Category: Weekly Photo Challenge

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Jubilant!

jubilant

Jubilant is one of those words that sounds like what it is. This week’s photo challenge put a smile on my face just thinking about it.

Jubilant means all these things — (what would I do without Google?):

overjoyed, exultant, triumphant, joyful, rejoicing, exuberant, elated, thrilled, gleeful, euphoric, ecstatic, enraptured, in raptures, walking on air, in seventh heaven, on cloud nine; over the moon, on top of the world, tickled pink, on a high

 

This picture of a dear friend captures our jubilant mood as we walked along a beach on a rainy winter day. The weather did not deter her from taking off her shoes and jumping for joy! Even though the water was cold. Even though the rainy mist got into our very bones. It was warm, afterall.

There were three of us that day, enjoying a retreat of our making, rejoicing in each other’s company, praying together, worshipping together, being silly…together.

Then our mouths were filled with laughter; our tongues sang for joy. Then it was said among the nations, “The LORD had done great things for them.” The LORD has done great things for us; Oh, how happy we were! [Psalms 126:2-5]

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The Face of Love

face

The Daily Post’s photo challenge this week asks us to look at the word face for inspiration. The recommendation to post about a face “whose lines and creases you know well” captured my imagination. There are many faces I know well, loved ones near and far whose faces often press against mine in love — with the intimacy of a shared space, laughter, eye contact expressing a thousand thoughts without words.

And faces of those who are gone, fading into a mashup of memories to summon, once more, an image of a smile, a laugh, a knowing look.

This candid picture of my mom, taken on a cross-country trip through Cuba last fall, delights me. It doesn’t show her smile, which crinkles her eyes and makes me smile back. Instead, it captures her in the middle of something exciting, this unexpected gift of coconut milk. Her serious concentration masks the laughter that overtook her moments before when my uncle handed her the coconut. She couldn’t laugh and drink at the same time…but I can see a little bit of the residual smile in the purse of her lips and the raised brow, captured a split second before that huge sip she’s taking showered me in another burst of laughter.

 

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rivers and moving forward

Chattahoochee River
Chattahoochee River

I spent some time down at the Chattahoochee River recently, a bit of an afterthought — or bonus, actually, to a lovely afternoon.

When I was a kid, we’d go on family trips to the local lakes in Georgia. Every once in a while, we’d go to the Chattahoochee River, too. The lakes were ok, but it was the river that drew me. In fact, anything with moving water called to me. I played in plenty of creeks and small streams, too, but I never looked for the little creatures that lived there. Instead, I liked to watch the flow of the water, whether it was moving past rocks or tree debris, or my ankles. The thing was to stand in the water and watch it go down river, splashing wildly against big obstacles or finding the flow around them.

I’ve often written about how I love a good storm on the ocean (if I can enjoy it from shore!), so it’s clear to me the draw is in the movement. I didn’t make a connection to the meaningful symbolism of such an activity until now. Maybe I just wasn’t in the frame of mind until now.

Rivers move. They are alive. And they keep moving.

The picture I took on my recent visit to the ‘hooch captures where I am right now — moving in a new direction. The water flows steadily, always moving, always bringing different things along, flowing past small obstacles, fighting — sometime struggling past larger obstacles.

The bend in the river obstructs the view of what’s ahead, but that’s the mystery of it. The peaceful flow inspires peace, not fear.

in response to the Daily Post Photo Challenge: Earth.

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