I only comment when the author has posted a photo or a writing that catches my attention and causes me to think outside of this box that I have found myself in. This is the first time that I have actually promoted anyone's blog. 

I hope that if you take the time to read it, that it moves you in the same way that it moved me. If not, then maybe it wasn't meant for you.

Here is the Link.
http://eternalsunshinequest.blogspot.com/2011/01/paper-dreams-and-silver-seams.html 

GW

In Search of Christmas

Do you ever need to "feel" Christmas? I am not talking about the excitement of giving and receiving gifts and other Christmas traditions, I am talking about the real feeling of Christmas.

I am probably not making any sense to you, after all I am not making any sense to me. I remember as a boy having that feeling. I can't explain it to you if you have never had it before. I find that as I grow older, that the feeling is harder and harder to find. I do not know if life has caused that feeling to be dulled or if the marketing of our modern times has dulled it, or if just age itself has caused the fire to burn down.

I told my wife the other night that I would really like to find some small little church or community putting on an old fashioned Christmas pageant. I thought that maybe there I could spark that "feeling" of Christmas and relive for a moment what is so hard to hold on to. So we kept our eyes open for something that might fit our hectic schedule and what do you know, a small community right down the road about ten miles was putting on a living Bethlehem promotion as a community event. I thought that surely I could find that "feeling" in this atmosphere so we tentatively penciled in this date and went about our daily lives.

Late that afternoon we were frantically working on Christmas projects that we were growing short on time with when my wife's phone rang. It was her mother and father and they were coming through town and wanted to meet us for supper so we said sure because we truly love being around them and we enjoy their company. My wife and I knew that this would put us short on time on the Living Bethlehem, but we thought that it would all work out. Well, supper ran longer than expected, the visit was nice but we were really cutting it close now. So we swung by to gather up our grandson and off we went to find that "feeling" of Christmas. Needless to say, as we arrived in the little community expecting to see a large group gathered somewhere and cars everywhere our first pass through town yielded just a small sleepy little town. Disappointed we turned around and hit a few side streets until we finally found it. The wise men and the shepherds were all gone as were the host of singing angels and all that was left was the empty stage where everything had been. People were gathering up and loading stuff into their cars. We had missed it all.

I feel like that is how it has been for me for a while. Christmas has been elusive to me. I do not know nor do I understand what sparks that feeling that I have spoken of, but I hope that you have found it this year. As for me, personally I am still in search of Christmas.