Scott Fillmer » history

The Valley of Vision :: Poem

Scott Fillmer — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 01:15:32 +0000

I took this photo above from a painting that one of the kids in Uganda painted at Bethany Village Orphanage, and it just reminded me of this poem written by the Puritans around the time of World War I (1918). I found this poem from a collection of files I put together several years ago. I just love how the poem, the painting, and it’s painter go together so well.

The Valley of Vision

Lord, High and Holy, Meek and Lowly,
You have brought me to the valley of vision,
where I live in the depths but see you in the heights;
hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold your glory.

Let me learn by paradox that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.

Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells,
and the deeper the wells the brighter your stars shine;

Let me find your light in my darkness,
your life in my death,
your joy in my sorrow,
your grace in my sin,
your riches in my poverty,
your glory in my valley.

Amen

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2011 Auburn Football Starts My 40th Season :: 5 Photo Outtakes

Scott Fillmer — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 19:45:48 +0000

Well I know we all know down here in the south that the 2011 football season is only a few days away, but after seeing so much posted on the internet about Auburn’s upcoming season I had to go back and look at the last 5 years or so and revisit what I shot through all those games. Every football season is so completely different from the year before, and last year for Auburn was the dream season for those of us who have followed Auburn football for 40 years (like me).

This season will actually be the start of the 40th year of my involvement in Auburn football as a fan. I don’t even know why that is significant in the scheme of things but it just occurred to me as I started looking through all the years of Auburn football images I have now compiled as a photographer and a fan. I was born the day after the Auburn vs Alabama football game in 1970, the last game of the season. Auburn won that game 33-28 at Legion Field in Birmingham. Apparently the only photographer at the game that day was Tod Papageorge, this was about the only image I could find from 1970 but if I can find one of my family from that game I’ll post it tomorrow for Throwback Thursday. Over the next 15 YEARS Auburn would go on to lose the Iron Bowl 12 times going into the mid-80′s when Bo Jackson would then step on the scene. The one historical event coming in 1972 with the “Punt Bama Punt” game where Auburn won 17-16.

Below are outtakes from the last five years. One shot from each season, starting with Gene Chizik going through Tiger Walk from 2010 down to 2006 when we were on the field for pre-game warmup. These are shots that never made it to my blog or use anywhere else, just a few random shots I found from the last five years. Can’t wait for the start of the 2011 season, it’s always a fun time of year down in the south.

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A Graveyard Tells a Unique Story in History :: Photos

Scott Fillmer — Fri, 20 May 2011 15:29:35 +0000

Don’t know how your week has been but my week has been so busy that today was the first day I actually had a chance to get these photos posted from my shoot last weekend.

I love doing a photowalk through local graveyards. Here in Alabama (and I guess everywhere) we have these small family graveyards dotted all around the area. Each one tells an incredible story, and the stories often span a historical period of hundreds of years. This may sound strange to some but they are almost always quiet, peaceful places where traffic is light and little has changed over the decades and time just seems to slow down when you walk through.

This graveyard is real close to my house and is typical of the local family graveyards around our area. There are almost as many infants, babies, and youth in this spot as there are adults. Most of the smallest graves are unmarked and very old at this point. The earliest birth year here was late 1600′s so this little tract has been in this one family, sitting just like this, for over 300 years. There are a lot of houses in our area that were built around the Civil War era, and this spot has a tiny little building/house/shack on it. I try to image who would have lived in this little building, which is smaller than the smallest room in my house.

Each one is different, each one tells a different story.

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Memorial Day Flag Flying from Auburn Alabama

Scott Fillmer — Mon, 31 May 2010 13:30:58 +0000

I am glad we still celebrate Memorial Day in this country. Somehow it seems that as the political correctness of our culture takes over everything we end up loosing an understanding of what made this country great in the first place. It sickens me to see stories like the one of the Iraq veteran who displayed the American flag in his apartment window and was told to take it down or face eviction due to the fact that the flag is offensive to some of their residents.

Charlie Price of Wisconsin served 8 years for his country in Iraq and Kosovo to find that he isn’t even allowed to fly the flag he fought for in his own window. The couple is now fighting to amend the Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005 to include renters, and I hope they are successful. Sometimes it seems that you are no longer aloud to hold an opinion in this country because it might offend someone. Who are these idiots who have now decided that we need to be a country of brown plain-jane, average, robots, who all believe in the same thing and can never disagree with anyone else?

