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"In the beginning, when the Lord created heaven and earth, the Spirit of God moved over the abyss. There was light. God divided light from darkness." -- Thomas Merton. 

Gratitude

Could it be that in waiting for the dawn of day we become more grateful for the light which renews us -- for the colors of the sun to make us appreciate the world in new ways? 

The sun rises and we turn to face its warmth and we are grateful. The long night passes, yes, but even then, in the darkness, we can find beauty. The duality of life -- heaven from earth, and light from darkness -- serve as reminders of the fleeting nature of our existence. 

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Out in the county, small streams freeze over trapping rocks in an embrace of ice. At twilight the world sighs. Here, on these quiet back roads life holds a thousand mysteries. Stopping along a small bridge I walk to the north to discover a dog had died there without ceremony. It's head was covered in leaves, the body in decay. I thought of the owners, if she or she had owners. When a dog is lost or dies, there is grief and longing. I made a few pictures, but I am not sure why, because I can't imagine ever showing them.

Photography is impulse.

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The evening sky settles softly on rolling hills. Painterly light swashes over the Missouri -- scarlet crimson and magenta; tinged pillows of orange and red on the horizon. Cottonwoods bend like gates holding back the night.

On the farm, cattle move somberly across the south 40 toward a tree line dense with Hackberry, Mulberry, and Hedge. Geese sound the alarm of impending darkness. To the northeast, some thirty miles away, the lights of St. Joseph, Missouri begin to blink on the horizon. Trucks carrying loads of grain to the mills hum along Kansas Highway 7. The air is scented with freshly plowed fields of hay, soybean and corn. The road leading up the quarter mile to the farm is a dusty jaunt.

Out of sight out of mind.

In an age of email, tweets, Facebook, and all over the web, we are bombarded with information. In reality, however, there is probably more information, more to learn, in a single square foot of earth on the farm than there is on the entire Internet. Although the premise appears preposterous, if we really took the time to examine the more mundane bits of life our opinion would most likely change.

The square foot of land I imagine is hard-packed earth, which is covered with the dry grasses of winter. At one corner there is a rotting old beam with a few nails poking out. In the center, there is a single print from a passing deer.

Millions of organisms over millions of years have occupied this space. Floods, fire, drought, and human enterprise have shape it unique qualities. This patch of earth, on the surface appears simple but the processes that it bears witness to are beyond comprehension.

My imagination leads me away from the physical properties of objects, plants, and animals and toward the intangibles of what all these things, taken collectively really mean in relation to life. The conditions for knowing something are impigne on by emotion and sentimentality.

In the 6^th century St. Benedict wrote “The Rule” as a primer for monastic life. Looking at my square foot of earth, I seek to understand some of Benedict’s most cherished values: simplicity, stability, and humility. The rationale mind, the human intellect, seeks to keep order when the chaos of distraction assaults us from every angle. But how can we look at a patch of earth and find simplicity, stability or humility? Can we apply human behavior to an observational process that requires objective intelligence?

Living in an abstract asymmetrical relationship with the world reduces experience to the lowest common denominators of knowing.  We see the grass, the beam, the hoof print, and memory seeks out comparison. That blade of grass looks like any other, and that hoof print is something I've seen before.  An abstract means something has been reduced to its most basic form. The photograph is composed of dots, lines, shapes that underpin the forms representing reality.

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There's a gift of living every day anew.

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The camera is an extension of my presence. When the lens is pointed out into space with purpose, then; there is just that one moment. My friend Garth jokes with me about an Annie Griffith Bell quote I use so often.

"A photography is a moment of truth touched by light."

Some people use words like saccharin -- just to sweeten things up -- but the thought of an image as  "truth" resonnates within me. I can't apologize for that. Truth, for me, is bound by my awareness of the world around me. I see truth in humanity as I see it in nature. Truth is being in touch with self so that we can respond in a deeper and more meaningful way. 

There was a time when I took making images more seriously than need be. Everything my photographed had to connected to telling stories about some event or about some person. I did recognize the "art" what I did, but the content -- the decisive moment -- always seem to come first.

Time has changed the way I see the world. There's been a transformation of sorts. Things happen, people change. It's okay.

Coming to the office at sunrise I pick up my camera to record the rising light -- a  beautiful sky. In that moment I realized that I had forgotten to change the settings off "self-timer" mode. The camera click and streaked of light appeared. For a few minutes I began to doodle with the camera -- that curious release of energy we do when we are sitting in a meeting that has gone on a few minutes too long.

