365 Blank Pages

The calendar says December 31, but while people are preparing for New Year celebrations, we wonder what is going to be new about 2016. While others go out to parties or celebrate with happy anticipation at home, posting their pictures to social media, Leland and I find ourselves with no money, and from a strictly financial perspective, struggling to find anything to celebrate after another difficult year in business. 

The videos we've all seen of a person standing stationary while the world around them speeds by in hyper motion is how we feel. Everywhere we go it seems we are in some parallel universe watching as people load their late model cars with new furniture, TVs, Kitchen Aid mixers, cases of wine--and we walk slowly by; detached, observing.

Stuff, I remind myself. There is no material thing here on Earth that is of eternal value. 

Then why does my heart hurt? Why does my whole body feel this burning question, 

If not this, then what else? 

That famous quote by C. S. Lewis comes to mind, If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

But I am here, in the physical, not there. For now, I continue my journey as a soul walking about in a flesh and blood vessel. I search once again for purpose and doing things in the years that I continue on Earth that have meaning, as those years of raising my family had. 

Family. My heart continues to live in two places...here at home, and 275 miles away in a lovely city in North Carolina. Every time I visit, that feeling of detachment disappears. 

How the littles have already changed, just since my 59th birthday celebration in August!

Yes, I always go off onto this rabbit trail and have to talk about my people. That's a good thing because it reminds me of the things I DO celebrate. This crew!

The difficult part of moving into a new year for us is facing the great unknown. So many "ifs" that my head spins. There aren't any details right now, but when I see the image below, it awakens a sense of adventure in me that I thought was long gone. 

I visualize 365 blank pages and I pray for God to be the Author of an amazing new story. Send us somewhere, keep us here, revive our business, shut it down and give us other means of making a living, give us to missions and let us journal in photographs. Head spinning stuff, for sure.

Detachment from the shiny distractions of this life was the only way I could have come to this mindset. As I look back over the losses, life-changing events, and waiting that have led to surrender in my 60th year, I think of the song, Nothing Is Wasted, by Jason Gray.

We are your servants, Lord. You write our 2016 story on those blank pages--all for your honor and glory.

Did Someone Say Wedding?

Happy Labor Day and all that. Entrepreneurs know it as "Monday."

Leland and I have spent our day tutoring and on post-production of the wedding we shot on Saturday. 

Wedding. The word makes Leland cringe (and me too, a little bit). After about 350 of them, he had burnt out on all the drama and closed the door on that aspect of photography.

Enter our friends, Lea and Joe. We first met them as clients, then became friends when they graciously invited us to their home for a holiday celebration around a table full of fabulous food and friends. Long story short, when a wedding date was set and planning began, they asked us to photograph their event, which we politely declined, referring them to wedding photographers. They came back to us later, asking us if we'd reconsider. We said yes, and are so glad we did. We love this couple and wanted to not only celebrate their marriage with them, but give them great photographic memories of their day.

I'll post a few sneak peeks of this gorgeous event--don't want to give too much away just yet.

We arrived at the Volpe residence at 11:30 to photograph Joe and the guys. Since we were early, we shot exterior photos of the front decorations, moving on to the back where we were met with the most beautiful reception setting. It was something straight out of a magazine.

Photo credit: Lynne Holder

Photo credit: Lynne Holder

Photo credit: Lynne Holder

Photo credit: Lynne Holder

On to the house where the ladies were preparing, we were met by the smiling bride, her best friend and maid of honor, two junior bridesmaids and three flower girls--all such beauties. It was so easy to shoot such photogenic subjects. Our only regret was not having more time, and much too quickly, the cars arrived to whisk them away to St. Benedict's Church.

It was a small, intimate wedding, followed by the most fabulous reception I think I've ever been witness to. The food came, one course at a time; a seemingly endless extravaganza for the taste buds. Dessert was not wedding cake, by the way; rather, a 2-tiered display of fabulous cannoli, a piece of which the bride and groom smashed into eachother's faces with great joy and abandon.

Everything about this wedding was memorable--the mass, the church building, the reception--but it was the people that made this day. It was the most fun and love-filled, drama-free wedding day we could have hoped for as photographers, but also for our friends.

Photo credit: Lynne Holder

Photo credit: Leland Holder

Lea and Joe: Salute! Cento di questi giorni! Thank you for the privilege of journaling your day in photographs. 

 














On a personal note: I wish that rogue, horse thieving piece of exiled-to-America, Italian nobility on the crooked branch of my family tree actually made me able to claim being Italian. Boy, do they know how to live, play, and best of all, eat!

Family, Like It or Not

Please allow me to sidetrack for a moment to let you in on some thoughts and feelings that have arisen in recent weeks. 

I talked briefly with Candi after reading her book, Desperate Hope. I told her that I had to read it in bits, going completely quiet to let her words sink in. Honestly? I would go into a funk for a while, thoughts and memories swirling around in my head--about family.

Candi's stories of family touched a nerve. Her family was as flawed as everyone else's, parents divorced when she and her sister and brother were very young, but she and her siblings were close. They played together as children and when they were grown, they stayed close. They loved each other and that deep love was evident in the stories of their childhood and of family time in the hospital, followed by Rick's passing on to "The Party".

My family was as flawed as everyone else's too. My parents loved each other very much, but my siblings and I were anything but close. The fighting was nearly constant, especially between the youngest two, and my brother was the stereotypical mean older brother. I had nothing in common with my 3 sisters, they being girly girls in contrast to my tomboy-ish nature. They played with Barbie dolls while I climbed trees and dreamt of horse riding. Anything to be outside.