There is no greatness in average, no conviction of ideals or principles in living a life of medium gray, and these types always seem to get the headlines. It gets tiring to hear the moaners, whiners, and complainers beat the drums of complacency and strive towards moving the country to be average, but sometimes they seems to be yelling the loudest. Now, instead of being the innovators and inventors, we are having to rely on Russia and Russian built rockets to take us into space, who would have thought that 20 years ago.

It is still the greatest country in the world, I just wish some of it’s residents would take a history lesson and see that America was not built on being average. The History Channel just finished an interesting series called America The Story of Us. Though some of it was a little subjective, it showed the overwhelming story of how much innovation, determination, and sacrifice people made because they believed in themselves and what this country stood for.

My family has had people who fought in the Civil War, WWI, both of my grandfathers served in WWI (see Son of a Son of a Photographer), one flew a B-24 Bomber in WWII in Europe, my dad served in the Air Force, and my cousin decided to go into the Navy after 9-11 and is currently serving in the Navy on a nuclear submarine. I am thankful for their service to this country. Because they served, my wife and I are able to enjoy living in this great country.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Memorial Day. It has been quite a stormy weekend with some crazy weather but I managed to get outside and take a few photos (and some of the dog of course). The heat is definitely on its way, the pasture, trees, and everything around has taken on the brilliant green of summer.

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In the Beginning, ARPA created the ARPANET

Tumble — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 06:11:49 +0000

I love this quoted poem below. You probably won’t appreciate it unless you are a ham radio operator or understand the language but if you do, it’s quite something.

In the Beginning, ARPA created the ARPANET.
And the ARPANET was without form and void.
And darkness was upon the deep.
And the spirit of ARPA moved upon the face of the network
and ARPA said, ‘Let there be a protocol,’ and there was a protocol.
And ARPA saw that it was good.
And ARPA said, ‘Let there be more protocols,’ and it was so.
And ARPA saw that it was good.
And ARPA said, ‘Let there be more networks,’ and it was so.

http://www.computerhistory.org/internet_history/

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Chasing Saint Francis of Assisi by Ian Cron :: Review

Scott Fillmer — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 18:21:09 +0000

A few weeks ago when I was in Atlanta for Catalyst I went to a blogger-ish meeting that took place after Catalyst had ended, called Off the Blogs (photos of that night). During one of the sessions, Carlos Whittaker from Ragamuffinsoul talked to the group about things going on in his life, and he mentioned a book he was reading that I had never heard of before, called Chasing Francis by Ian Morgan Cron.

I am struggling with finding words to review this book adequately as it really took me to another place in how I think about God, the traditions of the Church as seen from a historical perspective, and the local modern church of today. Where I am part of the local modern church today by the mere fact that I am alive in 2009, Chasing Francis took me back to the traditions in the church during the 1200′s when Saint Francis of Assisi was alive. It got me to more closely examine the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7, and it was loaded with things we can apply to church today that Francis championed some 800 years ago.

This book is an allegory of sorts and it mixes fact and fiction throughout as Chase (the main character) goes on a pilgrimage that follows the life of Saint Francis of Assisi after he has been told by the elders to take a leave of absence as Pastor of a modern contemporary church to think about its direction. I tried to read the book with an open mind, not necessarily a critical mind, and it gave me a better appreciation for the roots of the Catholic church (which really are the roots to THE church), and the labels we tend to apply to everything in our world today.

Our Protestant-Catholic Misconceptions

Growing up Protestant the misconceptions and exaggerations I had/have of the Catholic church is probably similar to most in a denominational type church, but the story did focus on a Catholic Saint, and I found this passage very telling:

…My initiation into conservative Christianity included being taught that Catholics weren’t really ‘saved.’…
“What do you want to talk about?” Kenny said. “Transubstantiation, sola Scriptura versus the magisterium, praying to Mary, or all the other stuff Catholics and Protestants get hung up on? I’m too old for that. I’d rather be a reverent agnostic.”

