This is the ultimate world view video

 

Blog Header - May 26, 2010

I took the photo of this fun couple at the Front Royal Wine & Craft Festival this year. He didn’t actually have the name of my blog on his head until I played with the photo in Photoshop. But I think he looks quite stunning this way.

What’s Your Story?

Mary Fuller

It’s been a busy couple of months, and I’ve been away from the blog for just too long. God has been doing some really interesting things in my heart, and I wanted to share them with our readers.

Most of you have read enough about my younger years to know that it was pretty tough. I had a lot of heartache and trauma for a young girl. Yet God has used those experiences to teach me more about Him and to teach me about people. I’d like to make some general observations:

1. Everyone has a story. They may not even realize it themselves, but everyone has a story to tell. One very sad thing about our current culture is that we think that stories need to be crafted and told to us through media. We’ve lost the ability to imagine while hearing a good story, and we’ve especially lost the art of storytelling. Each of us needs to craft and hone our own story to tell to the generations that follow us.
2. Everything has a purpose. We have an incredible God who is not limited by the curse of sin. We feel that limitation every moment of our day. But we serve a sovereign God who created and rules the universe. Even the horribly awful stuff that happened to me as a child had a purpose. God allowed those things in my life to draw me to Him, to help me crave His fellowship, and to shape me into the image of His Son.
3. God’s story is bigger than us. We are very much like toddlers in our thinking a good deal of the time. We tend to think the universe revolves around us. We forget that we are not the only child God has, and we fail to realize that He is also working in the lives of others. Sometimes what happens in our life isn’t about us, it’s about what God is doing in the lives of the people around us, and we get the awesome privilege of being part of their story. Hopefully, through our obedience we will be part of the good story, not the trauma!
4. We need to rehearse our story. Rehearsing our story to ourselves reminds us that God is active in our lives and is at this moment writing another chapter in the book of our lives. Rehearsing our story to others encourages them to trust God and follow after Him in the difficult times. Rehearsing our story can also bring others to an understanding of God’s draw on their lives, and bring them to repentance and salvation. As we rehearse, we need to learn the art of storytelling—not embellishment, but instead, learning to tell our story in an interesting and captivating way that holds the attention of the listener.

This is exactly what God has been doing in my life lately. He has been giving me multiple opportunities to share my God story (the story of what God has done in my life to draw me to Him, to teach me more about Him). He has also given me multiple opportunities to listen carefully to the God stories of others. Recent experiences include a young mom whose testimony reminded me of how God lovingly draws His loved ones to Himself, how patient He is in allowing us to suffer without Him, just enough enough to make us crave Him. And yesterday, I had the honor of listening to the God story of a woman who is older than I. Such stories give me courage to trust when I cannot see, to cling to the faithfulness of an all-wise, all-powerful God. And smack dab in the middle is the joy I’ve had lately of watching God write His story on the lives of a handful of young people that He’s placed in my life.

Last Friday, we had a Fuller Fun Fest at our house. We started having these fun fests a couple of years ago, but it’s been over a year since the last one. Basically, the kids’ friends come over just to hang out, jam on their intstruments, and sometimes we play games like Mafia or, Name the Owner of this foot. But this time, 32 kids (if you don’t count me...), ages 12–21, mixed so well that I never had to play a game. Later in the evening, Lance built a fire. The older guys stoked it hot, and one of the college guys started leading us in worship songs. It was an incredible evening. I had planned to wind things down around 10:00, and not long after, most of the kids’ parents had taken them home. But the college guys hung out till nearly 1:00. We sat in our living room and told stories. We laughed, we contemplated, and finally shooed them out the door. But I went to bed totally in awe that God has given us an opportunity to be part of the lives of these incredible young people whose stories He is now writing.

I’d like to encourage you this holiday weekend to take some time to think about your God story. What is it that God has done in your life that shows His love and care for you? Find someone to tell your God story to—one of your kids, your best friend, even a stranger you meet sometime in the next week. Work at your story to make the telling of it interesting so someone cares to listen. And read Psalm 78 to impress on yourself the need to be telling your story all the time, to yourself and to others.

 

Bi-polar Christianity

Richard Gelina

In my blog post The Journey I mentioned that a coworker had given me the Philip Yancey book Soul Survivor. I have been reading it as I find time, which means I’m making very slow progress through the book. But I have found it fascinating.

I love authors who make me think, and Philip Yancey is definitely one of those authors. The issues he deals with in this book are his personal struggles with the seeming incongruity of the Christian faith as viewed against the behavior of those who claim the name of Christ. His context is quite different than mine, but the issue is one I have struggled with for a few years now.

