This week was one that won’t be forgotten any time soon in the state of Alabama, especially not in Tuscaloosa, Birmingham or Dadeville, but I think in many ways the storms took so us by surprise. At the moment there are at least 320 people dead from all the related storms and tornadoes and the news just seems to just keep coming even days after the storms have passed. It took about 24-48 hours for people around here to even realize what had happened but the videos from Tuscaloosa and Birmingham are just incredible. The Big Picture has a few images from the storm at Tornadoes kill over 200, and they are bound to have more soon. Some of those photo really are worth at least a thousand words.
I am reminded that even among all the damage, the flowers still blooms, the plants still grown, and God is in charge, even if we like to think we really are. A man at a gas station tonight was showing me photos of his cousins mobile home that took a direct hit from a tornado in Dadeville and there was nothing but an empty spot on the ground with a mailbox. He made the remark to me that “what would have taken months to clear by bulldozer a storm did in 30 seconds”. Yes, the power of man is no match for the power of nature.
I took these shots today on my iPhone as I walked around our property. While we did have a tree or two go down we were basically untouched by any of the storm damage and wild flowers were blooming and corn was growing in the fields. Such an amazing contrast for just 30-40 miles away from here. Our church is taking a collection up on Sunday to deliver to Tuscaloosa, if you are in the Auburn area and would like more information please visit Tornado // Disaster // Relief. All of the photos above were taken with my iPhone today except for the one of the rain, which was taken the day all the storms hit as we were driving back from Columbus, GA. I almost didn’t make it this Friday but with 90 minutes left in the day, this is my Friday Feet post. Have a good weekend everyone.
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The photo of the day today was from a shot I took on my iPhone yesterday while I was walking in my backyard. Walking later in the day when the sun is going down is often where I can meet God and just stare at His awe.
It’s often hard to capture or describe the beauty of the sun radiating through the clouds but this was about as good as my phone could do yesterday.
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Today was our first and last full day on the gulf coast. For January, the weather was beautiful but very very windy. We went to one of our most favorite places in the Perdido Key area, the Gulf Islands National Seashore. We never really stay for more than a day or two down here but you pay for a 7-day pass ($8) and have access to one of the most wonderful white sand beaches on the Alabama/Florida gulf coast shore lines.
Every time we have been here the 5-7 mile stretch of beach has only a handful of people (today almost no one) and it seems to be one of those few areas in the country that still has pristine beaches and little sign of city life. Our other favorite area like this is over on the Outter Banks of North Carolina which also has some of the most untouched beaches in the country. So for my Friday Feet post today, here is my feet image, and also a few more. Tomorrow is it back to Auburn and back to work.
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In short, I would say, no. There are so many things technology can do, especially with networks like Twitter, Facebook, Digg, and all the others we know and love, but I am not sure if prayer is one of them when you look at the traditional definition of prayer, communicating with God. There are sites like WeTheChurch that use technology with a basis of prayer, but aren’t they ultimately communicating with other readers about what they have already communicated with God?
How about Twitter. Prayer, praying, and pray are all pretty active on Twitter and show in the graph from Twitterscoop.
Another one I like to look at is Google trends. Anything that is technology certainly has Google’s mark on it somewhere. But this is a stretch, most of this is talking about prayer, not actually in the act of praying. The graph looks much different if we compare it with two terms most popular in the world, prayer, money, and sex.
Prayer is a conversation or communicating between us and God, right? If so, that means (for purposes of this post) that all created technology is basically a means of communication between people. It may be between our wallet and the bank or the TV station to satellite to our living rooms, but more times than not, it seems to be a means of communication between ourselves. We could stretch it and look at things like the movie Contact, or the SETI Institute (which does employ about 150 scientists) but so far we have been unable to use technology to communicate directly with God.
I have been going through a book given to me by the author called Six Prayers God Always Answers (I love the tag line, “Results May Vary”) and in one passage she talks about what constitutes prayer.
It seems our prayers well up around the things we love–a child, a spouce’s beauty, our own lives… then consider these expressions:
“God, help me. I’ll never do it again.”
“God, are you there?”
“Save me, God”
“Please God”People thoughtlessly invoke the name of God into the mundane (“Oh my God!”) and the profane (“Jesus Christ”). Believers are offended–convinced it is disrespectful, even blasphemous. Nonbelievers toss it up to a slip of the tongue… but what if these were really prayers? … Could Jesus see these outburtsts as a cry of a wounded brother or sister? How do we know what is in the heart of those who utter such words? Do we even know our own hearts? God is the judge of these prayers.
This passage has nothing to do with technology in prayer, but it opened up my thinking a bit to what we here on earth consider to be prayer, so why can’t we use technology in prayer. We use all kinds of technology in church and prayer is a big part of church so they must come together at some point.
What do you do that you consider to be prayer. In one of the shorter verses of the Bible we read in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 (NASB) “pray without ceasing” or even shorter in the NIV 17 “pray continually”, so there has to be more than just the Sunday version of the Lord’s Prayer to be able to achieve this command. What is so great about prayer is that we can pray anywhere, anytime, in a ton a different ways.
We can certainly use technology to bring us to prayer with God, like writing a blog post or in a journal, (many prayers were/are written down) but they don’t communicate directly with God alone, because prayer comes from the heart.
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Have you ever heard of a photo walk? A photo walk is very simple. Usually a group, consisting of a walk leader (usually an advanced or pro photographer) and those interested in participating in the photo walk. You choose a location that can be walked in a certain time frame and then you shoot what you come across and interests you photographically in the walk. An example of the results can be seen at the DPS Las Vegas photo walk which took place during the BlogWorldExpo in September.
They can take place anywhere you want to have a few photographers get together and pound the pavement (or dirt) to get those creative minds moving. For a photo walk tutorial or more information on how they are generally done, see 10 Tips For A Great Photowalk. This basically is what I did for 2 years at UAB while I was studing photography. We would just go out and shoot at a predetermined location and all look at the results the following class.
There are a few differences but it now has a fancy name, and we have things like blogs that can be used for show-and-tell. Whatever you want to call it, it is always a good learning process and helps open your eyes to what interesting photographic elements are around us all the time.
My Own Photo Walk in the Backyard
With all that said, you can always do a photowalk in your own backyard. I have done this for many many years and it doesn’t matter if you live in a high rise in NYC or on a farm in Alabama. There is always something you can call your backyard, even if it is the MARTA station outside your house or office in Atlanta (or MTA station if you are in NYC).
I try to get in a little exercise each day, so I usually walk in my backyard but now that the sun is setting around 4:30pm each day, I have to get out there a little earlier to be able to see where I am going. Yesterday I decided to take my camera bag with me and do a fast photo walk before the sun went down. I really only had time for two different shots.
First I came across this swarm of gnats flying through the setting sun. Have any of your photographer out there tried to get a acceptable shot of a swarm of gnats? Wasn’t as easy I had initially thought, but the second shot above was the result. This was shot hand held in manual everything. At least the wash of sun gave me some good color on the fall leaves in the background.
Next I came across this feather that was stuck in the barbed wire fence that runs along the length of our property. Probably something I walked by every day and just never noticed. One of my most favorite types of photography is marco photography (or closeup), so I took out my macro lens and shot the first image above as the sun had set. The sun was all but gone at this point so depth of field was interesting to preview, but it was an image I walked by every day and never noticed until I did the photo walk.
By the way, for those writers or painters out there it works the same way. Just take your canvas or journal and get out of your office or normal environment and see how creative you can be by changing your surroundings.
Any time you think there is nothing to shoot, just try taking a photo walk in your backyard. You might be surprised by the results. Anyone else tried this?
