Ice Walk, Nice Walk … Good to be able to Walk on water.

Last evening we went for an ice walk, a date with each other and a camera, after a great meal and getting a mattress that is good for my back, and the kids can use the soft plush mattress, if their backs can hold up to it.

The view of course starts not on the ice in the marina, but across the street, in the eat ..ery called Clarkes

Open Hoping

Clarkes General Store and Eatery, where the light plays and the sign begs for activity, hunger, patronage … and stands in defiance to the economy, which is so slowed down with oil prices so low, one wonders what will happen. All will dry up here, companies once robust and bold will become withered remains and reminders of the wasteful years and the Saudis will continue to be beyond belief wealthy, capable, and ruthless. Always the ruthless win, with lies and deceptions, and without conscience or concern for others.

But then freedom from all that as we descend into the Marina from the boardwalk, on to the snow covered ice.

Drawn to the Light

At -14 C with even a slight breeze one needs the correct clothing and protection. And it would be so nice to have my cameras again. But the Nikon D7000 will do, and I did keep the tripod. It’s a tool of precision and stability, a companion with so many photo outings, so light and familiar. A connection with the past before it was so broken, and so powerful, allowing this kind of exposure at night: clear, colourful, dazzling and promising … if only I had skates on and the snow were cleared ….

Facing the other way

Sent into the Darkness
Sent into the Darkness

There is less draw into than a shove from the golden coloured Marina

away out into the darkness

past piles of snow.

Not Quite

And with ever so slightly a shift on the tripod the scene is less a push and less golden and all around less

Even though it is just seconds later.

The scene is not the photo, the camera and tripod do not make the photo …

The heart and eye and imagination of the photographer make the photo with what’s there and what equipment is brought to along and used.

Real Ice, Real Cold, Nice

There actually is a place to skate, cleared from last evenings snow with a tired vehicle but not skated on by seemingly anyone in the oh so cold – which indeed does require the proper clothing, but is simply harsh in comparison to the mild, mild winter we’ve had so far. Really, above zero (freezing for those that do not reference temperatures in Celcius) temperatures in February, I mean even 10 above! It’s been a wonderful break from the potential -20, -30 and -40 that we know is normal.

And what is coming; so often I hear someone marveling at the mild temperatures and then they ruin it all with an anxiety of what is to come: March will for sure be too cold!

And I respond simply: it’s been a marvelous February, no harsh temperatures. And one month of cold (because April maybe snowy or even below zero, but it would be really odd if it were -30 or even -20!) during March is not something that we do not know how to survive and more than survive, but enjoy and delight in. And then … well then the wonders of Spring.

Hope in the Sky

There is hope. And even optimism.

Hope: the ability to imagine and trust God that the future, despite having no basis in the practical concrete reality and events of one’s days and nights, … that the future will bring goodness, also to us, to oneself.

Optimism: the perspective on the practical concrete reality and events of one’s days and nights that so colours these events so as to block out the negative part of reality so that one is left with overpowering evidence that the future will continue just like this partial or skewed perspective of the past.

For the record, healthy or best is to be always overwhelmingly hopeful, somewhat optimistic and wisely pessimistic and strongly realistic and practical. Another Paradox to describe health, well-being, flourishing, and claiming one’s baptism, that one is a child of God … also a participant in the Kingdom of God on earth … by grace.

Technology and the cross in lights.

Can one be optimistic because of technology, hope because of the cross, and still stand back and wonder at what we’ve done to that symbol of torture of the Romans, the cross. We’ve put it everywhere, even in neon lights on the sky line of our lives.

Truth and Light and … hope

There are so many lies hurled …
So many lies banked on …
So many lies embraced …
So many lies acted upon …
And there are cracks in everything, and that is how the light gets in (nod to Leonard Cohen.)

 

When will the light get in?
Night
It was dark and this shows the dark but it misses something unseen while shooting.
This evening I took a walk, short but sweet, to catch the light in the snow.
And there is nothing quite like a wintery night
Frozen but still warm enough to not be dangerous or painful, so that one can delight
Light and Owl
Here we can see it, with full light bright throughout the photo, but the sense of night is gone, too.
In

Night and RightThis is the dark, shining brightly through the photo, but not everything is showing.
The little things
Transportation
And here the action, location and mode of transportation to and back.
That make it all okay.
It is something to be systematically attacked to the point that one has no support left, and then how does one hang on? Like Mandela in prison, Bonnhoeffer in prison, like Ghandi in prison and afterwards, all accused, all braved it out and all had something else in front of them, but Bonnhoeffer never made it back to normal life.
Who will be killed next time, will it be us, or worse them, or we all?
Life, choose life. Please choose life.

Beauty of Truth; Beauty of Light

There is something about light.

Great Mountains

It changes everything.

When the truth of one’s history is concealed by intent to obscure and accuse others, to blame others for ones own weaknesses,

There is not much that can be done,

Great Mountain Light

Until the light shines in even a little bit.

And the marvelous stuff is this:

we know the beauty that is hidden without light,

the truth that will be exposed,

the hope that is all that can be.

Beauty Shines

And then when the light shines completely

What once was hidden will shine forth.

It is gorgeous in the right light.

And there is not a thing that is lost to truth, except the lie.