Scott Fillmer » luke

Finishing Up Atlanta to Denver and Back Home Again

Scott Fillmer — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 02:30:06 +0000

On one hand traveling anywhere on a plane today is such an incredible pain, and seems to take forever, but in the view of history, two thousand miles in a few hours isn’t so bad I guess. We went from a remote-ish cabin in Estes Park Colorado at 8,000 feet to our house, at sea level in Auburn, in about 12 hours. I have always loved airports, at least at long as I can remember anyway. Today the airlines pack as many people into every single aircraft as they possibly can, which makes for extremely crowded airports, and cabins. My perspective of airline travel has changed tremendously over the last twenty years, but airports, especially the major airports like Atlanta Hartsfield or DIA, are still a great place to just relax, people watch, read, do some photography, and generally take a break from the normal routine of things. I do love visiting different parts of the country, and the world for that matter, but as the cliche goes, there’s no place like home. I have visited every state in the country, lived in a dozen or so, and I can say without a doubt that the south really is a great place to live.

For all the craziness that is involved with traveling today I only have to look at the photo below to remember the reason why all that was worth it. To be there for the birth of our second grandson was an experience we will be able to remember as he grows up, and to be able to photograph his arrival into the world makes those memories even more vivid. I always feel very privileged to photograph specific events. They are all little pieces of history, frozen in time, never to happen exactly that same way again.

The photos in this post are sort of a hodge-podge of images from our trip home. I never did get a chance to do my 50mm airport shoot at Denver International Airport because by the time we got through security we only had about 30 minutes left before we got on our sold out flight, and we arrived hours before our departure time. I have several more photos of baby Luke than just the one below but I will save those for another post sometime.

This season, to me, seems so crazy right now that I find myself looking desperately for some margin (or balance). Fall is always a very busy time of year, but between football season, our multi-site movement at Cornerstone, a grandson being born trip, a niece to be born sometime this week, seminary classes, and a trip to Africa in two weeks, I’m feel a little frazzled (that a very scientific technical term) at times, just like everyone does.

I look at baby Luke in this photo below and it amazes me. God spent nine months to create the perfect little boy who right now knows nothing of the hustle and bustle of this world, and by the time he is my age, around the year 2050, he will no doubt feel the same pressures and anxieties that come with living in this extremely modern world. Maybe he will some day pull out this photo on his whatever electronic fangled device he has and remember that one day he too had no cares in the world other than to be warm and sleep in the sunlight.

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The Four Fillmer Boys as We Welcome Luke into the World

Scott Fillmer — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 03:15:05 +0000

Well one down and one to go. Today we welcomed baby Luke into the world today at 10:07am in Longmont Colorado. Luke weighed in at 8 pounds and measured 21 inches and seemed to be totally at peace with his own existence within a few minutes, hardly even cried except when various nurses jolted him here and there. The photo above, today’s photo of the day, is the first ever shot of the four Fillmer boys, and also the four people who contributed and helped the very least in bringing baby Luke into the world today. It would be really cool to add the other two Fillmer boys (Larry and Les) to this photo some day, but one is in Germany right now and the other in Alabama.

I think I took about 1200 photos of the baby and all the various participants and visitors from today’s glorious event. There were many great shots of mom and baby but those will come later. Deborah and I were so happy today to be witness to the birth of our second grandson (and we were told our last), can’t wait to share a few more photos down the road so to speak. Next up is my sister who should deliver within a week or so, hopefully she will wait until we get back to Alabama so we can get the first photos of our newest niece.

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Baby Luke and the Mother To-Be Maternity Shoot

Scott Fillmer — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 15:51:51 +0000

Yes my son and daughter-in-law are expecting, this coming September (so is my sister Sarah for that matter, and within about a week of each other, and yes, they are both Sara(s)’ssssesss…). While they were down here for their Disney vacation we got a very quick, and very hot and humid, photo shoot with the whole family. William, our grandson, is really looking forward to his new baby brother Luke and he was very patient to stand there and get his photo taken over and over again. I would really liked to have done some photos with the Graflex 4×5 but it was just too hot for anyone to stand outside for more than 5 minutes at a time. Everyone is back up in Colorado where the air is thin and the humidity doesn’t go above single digits but we were so glad we got to see everyone while they were on vacation.

