We have spent the last week waiting. Waiting for water to be reconnected to our house, after a leak in the neighbor's yard was shut-off which evidently supplied water to our house. Waiting for the electricity to be restored to much of Nashville, the largest outage in the history of the metro area. After 24 hours we rejoiced when the light over the game table erupted with brilliance, that same table where Judy beat me at Scrabble. She celebrated the rare occurrence. Waiting for some resolution to the coronavirus. Exhausted. But as I told a friend in the midst of our waiting and adjustments, "We have our books, we have our garden, we have each other. We will be fine." Yes.

I took this photo last year with my iPhone of the convention Center in Peoria, Illinois. I had dinner with friends near the riverfront and had walked back up to the hill to get my car and noticed how these reflections and clouds and shapes complemented one another.

The Coronovirus has postponed the annual gathering until mid-August and reduced the meeting time to just one full day (two half-days). I have spent a bunch of days inside this building, so it's fun for me to consider this view from outside and this vantage point that I rarely experienced. I'm also reminded of all the people I miss seeing.

Today is the Fourth Sunday of Easter, and I will be teaching my Sunday School class today online. Thankfully, it will not be recorded as I have little confidence about my presentation. Familiar passages are part of the lectionary today including Psalm 23 (certainly the most familiar psalm, if not the most known biblical passage), John 10:1-10 (assurance of abundant life), and Acts 2:42-47 which describes the early practice of the followers of Christ. Also included is 1 Peter 2:19-25, a troubling passage about unjust suffering, which seems to be included only because of the ending that the wandering have returned to the shepherd.

For me, the study of scripture includes a conversation between the original context and our current situation if we are to understand its relevance. The larger context of the letter is that it is addressed to a community that is poor and suffering, and that the pain has been experienced through no fault of their own. How does one live when circumstances are destructive? Who do we get to blame, who do we get to attack? Can we identify who has caused our current pain?

I hear Peter advising us that the witness of the community is strengthened when we react with love. I admit that there are dimensions to that conclusion that may sound weak and unresponsive to injustice. But we participate and thrive in a community that recognizes the leading of God, that finds strength and mercy in compassion.  In the cacophony of the sounds of destruction and hate, we hear the voice of God calling us to love as we are loved. We follow the Christ who suffered greatly but responded with love. Good is God's intention, not violence, or separation, or evil of any kind. Through grace, we are healed by love. The whole world will be healed by love.

Our irises are beginning to bloom and as I noted before, I have countless images. I find the iris, like the daylily, challenging to photograph as the bloom is large relative to other flowers and it has a compound shape that does not lie in a singular plane, like a daisy for example. The size of the bloom does permit close examination and lends itself to abstract images as the photographer captures just a portion of the bloom. I never tire of the challenge to interpret my feeling of this flower. It's fun.

Yes, this is close! Sony 7rii. 90mm macro lens. I admit I love getting close-up. I have 3 macro lens, extension tubes, 2 different close-up lens that will screw on the front of zoom lens, a reverse adapter so that you can mount a lens backwards. 

This photo is an example of not seeing what you thought you were photographing. This cluster of purple flowers was another example of a wildflower that we saw on our recent trip to Long Hunter State Park. This is wild phlox, but I didn't see the two small spiders until I was processing the photo. The individual blooms are about the size of a thumbnail so you know the spiders are small and easily overlooked. That's probably how they survive predators and scaredy cats like us.

Photo details: Sony 7rii, 90mm macro lens, 1/80 sec, f/6.3, tripod

Judy has had a multitude of gardens over the years as we have moved from house to house. And every garden has included different varieties of iris. I have loved photographing them over the years and have hundreds of pictures in prints, slides, and now digital images. I am convinced that each photo is different. The plethora of images comes from different flowers, time of day, length of lens, framing, and other factors as well. In most photographic images, the direction and quality of light can create quite an impact beyond whatever the subject might be. This iris is a good example of the impact of light. It had bloomed the day before, and rain had soaked the petals; consequently, this flower was not an optimum subject with the bloom not being fresh. But the ray of light that peaked through the petals caught my eye, and for me, made the photo interesting.

We escaped from the Hideaway yesterday. We crossed from our county (Davidson) into Williamson, and through Wilson, and into Rutherford, a journey of 15 miles. Judy had cabin fever and wanted to go to Long Hunter State Park to find wildflowers. She has a long history with wildflowers, loving them as a child behind her home in Jersey County, Illinois. Back in the film days, we went all over everywhere taking photos of wildflowers that we put into a visual program that bored many a viewer. We found a few varieties yesterday and it was good to get out of the house without being in contact with another human being.

As I processed the images, I decided I liked this one best of all. And I admit it surprised me. More of an environmental portrait! But keep scrolling as my partner likes the one below it better! By the way, this wildflower is Yellow Star Grass.