Leaving the camera on self-timer with a long exposure, I moved around making images of a large Christmas tree in front of the journalism department.

The image is a "truth" -  it is bound by intent and memory. The truth can be found in the discovery of self, the act of self-expression, and the realization that we have gifts to share with one another. 

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There's a gift of living every day anew.

[[posterous-content:pid___0]]The camera is an extension of my presence. When the lens is pointed out into space with purpose, then; there is just that one moment. My friend Garth jokes with me about an Annie Griffith Bell quote I use so often.

"A photography is a moment of truth touched by light."

Some people use words like saccharin -- just to sweeten things up -- but the thought of an image as  "truth" resonnates within me. I can't apologize for that. Truth, for me, is bound by my awareness of the world around me. I see truth in humanity as I see it in nature. Truth is being in touch with self so that we can respond in a deeper and more meaningful way. 

There was a time when I took making images more seriously than need be. Everything my photographed had to connected to telling stories about some event or about some person. I did recognize the "art" what I did, but the content -- the decisive moment -- always seem to come first.

Time has changed the way I see the world. There's been a transformation of sorts. Things happen, people change. It's okay.

Coming to the office at sunrise I pick up my camera to record the rising light -- a  beautiful sky. In that moment I realized that I had forgotten to change the settings off "self-timer" mode. The camera click and streaked of light appeared. For a few minutes I began to doodle with the camera -- that curious release of energy we do when we are sitting in a meeting that has gone on a few minutes too long.

Leaving the camera on self-timer with a long exposure, I moved around making images of a large Christmas tree in front of the journalism department.

The image is a "truth" -  it is bound by intent and memory. The truth can be found in the discovery of self, the act of self-expression, and the realization that we have gifts to share with one another. 

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There's a gift of living every day anew.

The camera is an extension of my presence. When the lens is pointed out into space with purpose, then; there is just that one moment. My friend Garth jokes with me about an Annie Griffith Bell quote I use so often.

"A photography is a moment of truth touched by light."

Some people use words like saccharin -- just to sweeten things up -- but the thought of an image as  "truth" resonnates within me. I can't apologize for that. Truth, for me, is bound by my awareness of the world around me. I see truth in humanity as I see it in nature. Truth is being in touch with self so that we can respond in a deeper and more meaningful way. 

There was a time when I took making images more seriously than need be. Everything my photographed had to connected to telling stories about some event or about some person. I did recognize the "art" what I did, but the content -- the decisive moment -- always seem to come first.

Time has changed the way I see the world. There's been a transformation of sorts. Things happen, people change. It's okay.

Coming to the office at sunrise I pick up my camera to record the rising light -- a  beautiful sky. In that moment I realized that I had forgotten to change the settings off "self-timer" mode. The camera click and streaked of light appeared. For a few minutes I began to doodle with the camera -- that curious release of energy we do when we are sitting in a meeting that has gone on a few minutes too long.

Leaving the camera on self-timer with a long exposure, I moved around making images of a large Christmas tree in front of the journalism department.

The image is a "truth" -  it is bound by intent and memory. The truth can be found in the discovery of self, the act of self-expression, and the realization that we have gifts to share with one another. 

See the full gallery on Posterous

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 "Things do not change: we change."

As we get older, the difference between meaningful and meaningless becomes ever more clear.

Can a sunset ever be meaningless? A birthday? Perhaps,  a marriage that has lost meaning? One day, you wake up and see your partner and think, "when did this all become so routine?"

There is a sense of dread in thinking that I could someday look out the window at a sky full of beauty and wonder and feel nothing.

Christmas has lost meaning as it has become subsumed by shameless consumerism.

What about celebrating the New Year? All those resolutions? Nope. In bed by 9 p.m. and not thinking too much to change the way I am.

When do words become meaningless. "I'm sorry." "I love you."

We say so many things ad nasuem that the import of what we really want to say gets lost.

For something to have meaning implies that we must face the truth.Thoreau wrote, "However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it..." LIfe becomes "mean" when we give up on it.

The cynic might say, "It is what it is." What meaning can be found in those words? Very little I suppose. The optimist, on the other hand, might conclude that there is a truth hiding below the surface of this sort of resignation. The optimist might say, "let's get to the bottom of this, uncover the meaning, and make some hard choices."

