Hazy Roads

Hazy Roads, originally uploaded by Jeromie.

I was looking through some of my older pictures and came across one that seems like a snapshot of my life right now - I can see the road directly ahead of me, but I have no I idea what's around the corner. Honestly, I think that's better than having my life all planned out. If I knew everywhere this road was going, 1) I probably couldn't handle it and 2) I'd be wrong.

I think God likes to reveal things in pieces. Walking forward one step at a time is an exercise in faith.

There's a lot more to this, but I'm too tired to think of it.

Visual Whistling

Day 12 - You Can Tell a Lot About a Man By His Shoes, originally uploaded by Jeromie.

This blog has essentially become a photoblog lately. I was putting some thought into how that tied into it's supposed theme (you can read what I was thinking when I renamed it "Whistling in the Dark" here ), and I actually think it fits pretty well. The creation and sharing of art is a declaration of my faith, of my search for the beautiful things in life, and of my willingness to reject the false identity I have built for myself and embrace the name that God has for me.

So, I'm going to keep on whistling with photographs.

In the Looking Glass

In the Looking Glass, originally uploaded by Jeromie.

We'll see how I feel in the morning, but right now I'm REALLY happy with the way this one turned out.

Fading away

Day 9 - Insubstantial (v2), originally uploaded by Jeromie.

Some days it feels like I'm out of touch with everything real. I want to put myself in situations where I'm immersed in life everyday. That's really the goal of my upcoming career change - to identify what makes me feel alive and surround myself with it. I think that doing so will be obedient to God, and I think it will be good for me, my wife, my friends, and the world. I can't wait.

(You can see a full color version of the photo in this post here, if you want to check it out.)

Chadwick the Orphan

I have anxiously awaited this moment - Chadwick the Orphan is now available for your online viewing pleasure. Go check it out.

Here are some behind the scenes shots of the making of CtO:

Offerings

Offerings, originally uploaded by Jeromie.

Thanks for all the kind words about the last photograph I posted. Here's another one I took that morning that I really like.

The other night, Juli asked if I was going to post all of my self portraits. I don't plan on posting all of them here, but you can see them on my Flickr page. I've added a link to it over on the sidebar.

Or you can just click here.

Prayers of the saints

DCF Gallery prayer space, originally uploaded by Jeromie.

Front Yard Flower #1

Front Yard Flower #1, originally uploaded by Jeromie.

I found this flower growing in my front yard, planted by our landlord or a previous tenant.

Sometimes you don't have to go very far to see that God is doing something beautiful.

365 Days

Day 2 - Unprepared, originally uploaded by Jeromie.

So, there's this group over on Flickr that is devoted to taking one self portrait a day for an entire year. On a whim, I signed up for it.

If I can get 365 semi-decent pictures of myself, I should be able to take pictures of *anything*.

Vibrant life

Vibrant life, originally uploaded by Jeromie.

This was a near selection for the DCF gallery this Sunday. This was taken at an oil mill in Pendleton - I loved the vibrant greens, even if it is a little bit creepy to see algae thriving less than a block from downtown Pendleton.

As a side note, even though I've been a member of Flickr since beta, this is the first picture I've uploaded to the service. I just got a new program for organizing / processing my photos, and there's a plugin that will upload directly to Flickr, so you can expect to see a lot more. Of course, since they just added the capability for short videos about a week ago, my upload may officially mark the point at which Flickr has jumped the shark. Oh well.

The Fruit of Our Labor

This is our (Liz and me) entry into the 2008 DCF Film Festival. As always, it could be refined a little if we'd had more time, but I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.

Dog-gone-it

There is place across the street from me that offers boarding for dogs. The Rands and the Kalbaughs (our much beloved upstairs neighbors) have come to expect (though not enjoy) the barking of dogs at not-quite-all hours. (I think they usually go inside for the night at around 10:00. And they don't always bark.) But today there is a new element thrown into the mix - one of the dogs is incessantly howling. I have come to this forum to offer a brief, public thanks for headphones.

What a day!

I ran in the Cooper River Bridge Run in Charleston, SC today. It was my first 10K (my first 5K was last week), and it was a lot of fun. I may write more later about the experience of the run and the time with friends, but for right now I wanted to recount one conversation I had with Michael.

We were heading back to our car after sharing a meal and spending some time wandering around the market in downtown Charleston. Liz stopped in at a very cool yarn shop she spotted near the car, and I was heading up the stairs to join her in the store while everyone else waited around outside as a storm threatened in the distance. As I reached for the door, my ears perked up - I could hear the sounds of a mandolin weaving through the streets. My friends called me back down, and I saw a young man standing on a second story balcony playing the mandolin. It was a pretty fantastic image. The exchange that followed between me and Michael went something like this (details are made up because I can't remember exactly what was said. And it's helpful to know that we'd been talking / joking about Liz opening up a shop of some sort earlier in the day.):

Me: Wow. A yarn store and a guy playing a mandolin on the same corner. What are the chances? Perhaps it means something.

Michael: Yeah. Maybe you aren't supposed to head off to Denver. Maybe this is where you need to be after all. Actually, maybe you need to head off because they've already got a yarn shop and a guy with a mandolin here.

That last statement stuck with me. It embodies what DCF recently talked about in the Living Generously series. We can choose a place to live based on trying to surround ourselves with all the things we like. Or we can choose based on where we can best give away those gifts that God has given us. Plus Michael's second comment just felt right. I'm being called to move on, and it's time to face the music.