As soon as I started the book I was struck with an interesting parallel between my son’s behavioral issues and the behavior of many of us Christians. My son, as many of you know, is severely bipolar. He has many other neurological issues as well, but bipolar may be the disorder that seems to have the most impact on his ability to get along in the world. My son never takes a middle ground—he is always out on one fringe or the other. This is tremendously uncomfortable for the people around him as extremes are simply not the norm.

Jack Kerouac

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars...

There are positive ways of looking at this extreme character, such as the quote by Jack Kerouac in the callout box to the right. But in real-world terms, those extremes make it very hard for my son to communicate with others. They make it hard for him to have friends. In fact, they make it hard for him to get along in the world in any way at all. The wild extremes are simply not acceptable in our society.

So I was reading Philip Yancey and I was struck with the thought that we Christians seems to gravitate toward extremes. In a recent conversation with my brother-in-law, he mentioned that Martin Luther had spotted this tendency in Christians and gave the analogy of a man trying to mount a horse, but each time he tries to jump onto the horse’s back he springs all the way over onto the other side, never actually making it onto the horse’s back. He said that Christians react to a perceived innacuracy or heresy and we jump all the way over the horse’s back to the reactive opposite side. Then other Christians react to our extreme by jumping all the way over the horse’s back to the previous opposite extreme, or perhaps a whole new extreme altogether. I think Martin Luther was pretty close to the truth in that observation. And not much has changed in the 500 years since his life.

The one extreme	The other extreme
Liberal/Antinomian	Legalistic works-based salvation
Your reality, your truth, choose-your-own-religion	Popes, pontifical pastors, paranoid elders

Bipolar religion is not inviting to a watching world. And it is not the way of true Christianity. While we are not to be lukewarm, we are also told to practice moderation. And moderation is not a common characteristic of those of us who claim the name of Christ.

I believe that we should be known by a quiet personal encounter and relationship with Christ leading us to reach out in love to a world in need. This gentle and quiet love for others should typify Christianity. It is the characteristic displayed by Jesus toward the common people around him. Jesus’ vitriol against others was only employed against the religious leaders who were living bipolar religion—out on the extreme fringes, pushed there not by scripture but by man-made tradition.

I do think there is a place for extreme living—we should be extreme in our commitment to balance, reasonableness, and quiet faith.

 

15 years old?

T

oday is David’s birthday—he’s fifteen years old. It’s hard to believe.

This past weekend was focused on things he would enjoy, so we spent Saturday at the River Fest—a fun gathering of the people from town at the Shenandoah River. The Park Service sets up hammocks all around along the banks of the river and folks bring their picnic baskets and coolers, claim a picnic table and a hammock or two, and then just kick back and enjoy the beauty of the Central Shenandoah Valley. It’s a lot of fun.

They also had some presentations and displays set up for the kids. David enjoyed meeting the llamas and feeding them hay. He also found a bunch of snakes sunning themselves on the rocks along the bank when we went for a walk. Before long, about 30 people had gathered to look at the snakes and watch them swim between the rocks and climb up on the rocks and stare back at us.

David posing with one of the llamas (and his new walking stick)

But David’s actual birthday is today, and Aunt Shawne, Uncle Harold, and David’s cousin, Luke, are visiting this afternoon. And I have taken the day off to enjoy the celebration.

 

Blog Header - May 16, 2010

I took this blog header photo about a year ago at Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest. This is my wife Kim standing by the wall of one of the gardens there. Kim is a history buff and we have spent the past 24 years digging up wonderful treasures from the past by visiting fantastic historic places.

We have found that an interest in history can bring almost any town to life and make you appreciate better where you live by thinking of those who have lived there before you.

We're really enjoying getting to know Front Royal. It has some great history, and I think its history is a big part of the reason it’s such a great town to live in now.

Anyway—this picture was taken close to our 23rd anniversary. We have now been married for 24 years—almost a quarter of a century, and half our lives. God has been good.

And since I have not posted anything since this last blogheader post, I will just add the next blog header photo here. I took these pictures of my wife 24 years ago while we were on our honeymoon in St. Thomas, USVI. It was a beautiful place, a beautiful bride, and the start of a long and good marriage.

 

Happy anniversary, Kim

Kim, on our honeymoon

Twenty-four years ago tomorrow, May 17, 1985, I married the prettiest girl I knew. Kim and I had known each other essentially all our lives, and she married me anyway. And she has been the best wife anyone could ever imagine for almost a quarter of a century now.

