Guests

When I put Bgrace, The Gallery together, it was an attempt to compile my writings/photos from various places/blogs and pull them together for a public audience. So until this point I have refrained from putting other people's works here. However, if you know me, you know my nature is anything but legalistic. So I decided to share the works of a few people I am currently mulling over, and I think from time to time I might invite a few more guests to visit us at The Gallery.
Take some time and lose yourself in their work.






Katie Melua is a new discovery for me.  When I saw "The Tourist" I heard a song I knew I wanted to hear again, so I did a little digging and found out who it was by.  I started to listen to the body of work by this singer and was immediately drawn in.  I love the serendipity and whimsy in her writings and yet I also find depth in them.  Her song/video It's Only Pain is fantastic.  And the song No Fear of Heights from The Tourist, I could listen to all day long (and will as soon as I get the CD.) But my favorite is the piece above.  It is a beautiful romantic ballad, but it also feels a lot to me like what I am experiencing in my relationship with God.  It's that sense of wherever you are is where I want to be.  Whatever you are a part of is what I want to be in...and knowing that God longs for us with as much depth of desire.  It is meaningful to me in many personal ways--the sea, seagulls, stars, and sailboats.  The line, "sometimes I believe in fate but the chances we create always seem to ring more true" is a thought I have turning over in my mind about many things over the past few years. I don't believe in chance, but I do believe in choice and risk.   But to understand what I mean by that, you'll have to read the book below.  I've also ordered her DVD of her concert under the sea (literally), and can't wait to hear more. I hope you enjoy her as much as I do.

Now, for those of you in the know about these things, John Sanders may very well be on your black list.  Of course, if you are a person that has such a list, unless you are related to me, you probably don't read my blog. (Love you, Dad, just kidding :-)

I am going back to this book.  I have had it for several years, but my emotions were too raw and too close to the conversation for me to be able to read it without the onset of a nervous breakdown. I just wasn't ready for what I was reading to be true, and couldn't get away from how much sense it made to my world which was not making sense at the time.  

I believe that if you would approach the subject of providence with an openness, willing to look at it again with fresh eyes, you would absolutely benefit from reading this book.  And if you are scared of being confused rather than enlightened, than by all means read D.A. Carson's Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility with it. It will give you a broad grasp of the discussion.

Less intimidating, perhaps, is my next guest, though I don't think you will find her more shallow.  This is my all time favorite movie.  I watched it last week for the first time in a while.  I like this movie better every time I see it.  Every word, every frame is layered with meaning.  It is not a horror movie, though it is certainly full of suspense. Shyamalan does what only he can do with a story, or in this tale, I should say with Story, the name of the Madame Narf from the Blue World.  If you have never seen it, there is no movie I would recommend more highly than this one.  There are a few things in your life that you see that change you.  For me, this movie was one of them. The first clip is a fabulous trailer, but when I saw the second one, I couldn't not post Josh Groban's addition to the feeling of the story.  If you look up the translation to his song, Mi Mancherai, you will understand how it sings Cleveland's heart.

Last, but not least, I have been mulling over 2 favorite poems of mine written by Mary Oliver, published in her book Winter Hours. I was at a Quaker retreat a couple of years ago, and it was given to me then. Earlier this year, I had an experience that led me to believe that at the first snow I would come into an understanding of something, or receive a gift of some sort. On December 26th, that happened for me. I felt like my eyes were opened, and that I saw some things that though they were in front of me for a long time, had remained veiled. I felt the Lord giving me a choice. This poem came to my mind recently, and I felt that even then it had hinted to me of things to come, but not revealed until I made a choice. I know all of that may seem very far fetched and confusing to some of you.  Don't let it bother you.  Enjoy the poem, and the photos by another guest, Rodger Pickett, a man I met, not by chance one day, when he was taking pictures of strangers.

The Swan

by Mary Oliver

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?

Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -

An armful of white blossoms,

A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned

into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,

Biting the air with its black beak?

Did you hear it, fluting and whistling

A shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfall

Knifing down the black ledges?

And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -

A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet

Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?

And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?

And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?

And have you changed your life?

The Swan

also by Mary Oliver

Across the wide waters

Something comes floating-a slim

and delicate ship filled with white flowers and it moves

on its miraculous muscles as though time didn’t exist

as though bringing such gifts to the dry shore was a happiness

almost beyond bearing.

And now it turns its dark eyes, it rearranges the clouds of its wings,

it trails an elaborate webbed foot, the color of charcoal.

Soon it will be here.

Oh what shall I do when the poppy-colored beak rests in my hand?

Said Ms. Blake of the Poet:

I miss my husband’s company—he is so often in paradise.

Of course! The path to heaven doesn’t lie down in flat miles.

Its in the imagination with which you perceive this world,

and the gestures with which you honor it.

Oh what will I do, what will I say, when those white wings touch the shore?

Photos by Rodger Pickett