To Thoreau's imagination, ever the optimist,  I seek a deeper meaning in search of knowing the present moment.  "The universe is wider than our views of it." observes DHT. 

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She opens a present as the anticpation drains from her face like air escaping from a balloon. "I was hoping for something different," she said with disappointment. "I'm sorry," I said hoping the moment would pass.

We are surrounded by stuff.

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Here is sample of some of the work my Digital Photo I students did this fall. I am really proud of them all and how beautiful the images are in this video/slideshow.

reflections2.mov Watch on Posterous

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Yesterday was gray. Solemn. Walking through the fields below the old barns and pond I stopped to reflect on the pure intention of grieving an inexplicable loss. The deaths of Sgt. Enzbrenner and his  Skyler Barbee cloud my mind and take me away from what should be the most joyous time of Advent, the Immaculate Conceptio.

The sky is bleach. Trees dark and  angular. Woodlands roll concealing undergrowth. I trip on corn stubble and shake the mud from my boots as I go.

Cottle's pond is covered in a thin layer of ice. Several hundred geese slip around -- noisly claiming a safe corner of clear water for themselves. Deer hunting season ends in silence. Three buck were killed here this year near a section of land called the horseshoe.

Cottle's Pond. A small tree in the ice.

It is the pure intention of reconciling the troubles of this past week that bring me to this place. The wind kicks up the chill.

The old powder shack

Pure Intention

Reconciling the will of the Creator requires an inner-life of consideration and thought, especially in difficult times. How is it possible to surrender ourselves to accepting such terrible loss -- a police officer, a troubled young man, the deaths of six grain elevator workers, the destruction left from the summer's flood?

The expressions of sorrow and grief felt throughout the community came together on Friday evening with the pure intention of remembrance. The burials will happen this week. Finding a place to accomodate Sgt. Enzbrenner's colleagues, as many as 500 other police officers, will be difficult in this town.

When we were not blinded, as we so often are, by our own selfishness, we are nstinctively drawn to be introspective. Seeking solace in understanding the sickness that besets the world we are struck by a profound mix of feelings: bewilderment, sorrow, anger, fear, and the need for reconciliation.

Pure intention, Thomas Merton observes, means doing God's will. We are called to examine our actions carefully with the mindset that we cannot act blindly and alone. In a perfect world, every intention would be pure if we were to examine our conscious in doing God' will. This why the vigil for Sgt. Enzbrenner and the prayers for Skyler Barbee was so important -- the gathering helped us come closer to God's. The rite of grieving and reconciliation unify us and clarify intentions after such tragedy. 

If we fail to come together as a community formed by the pure intention of God's will, Merton might argue, then we are at risk of being alone and lost in our own blind selfishness. We will never fully understand the motives of others. 

Attaching motive to anything is always problematic, because everyone is responsible for their own actions -- right or wrong.

We can understand a motive in its completeness unless it is of pure intent. Anything else does not bring us into the present. The pure intent of grieving and reconciliation is of pure intent because in the act remembering the love and goodness that surrounds us we come closer together as a community of one.

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It's 4:30 on Saturday and a little more than 24 hours since the shooting of Atchison Police Dept. Sgt. David Enzbrenner.

One day ago, the intersection of 12th and Division was crammed with first responders. Now, the responders, emotional responders, have moved online to share remorse and consolation for the family, friends, and fellow officers trying to come to terms with such a loss. 

Since the shooting more than 133 people, mostly police officers, from all over the country have posted tributes on the Officer Down Memorial Page website.

Twitter hashtags such as #atchison is buzzing with frequent updates on memorial services and vigils. Facebook pages with comments on all aspects of the tragedy grow instantly across the vastness of the Internet. The days of trickle-down-sourced information such as newspaper and traditional broadcasting are increasingly moving toward obsolescence. Social media, despite many flaws, is the new community -- a virtual bulletin board of rich media.

News flows horizontally online – a space where the user and the source are often the same. As we become acclimated to feverous stream of information as well as increasingly more literate in tapping into this stream, our communities can become less stratified and more unified. 