“You’re an agnostic?” I asked. “The word agnostic means ‘not knowing.’ There are countless mysteries that I have to say… ‘I don’t know’.

and he went on to put the differences to rest as far as the story in this book goes to say:

…no one tradition has a corner on the faith market. Sharing the wisdom each of our traditions brings to the table will create more well-rounded Christians. Francis was a Catholic, evangelical preacher, radical social activist, devoted to prayer… who worshiped with all the enthusiasm of a Pentecostal.

and that is how he started down his pilgrimage into the life of Francis. I started off with zero knowledge about this Believer who lived 800 years ago, but left with a great curiosity to learn more.

Chasing Francis may have been written as a work of fiction, but the principles will ring true with any of us caught in the modern life of iPhone’s, Twitter, Facebook, and trying to be connected to the newest latest greatest, and then trying to bring it into the church.

For me, our methods in the church today in 2009 are different, our tools are different, and our words we use are different than any other time in history. We reach out to people in different ways than ever before, but we also don’t need to ignore the history and traditions of the church (minus the time frame in which our 66 books were written), and only look to the future. There are many who have come before us that have a lot to teach us, if we reach out to them.

Top 10 Bullet Points from Chasing Francis

Here are a few of the bullet points I took away from Chasing Francis. I scribbled, wrote, highlighted, and underlined half the book, so these are just a few of the ones that stuck out to me.

the Bible is less about ideas or doctrines than it is a story about people and their up-and-down relationship with God
the Bible is more a painting than a photograph [in context of interpretation of a painting]
postmoderns are good at criticizing the old way of doing things, but not very good at offering up positive alternatives for going forward
Francis didn’t criticize the institutional church, nor did he settle for doing church the way it had always been done
when did I loose the childlike ability to hear God in nature?
I’m not a character in search of an Author; I have a story.
possessions dissipate the energy which they need for other and more real things
Labels are misleading. They objectify people. They are a form of relational laziness
come and see how we preach the gospel at all times and when necessary, use words
if we spent less time worrying about how to share our faith with someone on an airplane and more time thinking about how to live radically generous lives, more people would start taking our message seriously.

In the end, I would say this is a must read, but only if it could be read with an open mind to think about the fact that there may be other ways to exercise our faith that we may disagree with, but that doesn’t make them wrong. It challenged by thinking and I loved the book. I will leave this post with one of my favorite quotes in the book from Henry David Thoreau.

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. – Thoreau

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Amazon Kindle iPhone App and the Future of Paper vs eBooks?

Scott Fillmer — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 17:34:00 +0000

This morning Amazon released the new Kindle iPhone App, or an iPhone eBook reader. Since I do not yet (but probably will soon) have a Kindle the news of the Kindle iPhone app was really intriguing, but I started wondering if the app was putting the horse before the cart. The very first reaction on the Internet was people saying they were disappointed they bought the Kindle and now they can get this on their iPhone. Totally wrong way to look at it altogether. What Amazon did by making an iPhone app for the Kindle was make their product more relevant and more useful than it was last week.

I won’t go through a comparison between the two, there is a great review over on CNET, see Comparing Kindle 2 with Kindle’s iPhone app, but one of the great features is being able to read a book between the two devices. It doesn’t come quite as close as Seth Godin’s request in Reinventing the Kindle (part II) to share books between Kindle users, but it comes closer. If Amazon keeps going down this road they will really make the Kindle a breakthrough device.

Breakthrough in the same way the iPod was for music, the Kindle can potentially be for books. Everyone grumbled about the price of the iPod, and it took until the 2nd generation for me to plunk down the money for one, but after a while, people realized that the iPod revolutionized the way we listen to music. There will always be people who want to read on paper, but for many, paper is a hassle, uses trees, and culturally is on the same track and path as Kodak 400 speed print film, but it’s more than just that. Don’t blink, traditional media is going fast, and in some cases pretty much gone.

Photography – Print Film —> Digital (almost totally complete at this point)
Music – Vinyl –> Tapes –> CD –> Digital (niche markets for anything non-digital)
Movies – Film –> Tape –> DVD –> Download (slower but almost there)
TV – Tube –> Cable –> Satellite –> Streaming Live (computer only is coming)
Books – Paper –> eBooks / Digital (the slowest of the 4, but catching up)
Magazines / Newspapers –> Paper –> Digital (totally dying media in paper form)

My wife is currently working on her Master’s degree and last semester she spent something like $300-$400 on books. After the Kindle 2 came out, I started looking at which books she bought were available on the Kindle. About 30-40% of them are currently available, at $9.99-$15. She paid $40-$50 for some of these books which can now be downloaded on the Kindle for $10. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out the savings potential for College students all over the world, and seeing that Amazon is working on things like iPhone Apps is only going to make the Kindle more and more relevant in our society’s future.