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What is Ash Wednesday and the Season of Lent?

Scott Fillmer — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 21:50:42 +0000

Ash Wednesday 2011 is this coming Wednesday, March 9th, and as often is the case with specific days that we observe as Christians, people often ask why we observe these days over others. Ash Wednesday comes the day after Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday), and is the first day of the season of Lent. Ash Wednesday in particular is observed by the Church body on the seventh Wednesday before Easter Sunday.

A Day of Reflection in Preparation for Holy Week

This begins a time of reflection for God’s people to prepare for Holy Week and occurs 46 days (40 days not counting Sundays) leading up to Easter. Ash Wednesday is a more somber reflection, which starts a season of soul-searching and repentance and both Ash Wednesday and Lent have a long history going back to the earliest church fathers. It is presented formally in the The Apostolic Constitutions, Book V, Section III here where it says:

the fast of Lent is to be observed by you as containing a memorial of our Lord’s mode of life and legislation. But let this solemnity be observed before the fast of the passover, beginning from the second day of the week, and ending at the day of the preparation. After which solemnities, breaking off your fast, begin the holy week of the passover

As explained here it’s name comes from the ancient practice of placing ashes on worshippers’ foreheads as a sign of humility before God, and is symbolic of mourning and sorrow at the death that sin brings into the world. It not only prefigures the mourning at the death of Jesus, but also places the worshipper in a position to realize the consequences of sin. Ash Wednesday is a day of reflection on what needs to change in our lives as we grow to be more Christ-like in mind, heart, and soul.

In the early church, ashes were not offered to everyone but were only used to mark the forehead of worshippers who had made a public confession of sin and sought to be restored to the fellowship of the community at the Easter celebration. However, over the years others began to show their humility and identification with the penitents by asking that they, too, be marked as sinners. Finally, the imposition of ashes was extended to the whole congregation in services similar to those that are now observed in many Christian churches on Ash Wednesday. Ashes became symbolic of that attitude of penitence reflected in the Lord’s prayer in Luke 11:4:

and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation.

Personal Reflection on the Season of Lent

Different churches and believers observe Lent in different ways, but not all churches observe Lent today, especially if you come from a Southern Baptist Church (although see Some Baptist churches will celebrate Lent this year and also More Baptist churches looking to Lent for community, confession, cadence). Sometimes anything the Catholics do the Baptists don’t, and this generally revolves around rituals not specifically found in scripture (like Ash Wednesday or lighting candles, but that’s a whole different post).

Without getting too much into the denominational battle, I spent years in the SBC where my particular church never observed Lent, and I never really understood or gained an appreciation for a specific time of reflection to prepare for Holy Week until recently.

In an upcoming post I will go through what our particular church is doing to observe Lent this year, starting with Ash Wednesday, but this is not a “church” thing. If you are not part of a local church, you can observe a time of repentance and reflection right where you are, or here with me on my blog, as I walk through the next 40 days of Lent right here.

For a look at what we are doing at Cornerstone please read The “I AM” Lenten Reader During This Season of Lent.

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Zacchaeus Waiting on Jesus to Pass By, in Auburn?

Scott Fillmer — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 12:06:47 +0000

Every week there is a home football game in Auburn huge crowds gather for the traditional Tiger Walk where the players walk down the street through the fans and on into the stadium. I saw this guy up in the tree waiting for the football players to pass by and thought of that great story Luke wrote about when Jesus was passing through Jericho and stopped to speak with Zacchaeus the tax collector.

Of course you do have to keep in mind, as you can see from the photos below, Elvis was also there, along with the guy from the Psych ward, so why not Zaccaeus?