We had no idea, twenty-four years ago, where God would be taking us. And had we known at the time, we may have reconsidered. But after having walked these roads with my wife for half my life now, I can honestly say I would do it all again. In fact, I could never have done it without her.

Kim, yesterday

For twenty-four years we have tried to move out of the Washington, DC, area. For twenty-four years we have looked for a good church. For nine years we tried to have a child. Then we adopted a crack baby and have spent the ensuing 15 years loving this child while at the same time wondering if we can possible make it as his parents. We have made many geographic moves, joined with many churches, and been accused of poor parenting by more people than you can possibly imagine. But at this twenty-four year milestone in our marriage God has led us to the most wonderful town either of us have ever lived in. He has put us in a home that is essentially our dream home. He has provided education for our son that has succeeded better than any previous education. And he has led us to a wonderful church with a delightful pastor’s family and great people.

It has been a twisty road with some serious rough patches over these past twenty-four years. But through it all I have had the love of the most wonderful wife imaginable. And God has brought us to this point with blessings too many to count.

Thank you, God. And Happy anniversary, Kim. I love you.

 

Blog Header - May 12, 2010

The bridge in this picture is the Francis Scott Key Bridge the connects Rosslyn, Virginia, with Washington, D.C. It spans the Potomac just about 100 yards from my office building. I took this photo about two years ago, long before I knew I would be working from this location. In fact, when I took this photo our firm did not even have this office. My how times change.

The porch

W

ith its numerous associations, the porch awakens something deep in American consciousness. It is a reminder of America’s past. Its appearance conincided with the founding of the nation.

Our porch

The porch is a populist symbol par excellence. Time has made of it a symbol for the individual’s ties to the family and by extension, to the nation as an enlargement of the family. The porch is where friends meet to share a few quiet words, a place of reflection where old folk sit and watch the world go by, where teenagers take their first hesitant steps in romantic love, where grief spends itself, and hope blossoms. The American porch is a bridge to the universe.

—Philip Drew, Veranda: Embracing Place

 

Blog Header - May 9, 2010

I took this photo when we lived in Lynchburg, Virginia, at a Lynchburg Hillcats Minor League baseball game. These games were tremendous fun at a great price. So it made family outings affordable and enjoyable. The two girls in this picture are sitting with the Hillcat’s mascot Southpaw—a delightfully offbeat mascot who regularly led the crowd in cheers and dancing. He did a great worm, believe it or not.

I processed the photo in Photoshop using a technique described by Deke McLelland for faking HDR photography with one exposure. I love the contrast, detail, and overly saturated colors common to HDR photography, so I have been experimenting with this relatively simple technique for the past few days. For the most part, I have chosen photographs that were low in contrast and had poor lighting. It’s amazing how much improvement results from applying this fake HDR technique.

Here are a few examples:

Kim and David in Disney’s Rainforest Café

From Disney’s Animal Kingdom, this photo was so underexposed that it was essentially unusable. I had tried to take a picture without using flash so I could capture the unique lighting of the aquariums, but it was just too dark. I finally managed to capture this picture with no blur by raising the ISO level to 1800, but to keep the shutter speed high enough to eliminate motion blur I had to tremendously underexpose the picture.

The face HDR technique allowed me to pull detail out of the photo and show the beautiful lighting and the beautiful fish in the aquarium (along with my beautiful wife and my son back in the shadows behind her).

Kim on the train at Disney’s Magic Kingdom

I love how this one turned out. This is Kim riding the train that encircles Disney’s Magic Kingdom. We rode the train quite a few times—both to get a break from walking and because our son loves trains.

Model A at Natural Bridge, VA – Sepia toning

I wanted to try the fake HDR technique on a black & white photograph, so I pulled up this photo of an old car that I took when we visited Natural Bridge, Virginia, about four years ago. It was a very foggy morning, which I think contributes nicely to the old-time photograph effect. But with the post-processing of the photograph a giveaway showed up in the reflection on the side door. I don’t think they had minivans when this Model A was brand new.

A spectator at a Lynchburg Hillcats game

I took this photo at a Lynchburg Hillcats game. The color was dull; the photo had very low contrast. It was an altogether lifeless and unpleasing photograph. So I applied the fake HDR technique and ended up with this arresting photograph. I love the captivating quality of the young lady’s eyes in this photo.

One of my friends from work

After displaying some of the photos I had processed, one of my friends at work asked if I could apply the same technique to her Facebook profile picture. This is the result of that request. I blurred the background to make her stand out more from the brick wall.