Sometimes we go kicking and screaming into the future, and change comes with a fight. The Kindle / iPhone app is a great example of a transition of all forms of media to digital, it’s just a question of how long will we hold on to the past print mediums because that is what we are use to today.

Update March 2011

I have since written an update to this post in light of the iPad, which makes eBooks even more appealing, you can read that posts Printed Books vs iPad or Kindle eBooks and the Future of Books

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Why Jim Morrison and the Bible are Still Consumed

Scott Fillmer — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:06:25 +0000

I love the music that comes from the mid to late 1960′s to mid 1970′s in the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Eric Clapton, Janis Joplin, Pink Floyd and many more. It was at the very height of the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, and a time of great growth and pain in our country and the world. The music of that time was filled with passion… to the point of death in many cases. It was psychedelic, spiritual, religious, real. It was a world that I can only read about from the perspective of history.

The other day while Deb and I were driving over to Georgia (see Welcome to Our Living Room // Friday Feet) we were listening to an iPod playlist and Peace Frog by The Doors came on and we started talking about what the song meant. Not at all an uncommon conversation between us when we listen to music together in the car. Deborah’s first reaction was who can fully know what any of Morrison’s songs meant and then it hit me, this is exactly why we still study the Bible today. People still listen to and marvel over Jim Morrison’s music because it isn’t simplistic and easy to figure out. You can just listen to it but you have to dig deep to understand the meaning of some of The Doors songs. That’s what makes their music great and part of history, you can listen to one of his songs over and over and still not grasp its full meaning.

I know this may be a big stretch to some who don’t care for The Doors music, but there is no denying that Jim Morrison is one of the all time greatest song writers and muscians in pop history, so if that is the case, how much greater are the riches provided for us in scripture? This may be totally off in left field to compare Jim Morrison’s works to a body of 66 books of God’s glory, but that is how my mind is able to wrap around the unimaginable hugeness that is the Bible.

Scholars for centuries have examined every letter, every translation, every Greek, Hebrew, and Latin meaning and yet, there is still more to be discovered. It is 66 books together that were written so that a child could understand and comprehend and a Biblical scholar could spend a life getting to know and still not fully grasp its greatness. To gain a better understanding, you have to dig in deeper.

Anyone can listen to Peace Frog but do you understand it from a casual listen? Go listen to the song or read the lyrics. What do you think it means? You can come up with a guess but there is far more to the song than just one listen can gather, not to mention the actual guitar work or all the history that goes into a piece of work like this. Without explanation or some research, grasping its full meaning may be difficult (especially while you are driving around in your car in 2009, a long time after 1970).

Like scripture and poems that tell a story, you can casually read through them and get a brief understanding. Some of the parables Jesus told were not the easiest to comprehend without some research into the culture of the time or history that surrounded the time. If it was all so easy and simple to understand I doubt people woud disect each chapter word for word centuries after it was written.

Peace Frog was originally called Abortion Stories, changed by guitarist Robby Krieger, and the lyrics came from poems Morrison wrote (he wrote several books of poetry along with his music). One of the more well known lines of the song comes from his childhood.

Indians scattered on dawn’s highway bleeding
Ghosts crowd the young child’s fragile eggshell mind

This seems to be tied to a bad car crash Morrison witnessed when he was 4 years old while on vacation with his parents. (Jim claims that the souls of those people [killed in the car crash] combined with him at that point on some level.) Morrison accounted it this way in An American Prayer, a work of poetry and music released years after his death in 1971:

Me and my mother and father and a grandmother and a grandfather were driving through the desert, at dawn, and a truck load of Indian workers had either hit another car, or just I don’t know what happened but there were Indians scattered all over the highway, bleeding to death.”

“So the car pulls up and stops. That was the first time I tasted fear. I musta’ been about four €” like a child is like a flower, his head is floating in the breeze, man.

Some of the song could be related to the race riots of the late 1960′s when The Doors were at their height or possibly the demonstrations of the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, both of which happened around the same time as the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4, 1968, and Robert F. Kennedy on June 5/6 (shot on the 5th and died on the 6th).