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It’s a quiet morning in Atchison as the temperature dips to 16 degrees. Everything appears as it often does on a weekend morning. A few cars, streets empty.  On the corner of Division and 12^th Streets signs of yesterday’s shooting have all but disappeared. A couple of barricades are neatly stacked on the side of the road. On a tree across from the shooting hangs the remnants of a yellow crime scene tape.  A young man in his twenties sits on concrete steps near where his cousin committed suicide after shooting Atchison police sergeant David Enzbrenner. “It this where it happened,” I asked. “Yes, sir,” the young man said. “Did you know the man?” “He was my cousin.”

I hadn’t thought deeply about the circumstances surrounding the shooting or even tried to understand why anyone could commit such a cold-blooded act? I feel the suffering. The pain is palpable.  I pray earnestly for the officer, his family, community, his co-workers. But I also must pray for the forgiveness of the one that caused such suffering. Forgiveness is a delicate and seemingly impossible act sometimes.

I drove by the shooter’s home a few times trying to muster up the nerve to sit with him and talk about what happened, maybe even pray with him. He sat there alone, hands covering his face, eyes welling with tears. This is not a happy place.

City Hall is closed. A sign on the front door reads. “Closed temporarily. Sorry for the inconvenience.”  The flag is still raised full on the pole on the southwest corner of the Police Department; a dozen squad cars sit idle. I would imagine that this moment, the morning after, is one in which all those closest to Sgt. Enzbrenner are deep in grief and shock. Others too. We take our turn coming to terms with the worst that life besets upon us. 

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It's impossible to explain the sadness of a community's grief that comes following another in a series of tragedies here. First, the flooding of the Missouri River in May. Then came the grain elevator explosion which killed six workers in one of Kansas' most deadly agricultural accidents. Now, just yesterday afternoon, came the news that a police officer was shot and killed while on duty.  Atchison police officer David Enzbernner, a 24-year veteran of the force, was assigned to assist a code enforcement officer on the northwest side of town. Complaints were filed against a man that had been using his yard as a scrap heap. Seemingly out of nowhere, a man appeared from across the street and shot Enzberner before turing the gun on himself. On the web, there's a memorial page set up now in tribute to the officer. Communities now longer gather at the grange or at the local bar. Today people pour out expressions of love and hope online. This morning on the Officer-Down Memorial website, fellow officer, Sgt. K.W. wrote, "Thank you brother for adding a smile and laughter to the squad room and the many times you said, "I got it", at shift-change so I could go home to my family on time. Prayers with your family. Rest in peace." Another sergeant, from Virgina, added, "My thoughts and prayers go out to Sergeant Enzbrenner, his family, friends, and the entire Atchison Police Department. Thank you for your service Sergeant Enzbrenner. We've got the watch from here." From across the nation, the tributes pour in.

We prayed last night at mass before little was known about officer Enzbernner's fate. People said they heard Lifeflight and watched as the helicpoter crossed over the Missouri to St. Joseph.  There will be more remembrance to come.

It rained last week during the town's inannual Sights and Sounds of Christmas parade. The crowd was sparse, but the police were there. Traffic was blocked along Main Street as Santa made his way on the back of flatbed truck to the Commercial mall several blocks away. People dressed in santa hats held umbrellas. Cheers went up as the "old" man passed.

There are no Occupy Wall Street encampments here.

Unemployment here is 7.9 percent,  below the 8.6 precent national average, but nearly double the rate of a decade ago. In June, Atchison's last old-style soda fountain and independent drug store closed its doors.

Atchison is a small community with a history of hard luck.

Drought and floods. Tornado Alley. Famed aviator Amelia Earhart was born here. Atchison is also known as the most haunted town in America. In the early days, going back to the mid-1800s, the town launched thousands of wagon trains out across the praire looking for the promised land. Many of the people who made the trek from the eastern states, however, never made it much further than Atchison. Disillusioned and broke, families made due scraping out a living by farming or providing services for others heading west. Nearly half of those who stayed in the area came from Germany and Ireland. 

Atchison, for all of share of trouble, is not known for violent crimes, especially murder. Since 2002, there's only been one murder, until yesterday.

All communities have their share of bad luck, of course, but when it comes this close to home, especially is such a string of misfortune, the tendency is to turn inward, pray, and gather as much fortitude as possible to move on.

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I am just not sure how to articulate my feelings about this evening's awe-inspiring sunset. The coincident of of the shaft of light rising into the evening sky coincides with the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a holy day for Catholics who honor Mary the mother of Jesus.

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