Seeing the World Through Different Eyes

Seeing Through Different Eyes

Photography as a Spiritual Practice

Guest Writer Alan Schlesinger

Alan Schlesinger

Photography, for me, is an opportunity to be creative—to see something that most people (including myself) might pass by and not notice. Diane Arbus once said, “I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn’t photograph them.”

At other times, there are beautiful things to photograph that are presented to us right in the open and easily seen by everyone. This image is from the 2019 Women’s March in Houston. I had trouble composing while I was making the photograph because the scene brought tears to my eyes. At the time, it gave me hope for women and for our country at a difficult time.

We seemed to have made some strides after that time, but many people are now discouraged as we appear to be backsliding once again. I am trying to find hope once again. I will continue to carry my camera, and when I see scenes of hope, I will document them and share them for everyone to see and be encouraged. 

Alan

Joanna joannaseibert.com

Remembering Those so Brave Before us

Charleston: All Faithful Departed

“You have heard the whispers on quiet summer evenings when you have been walking alone. They are the sound of the ancestors, speaking softly on the other side of what we call real. You have seen the strange lights at twilight, like candles lit in evening rooms, beckoning people home to houses you cannot see.

You have felt the touch on your shoulder, when you were deep in prayer or bent with worry and known the energy that hums along the wires of faith, the presence of a power that knows how to heal. You have experienced the physical mystery that surrounds us, the mystery of the Spirit, the thousand tiny proofs that we live next door to heaven, waking up in a wonder we are only beginning to discover.”—Bishop Steven Charleston, Facebook, October 31st, 2018.

November 1st was All Saints’ Day, and November 2nd was The Celebration of All Faithful Departed. These two liturgical celebrations are our Church’s family reunion day. It is the time for us to pull out our family photograph album and remember where we came from and all the faithful who influenced our lives. I am still thinking of so many who changed my life who I carry with me to help heal our country.

Where were you the night of April 4th, 1968? My husband and I were seniors in medical school in Memphis. That night, Martin Luther King was assassinated outside of the Lorraine Motel. After that, Memphis became a police state. Clergy in Memphis responded by marching to the office of the mayor, Henry Loeb, to ask for relief for the striking sanitation workers whose cause had brought King to Memphis.

The ministers gathered at St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral. At the last moment, Dean William Dimmick, who later became the bishop of Northern Michigan (and eventually baptized our two sons), went into the Cathedral and took down the processional cross from the high altar. Then, holding it high above him (he was a very short man), he led the march down Poplar Avenue to City Hall.

The air was electric. Down the streets, the clergy and supporters marched. A Methodist minister writes about one moment he will never forget: As the clergy advance down Poplar Avenue, up ahead, he sees an older woman sitting on her front porch. As the procession approaches her, she stands up and screams, “GET THAT CROSS BACK IN THE CHURCH WHERE IT BELONGS!”1

Dean Dimmick took the cross out of the cathedral into the streets of a city on the verge of riot. He taught us where Christ lives, especially in times of grief and oppression. Christ is out in the midst of the mess. Christ was out walking the streets of Memphis in 1968.

Today, my prayer is that we can emulate what we learned from a leader of our church, Dean Dimmick, and take Christ out to those who are sick and suffering, to those who are hungry, to those living in poverty, to victims, and families of the many recent episodes of violence in our country, to immigrants around the world, to the lonely and fearful, to those who may be invisible to us much of the time.

When we remember saints, we especially affirm what we cannot explain. Dean Dimmick will always be there beside us, praying and cheering us on.

1 Katherine Moorehead, “Stepping Out of the Tent,” Preaching Through the Year of Mark (Morehouse, 1999), p. 75.

Joanna.    https://www.joannaseibert.com/

A Symbol of Hope Through a Photographer's Eyes

Photography as Spiritual Practice – A Symbol of Hope

Guest writer: Eve Turek

“Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.” – Henry David Thoreau

On a recent fall morning, burdened by all the trouble I saw and felt, close to home and far away, I sat with my journal and wrote these words:

“With all that is going on, going wrong, in the world, how and where do we find HOPE? As a photographer, I often seek an image to help answer that question or point to a pathway when I seek direction for my soul’s daily journey. How do we not lose heart? How do we continue to seek joy or peace or love, compassion or understanding when confronted by circumstances that seem to mock any of these as pipe dreams, impossible to achieve or sustain? Where shall I go? Lord, I do ask for an image of HOPE. I ask that. I need Hope now, Lord; we all do. We need some symbol, something to hold on to. Light in the dark. Please, that. I am asking for that.”

Then my analytical, photographer’s brain took over, trying to visualize what image I could make, hearkening back to photos I had made before, like a dolphin leaping out of the waves or a shooting star flaming toward Earth from the heavens above. Either could seem symbolic of the hope I found elusive. I so quickly forgot I had asked the Lord of the Universe, the Great-Creator, for His symbol.

In the late afternoon, the glass ornaments hanging in my western-facing living room windows, as much to prevent bird strikes as to provide beauty to the room, often cast dots of rainbow color on the rug. But the day after I penned my morning request, I saw something I had never seen before, something I could not explain and had no frame of reference to pre-visualize. Suddenly, what looked like the shape of a giant hand making the “peace sign” flashed in vibrant rainbow hues onto the carpet at my feet. I grabbed my phone and took a quick photo before the pattern changed and faded. I still cannot fathom what combination of sun angle and what particular ornament could have created the momentary pattern.

As I looked down at the floor where I walked, I immediately remembered Thoreau’s quote, as well as familiar affirmations from Scripture:

“How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace…” (Isa 52:7; Rom 10:15)

“…having your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace…” (Eph. 6:15)

I remembered that the One Isaiah proclaimed as the Prince of Peace told His disciples and tells us today, “Blessed are the Peacemakers.”

As I ponder how best to live out my own daily life, bolstered by and infused with the peace that passes (or, as I like to think, outruns) understanding, I find Hope that the God of Peace is with us, both as companion and guide, as we seek paths of peace to walk in.

Eve Turek

Joanna Seibert https://www.joannaseibert.com/