Jesus Does Tiger Walk in Jericho

As the story goes in Luke 19 (see below), Jesus was walking from the Samaritan country side to Jerusalem (on His way to the cross), and was “passing through Jericho”, when Jesus comes upon Zacchaeus who has climbed a fig tree. Zacchaeus knew this location was on the route Jesus would follow into Jericho and he wanted to just get a glimpse of Jesus and the parade as He walked by. Since Zacchaeus was a man who was tall-challenged, climbing a sycamore tree was going to be his only way to see Jesus (and this is no easy tree to climb).

Luke 19:1 Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. 3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way. 5 When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.

To me, these photos have several parallels to the story presented here in Luke, and you can draw your own as well, but climbing the tree just to get a glimpse of the Auburn football players is our culture of today. The football players, perhaps athletes in general, are the Greek gods of today for many of us, and we pack stadiums (I included myself here and I love Auburn football) with city sized populations each week to watch these very talented, hard working athletes do what they do best.

We have raised these athletes to a mythical level, and pay a ton of money to see them at any chance we get. As I lined up with 10,000 other fans two hours before the start of the Auburn vs LSU game, I saw this guy who had climbed a tree (albeit an oak tree in Alabama) while all the others, me included, lined up along the street to watch the players walk by. The second photo is the center of the street where the players actually walk (now barricaded off on each side) just for a bit of perspective.

This is all part of the fun and excitement that is football in Auburn, and Bama football in Tuscaloosa, and is surely repeated in LSU, Florida, and all the other NCAA teams across the country, and then NFL stadiums on Sunday. You have to line up about an hour before they do their walk through to be able to see the players, so I did, and stood there in the blazing heat with everyone else.

Standing there, thinking of story in Luke 19, I wondered if we would line up like this for Jesus as he walked through Auburn? Would we still climb trees just to see His face? Line the streets with banners, flags, and take photos and videos as He walked by? Do we put these football players in His place in our mind?

Jesus Comes from Atlanta to Birmingham via Auburn

The really interesting part of the story told in Luke is in the very first verse. “Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through.” Looking a little deeper we see that Jesus was walking from Samaria to Jerusalem, passing through Jericho. Samaria was due north of Jerusalem and Jericho is just about due east of Jerusalem, just north of the Dead Sea. In our terms, that would be like someone driving from Atlanta to Birmingham and passing through Aburn on the way. Jesus went to Jericho on purpose, to speak to Zacchaeus, whom He knew by name.

The football players walk through the streets before each game because it is part of a great tradition that goes along with Auburn football. They get pumped up for the game, we all yell and scream chants of WAR EAGLE as they walk by, and then win or loose, next week we line up to do it again. I love the tradition and much of this is done in appreciation for all the hard work the football players do throughout the week in preparation for the game. Not once though did Tommy Tuberville ever pull me off to the side and ask to come over to my house for dinner. He did give me this really annoyed look when I probably got to close to him with my camera on this day (sorry coach), but that’s about it.

The story goes on in verse 9 to talk about the salvation that Zacchaeus received that day which began when he climbed a tree to see the parade go by. Tiger Walk is great, and it give us all a chance to see one of the great traditions that is Auburn, but I doubt it changes lives, but it changed Zacchaeus’ life forever.

9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”

In light of Auburn’s 13-14 loss Saturday to Vanderbilt, the first time since the 1955 Gator Bowl, it makes me cringe to think about how much pressure we put on these kids today to perform. I can remember playing high school ball and being nervous when the minor league recruiters would show up at our games. I can’t imagine the pressure these 18-22 year old college kids feel with thousands upon thousands (87,451 to be precise) all expecting perfection for each game. In the end, they are not Greek gods, even if we treat them as such, and they are not perfect. We shouldn’t expect them to be perfect either, we already have One who is perfect, and His Tiger Walk took place in Jericho 2,000 years ago.