There’s blood on the streets, it’s up to my knee
She came
Blood on the streets in the town of Chicago

“Blood in the streets of New Haven” looks like it came from when Morrison was arrested after taunting Police during a concert in 1967. When he was arrested a riot ensued in the arena and poured out into the streets of New Haven.

This is just one song by Morrison. He was said to be an intelligent and capable student drawn to the study of literature, poetry, religion, philosophy and psychology and of course went on to have a successful career as an American singer, songwriter, poet, writer and film maker after graduating from UCLA. But, even when Morrison was alive and people could actually ask him what a song meant you couldn’t figure out how his mind worked, only he could (and that might be a stretch).

That was a mere mortal man who died at age 27. As great as he was, how much greater can a collection of 66 books of law, history, poetry, and prophecy be than that? I know, kind of a strange analogy but how can you get your mind around something so O-mazing and huge as the Word of God. Relate it to something comprehendible in our own time and space.

In the days of the old testament and even when Jesus taught his disciples he often spoke about things beyond their comprehension and understanding and to help them understand he related the stories to things, places, and people they all knew so they could start to grasp the meaning. How do you describe something like the beauty of the Garden of Eden or Heaven or a “new heaven and new earth”? In this life we can’t fully grasp His greatness but we have been given a lot of material to study in the mean time.

Come
And let him who hears say
Come
Who ever is thirsty, let him come
and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life
Yes, I am coming soon.

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My Utmost for Politics and Religion Indifference

Scott Fillmer — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 20:17:57 +0000

I will say right off the bat that this post will be totally uninteresting to some and all of my 10 readers may dislike it, but I feel like change is coming to my blog and I am writing this post to map it out for myself. There are a lot of random thoughts here and I jump back and forth, but I will try to tie them all together over the next few months through different blog posts, so for now, just roll with me if you can.

The two taboo topics of discussion in the workplace (politics and religion) are now taboo everywhere, which slowly makes us indifferent to either which in turns makes us unwilling to discuss, learn, and grow in the history that makes up topics like politics, religion, and government. Have we forgotten in this country (the U.S.) that there are countries in this world like North Korea, China, Cuba, and parts of Africa where they can not openly discuss opposition to their government or religious ideas?

I just love websites I go to that say no talking about politics or religion. In some cases that may be appropriate, but that has bled over into everything in everyday life. I am tired of hearing and seeing fellow Brothers and Sisters that avoid talking about politics (and matters of “other” faiths) because it is divisive. Newsflash, if you call yourself a Believer in Christ, you have chosen a side. Although Christ is open to ALL who believe in Him, we know not everyone will. It is hard to think of God as a God of love, and who leaves people out of his Heavenly kingdom but we also can’t even start to think we understand God from God’s point of view. On the flip side, there is “the world” (that would be those who don’t choose Him) that also refuse to talk about religion because it is divisive in nature.

We are quickly becoming a socialist society that no longer wants to listen to an opposing side and are guided to lean towards a muddy middle ground on everything. In the “can’t we all just get along” world, we move to the center of the undecided’s (those who can’t seem to make a decision until someone tells them how they should feel about the topic at hand) where we can all come together and get nothing done. Problem is, that is the most boring and uninformed place to sit, and is not only a cop out, but dangerous.

We have to be careful to not speak badly about another “religion” like extremist Muslims who’s plan is to do harm, and ignore comments by people like Helen Thomas of the White House press corp when she says things at Mr Obama’s “press conference” like “so-called” terrorists when speaking about people who terrorize other people. Don’t know what I am talking about… you could be guilty of political indifference yourself.

Why does this matter? It matters because we are now so far removed from our government, those who make the laws, and how it effects our lives, that we have become indifferent. Indifferent to a government that doesn’t blink an eye to spend $800 billion (about the size of our current national debt, in other wards, doubling the size of the national debt) for things like Frisbee golf courses and digital TV converter boxes, that we don’t even take notice. We just go merrily about our business and hope it doesn’t eventually intrude on our own life.

What did Jesus come to this earth to do? Reach over the isle and make friends, being careful not to be divisive? No, he came to fulfill the Torah, the law. Many times as Believers we ignore or are indifferent to politics because it is divisive. We want to make sure we don’t exclude anyone we could proselytize to by saying the word Democrat or Republican, or liberal or conservative like either of those determine who we are as a person. As one conversation went today, Jesus was not a Methodist, I promise. He was a person who spoke about principles, ideas, and how to change the status quo of thinking.

