On being luke warm.

Apathy sneaks up on you, and then jumps out screaming obnoxiously and waving its head and hands back and forth while making some hideous face that's meant to be goofy-scary. Times like these, I find myself in the midst of a situation wondering how on earth I got there, and knowing exactly how, all at the same time.
Maybe it's a questioning thing. A test of faithfulness?
 It's weighing what I want with what I need and deciding I'm tired of making the difficult, right decision.
Then it's the aching to be whole. Whole like I felt when I made the difficult, right decisions.
And then, I'm walking forward, back on track. And apathy is lurking in the shadows, waiting for the next best moment to jump out.

I just want answers. And ease.

I feel like the author of Ecclesiastes. Life is short, so eat, drink, and be merry. Focus on good things.
No, I don't really feel like that always.

I just want to find a balance. I'm always hot or cold, and things I do in one state completely oppose things I do in the other, so it's like I'm constantly climbing fences that my alter-ego has built.
Is this the struggle of the human spiritual condition? Or am I just strange?

Confessions of an introverted photographer

I usually feel incredibly awkward in social situations. I really like my alone time, but then when I have my alone time, I get incredibly lonely.

My photography professor and I had a conversation about content today. Photographic content. What is my content?

It took me a little longer than it probably should have to realize that I photograph the most when I'm somewhere alone, somewhere beautiful or warm or happy or intriguing. All of my favorite photographs are of things that I find incredibly pleasant (or ironic or interesting) and long to share with someone else.

I have often felt like an inferior artist because there's no deep philosophy or planning to my work. I just like to capture things I like -and share them. I like to pause, examine the things that I find beautiful, and somehow make someone else examine them too. Look at that gorgeous sunset, or look at the color of that chair against the color of the brick, or look at the laugh lines on that sweet woman's face. 


I guess the truth is that when I am photographing, I mean really photographing -not just doing some assignment, but really being me and taking pictures because I want to take pictures at that moment- well, it's really just a huge part of me saying, "I wish you were here. Whoever you are, I just really wish you were here."

Be proud of your bananas

I have a confession - I haven't been recycling since school started. I'm only one week in though, and I've mostly used my plastic water bottle/brita filter for drinking... but still... I've definitely tossed a few bottles this week. Gotta step it up.

I did, however, try to shop responsibly, and since I have this obsession with peaches and bananas, I decided to research my bananas. 

For the record, I buy Chiquita, and you can check out their adorable website here. Now, I'm not completely naive (debatable, I know), and I know that this is information from the company, not from any critics or whatever, but I did google-image their plantations and that all seemed legitimate. I still feel like that's a pretty futile research effort, though. Where does one go to find out the truth about these companies? 

We need another journalist like Upton Sinclair. Okay, so there's plenty of journalists out there like Upton Sinclair these days, especially since being socially responsible has become the "hip" thing to do, but I just need to learn how to find them. 

In other news, I went home for the summer, and when I returned to Clarksville I discovered that my church exploded. Not in the literal sense, in the metaphorical sense. Our little choir of 20-some people is now a vast choir of 60-some people, and all the leadership team just seem so happy, and it's not that superficial our church business is finally making a profit kind of annoying happy that you find in "successful" churches these days. It was a legitimate excitement. You know, that moment immediately proceeding an incredibly dry, seemingly stagnant period of life, when you look around and think My goodness, God, You're working and I can see it! It's like that kind of happy. I'm excited to see what happens!