As teenagers things hadn't improved much. [Thank God for my horse that carried me up the hills and across the fields for hours at a time. I would escape to my version of paradise.] There was a space of a few years when my brother and I enjoyed eachother's company but that all changed when he began post-graduate studies at Bob Jones University. He got married,  earned a PhD, and settled into the bubble of isolated university life as a professor, the brother I grew up with fading away in the process. None of us measured up to the standard set by the subculture of the graceless, rule-driven version of Christianity in which he was entrenched, and as a result he became the source of much pain in our family. I remember thinking over the years, Who is this guy? 

Legalism is devoid of love and deadly to relationships. It is largely to blame for the slow demise of those among my siblings. What remains now of my parents' family isn't much else but crumbled ruins. I thank God, and take some comfort in the fact that my own kids are a tightly-knit family unit that love and value one another. 

What, I wondered in those quiet moments, book turned upside down on my chest, will it look like when it's my family's turn to get that phone call? Will there even be a phone call? Will anyone rush to a hospital bedside? Will there be prior commitments that prevent attending a funeral for one of us? Will a death be anything more than a legal matter to apply to how Dad's trust fund will eventually be distributed? 

I have no answers. That's how broken we all are. If I'm not the first one to head over to "The Party" then maybe I can break the silence and be the change. 

But then it hits me, that realization--I don't love very well. People in general, or specifically, these people I call my brother and sisters. It's my greatest need, to love well.

Grace where there is none? Bless my adversary? Love where none is deserved? Pretty much like what Jesus did. 

More Jesus, please.

Back To Reality

The beach is so much nicer than Atlanta. Way nicer. Since being home from our Destin vacation, reality and the contrast of life at home and life on the beach--and in my dreams--has really struck me.

The week at the beach was paradise, but if I lived at the beach I would probably dream of a farmhouse, crisp fall days, brightly colored leaves, and a roaring fire in the fireplace, as I looked out the window on my pasture full of contented horses.

Humans are predictable creatures. Whatever is our every day experience, we always want what is not. We usually walk around not really seeing the pros of our every day life, while a short film of our "ideal" plays in our heads.

I don't think I will ever stop dreaming of my horse farm. It's my fondest dream. But while I'm day dreaming I often forget to be grateful for what is, right now.

The dream is so big. 

The bank account is so small.

I understand that contrast is part and parcel of life; without it we would never dream; never desire better. It's true in the physical as well as the spiritual. I am not the person I wish to be, yet, so I desire to be better. I have not realized my dream of a horse farm, yet, but I keep my favorite dream close, and say to myself, Wouldn't it be nice............ 

My dreams, as well as my desire to become a stronger spirit, temper the contrast of the present, as does the most important element: gratitude.

Being with my family for an entire week filled me with so much gratitude to God for the wonderful people I have in my life, coming home to all that is the mess of our lives was suddenly different.

The mess has literally lost its power. 

Gratitude, and the sense of wealth I have in people and relationships, not things, has been a welcome respite.

I am rich.

I like this reality.

I Was Born To Surf

Last night Leland and I watched the movie, Soul Surfer. If you haven't watched it, you should. It is the true story of surfer, Bethany Hamilton, who lost an arm in a shark attack. It is also about her journey through the tragedy; adjusting to new limitations, her change in perspective, and her return to competitive surfing.

Bethany was on the rise as a competitive surfer, having been sponsored by Rip Curl shortly before her tragic accident. She was living an idyllic life with a strong, faith-based, loving family, a best friend to share her surfing passion with, and the promise of a brilliant future.

I wanted to be her as I watched this story begin to unfold. Who wouldn't?

Then that shark came out of nowhere and took off her left arm, along with her hopes and dreams. But like any passionate dreamer, Bethany was thinking only of getting back into the water as she lay in a hospital bed, in pain, recovering from a horrible trauma.

Once out of the hospital, watching Bethany's return home and the limitations she was facing, the frustration, the pain on her brothers' and parents' faces as they watched her, brought tears to my eyes. And the paparazzi camped in the front yard, like buzzards circling their next meal, made me angry.

With determination born of faith--I can do all this through Him who gives me strength--she adapted to life with one arm. She learned to surf again, her family cheering her on along the way. Then she decided to go to the next level; to compete.

Bethany's dreams of competitive surfing came crashing down around her as she gave in to the heart-breaking frustration of trying to regain her pre-injury abilities. Faith withered under the strain of the seemingly impossible.  

She gave up.

She gave her boards away to some of her younger fans and decided to go with her church youth group on a mission trip to Thailand, following the tsunami of 2004. There, her perspective changed. The suffering, wreckage, and hopelessness of the aftermath of the tsunami brought her out of her own suffering and into the lives of those she went to serve.

Back home with a renewal of faith, she decided to surf again, and to prepare for a national competition. Her father rigged her board with a hand hold that would allow her to duck dive through the surf and pop out on the back side without being pummeled by the waves. She trained, and trained hard, because, as she said, I was born to surf.

In that competition, God gave her the wave of her dreams as the entire lineup of surfers sat in a calm sea and the clock ticked off the last seconds of the heat. She came close to winning that competition, and would have if she had only stood on her board one second sooner, before the horn blew signaling the end of the heat. She placed fifth because that dream ride didn't count.

Not to Bethany. It counted.

How quickly I lose my grip on faith and give up on my dreams. Thank you, Bethany, for sharing your story, and for encouraging dreamers everywhere. You are beyond inspirational--a true champion of the faith.

                            Bethany Hamilton at the Champions of the Faith Awards, Atlanta, GA

What were you born to do? Have you given up on your dream? What can you do to bring it back to life?