When we choose to ignore (by ignore I mean not discuss openly for means of not offending someone) divisive people, comments, or conversations, I don’t think we can grow. I am more than happy to listen to an opposing side to my own beliefs if it can be presented in an intelligent manner. I can talk to or converse with right wing religious fanatics and atheistic agnostics until if they can speak intelligently about their own point of view, but it is hard to do that if you don’t know why you stand where you do.

All that to say I am going to be doing some minor changes to the categories on my blog to speak my mind about topics of religion and politics. I am moving my photography category into Media since it is a media form, Faith will be Religion, etc etc. Like I said, if you don’t like politics or religion, stick to my Journal or Media categories.

Anyone who really knows me, knows that I have a great desire to please everyone all the time, so this is a pretty big change for me, but I hope this brings more transparency to my blog and my way of thinking. I am tired of being politically correct in my speech and writing and tip toeing around on my blog. I don’t plan on doing so from this point forward. If you don’t like divisiveness (meaning standing, and knowing where you stand), then read my “journal” section and ignore the politics and religion posts, I will keep those posts to the activities in my life.

If you would like to know where I come from, I do have some starting points, and as stupid as I thought Facebook’s “25 Things About Me” goes, I think that is a starting point to getting to know someone. I mention these things so you know the very basis of where my future opinion may stem and how I come to certain conclusions. I will list these on Facebook shortly (I think), but to get rolling…

I am not for a political party, but I am for certain principles and ideas like smaller government and lower taxes.
I do not consider myself to be part of a denomination but part of the body of Believers of Christ. I work at a Methodist church but I am currently a member of a Baptist church in Dallas. I don’t care much for non-doms because often they don’t know what they Believe
I watch and read news and politics from all over the place, not just one single source or location
I believe the solutions to the problems of this country are going to be solved by people, not government
I think people forget all about what history teaches. I am slowly trying to relearn what I did not learn in school when I found it useless but now find it priceless

I picked up this book the other day called “I am a Christian” by Jesse R Wilson, written back in 1935 and as I flipped through the book and read a passage to a friend of mine who said “good call” sarcastically. Point is, we don’t always have to just scratch the surface. Everything is up for discussion and debate except the death and resurrection of Jesus, that I hold to be an uncompromising Truth.

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Beautiful December Day, Valkyrie // Friday Feet

Scott Fillmer — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 02:45:17 +0000

This was probably once of the nicest late December days that I can remember.Â It was over 70* with partly cloudy, blue sky and I ended up working outside all day.Â We ended up taking down our Christmas lights today and replacing them with our “everyday lights” which will remain up the rest of the year (these are lights that go around the inside of our patio).Â We started decorating the patio for this coming summer, which actually was an idea in part from a friend Cindy Wall during her baptism (photos will be coming on down the road).

As the holiday days wind down I am really looking forward to getting back to work (without holiday interruptions).Â We have so much coming up in the next few months, and I am really looking forward to seeing how it all plays out.Â One area we will be ramping up is “Twitter church”.Â So if you are not a Twitter member yet, sign up and see what it’s all about.Â Once you have signed up, you can follow Cornerstone from @cornerstonebuzz and if you are so inclined, you can follow me at @scottfillmer as well.

My Friday Feet post is a little late because I spent most of yesterday with family and at the movies.Â My dad and I went to see Valkyrie and if you have any desire to see the story about the assassination attempt on Hitler, I would highly recommend this movie.Â I knew very little about this story from WWII and although it was a movie, it did seem to follow the historical account fairly close.Â Although I am not a big fan of Tom Cruise any more, it is hard to deny that this was one of the better movies of 2008.

My friday feet post today is in recognition of the last Friday of the 2008 calendar year.Â This photo is on the corner of our patio.Â Deb and I placed our feet in the wet concrete just about this time two years ago when we moved into our house.Â It is a marker or reminder of the passage of time to me and I look at it almost every time I walk across the patio.Â 2006, 2007, and a lot of 2008 are almost a blur in history now but this image has become almost a time capsule in my mind of when we finally moved into our house here in Auburn.

Welcome home to all those who were traveling over the last few days, hope your New Year will be great.