Inspirations: Thoughts on Faith » Faith-filled Photographers

Who Are You?

Inspirations: Thoughts on Faith No Responses »

May 112012

Photo by Cheryl Doyle-Ruffing

When I was a young child, I attended a church activity day. Someone brought a camcorder along and was recording everybody at the event. This was a long time ago, and camcorders were very new. It was quite an exciting thing.

I was shy and often friendless, but not unfriendly. The man with the camcorder came over and recorded a few moments of me tying some string on a craft. He focused on my hands and then panned up to my shyly smiling face. I was a cute kid with blond pigtails and chubby cheeks.

Refreshments were served after we finished with the crafts. A television was brought out, and everyone gathered around to watch the newly made video. As we watched, I suddenly realized with horror that the shot of me would be shown in just a few moments. I froze in terror, not knowing what to do. I watched in horror as the camera showed my clumsy hands and everyone quieted in anticipation of finding out who it was. And then the awful moment came. The camera showed my face, and a chorus of groans rose from the crowd of kids. I hung my head in shame.

Who are you?

The question was posed to me as a teen. I was supposed to answer it as part of a questionnaire and give it to a psychiatric hypnotist who was supposed to unlock the memories of my past and heal my emotional troubles. I never turned in the questionnaire. I had no idea how to answer that question.

Someone recently told me that infants come into this world from God’s presence knowing who they are but we teach them to forget. I wondered how we could possibly teach a pre-verbal baby how to forget the wonderful things they might know about God. And then I realized that it wasn’t what we told them that made the difference; it was how we treated them.

When I was young, the world somehow taught me that I was a nobody. I was so despicable that the sight of my face was a burden to be borne. I hated myself and thought everyone hated me too. But God can teach us who we are no matter what else we have been taught.

Who am I?

I am a blessed daughter of God. He knows who I am and He loves me. It makes no difference if the whole world groans at the sight of my face; my Lord and Savior knows my heart and sees the beauty in it. I have no reason to fear. I have great reason to rejoice. I am treasured by the Greatest Being in the universe.

Who am I? I am a great and glorious being. I can say that without envy or malice, because you are too. I know who I am and I know that every single being living on earth is just as sacred and treasured as I am. That is the message I desire to share with the world. I know who I am.

Who are You?

—written by Meili Tark

Poem for a Rainy Day

Inspirations: Thoughts on Faith 1 Response »

May 082012

Pink and yellow tulips framed by green leaves

Photo by Cheryl Doyle-Ruffing

The cup of hot tea
Sits primly on my desk —
Its saucer like a coordinating couch.

The black and white plate,
Shiny and gritty from cinnamon toast,
Now holds three black and white cookies.

The sweater covers my arms and torso,
Zips up the front, warms me
Like the songs of Mr. Rogers when I was little.

The toddler sleeps upstairs,
While a few doors down,
Her sister knits.

Boys still wet from their last foray outside
Long for another one
And make too much noise inside.

The huddled tulips out the window
Cling to their fading beauty
Like an aging heiress, patron of plastic surgeons.

The rain is a percussionist,
Filling the background
With the scha-scha-scha of brush on snare
And beating out the three-quarter time
That got the song started in the first place.

—Cheryl Doyle-Ruffing

Heaven Begins Now

Inspirations: Thoughts on Faith 1 Response »

May 052012

Photo by Erin-Therese Brierley

Heaven begins now: these words have been on my mind lately. They remind me of something once said by our parish priest, Father William Pearsall, in one of his Easter homilies. “Eternity doesn’t begin the moment you die,” I recall him saying, “It began the moment you were conceived.”

Since our little girl was born, I try to keep Nazareth in my mind — the picture of that family at home together, the kind of home God would like to live in. Nazareth is the place where God demonstrated just how He would like to live, and what we mean to Him. He’d like to be at home with us, to eat with us and share the enjoyment of an ordinary day. He finds life beautiful because true life is made of love. We can imagine the love in that humble home in Nazareth: God’s love overflowing from the kitchen to the carpenter’s shop!

We can try to imagine what it’s like to be at home with Jesus. Living with Jesus is being in Heaven, and that is why we can truly say that Heaven begins now. The joys of earth are the building blocks for the joys of Heaven. We are learning to love, we are learning to remember that God is in our home with us — so that one day, we can live in God’s home with Him.

When we forget how to be with God, all we have to do is ask Mary. She is the perfect one to remind us that Jesus is never far away. If we want to speak to Him, all Mary has to do is go to window and call Him in. He’s right next door, working on a new project in the carpenter’s shop!

Little Infant Jesus, teach us all how to be children, at home with our Father. Amen.

Written by Erin-Thérèse Brierley

The Quest for Light

Inspirations: Thoughts on Faith, Photography 1 Response »

May 022012

A pottery pitcher holds pink azaleas in the afternoon sunlight

Photo by Cheryl Doyle-Ruffing

The tension between light and dark has long been a metaphor for the battle between good and evil. Do you find joy in sunlit afternoons and feel somehow diminished in the dark of a storm?

To follow Jesus is to follow the light: “Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life’” (John 8:12). As you live your life, do you follow the light — finding hope and meaning in the words and teachings of Jesus?

When you have your camera in hand, do you follow the light? Do you chase it, study it, and catch it? Without light, there can be no photography. Without an awareness of light, you can’t think like a photographer.

Look out the window right now. Where is the sun? Is it nighttime? If so, can you see the moon? What it is illuminating for you? Where does the light lead your eye? Train your camera on that spot. Then walk around your subject and see if there’s a better angle. Don’t forget that digital images cost nothing; take lots of them.

Is there a room in your house that gets early morning light? What can you photograph there when you get up in the morning? How about the beautiful golden light of late afternoon/early evening? How can you capture it?

In his blog post on Reflected Light, artist Altoon Sultan reminds us that, “The illumination of bright sun reveals worlds and lightens our spirits, but its indirect reflection onto surfaces and objects offers a different way of seeing.”

A different way of seeing: would your life and your art benefit from a different way of seeing the world around you?

Where’s Your Focus?

Inspirations: Thoughts on Faith No Responses »

May 012012

A young lady blows red rose petals toward the camera

Photo by Cheryl Doyle-Ruffing

My sixth pregnancy seemed like one long anxiety attack that lasted nine months.

A little past the four-month mark, at the end of a snowy January that was filled with travel for my husband, my daughter came down with what we thought was a nasty virus. Bridget was tired and weak, eating a little and sleeping a lot. The illness dragged on for days, but a neighbor told me that his son had just battled “the same thing,” and it had kept him down for week. My concerns about Bridget’s health kicked up my anxiety level and when I wasn’t worrying about her, I was worrying about myself.

After a little more than a week of being sick, Bridget was almost too weak to stand and I finally realized that she was emaciated. My husband drove her to the doctor’s office on a Saturday morning and called me a little while later to inform me that Bridget had diabetes and would be traveling to Maine Medical Center via ambulance. My anxiety level reached a new high at that point.

A few hours later, I stood next to Bridget’s bed in the pediatric ICU and came to grips with the fact that Diabetic Ketoacidosis had nearly taken her life. My unborn baby, moving around inside me, suddenly had lots of company — my feelings of guilt, relief, sadness, uncertainty. Surprisingly, the anxiety had made itself scarce, and it stayed away throughout my one-week hospital stay with Bridget.

As I watch Bridget live each and every day with Type-1 Diabetes, I sometimes wish that God had chosen a different way of getting me to look past myself and my own problems, but I’m always thankful that Bridget is here to share my days.

All of this came to mind after reading the following poem, which I came across in The Book of Virtues, edited by William J. Bennett.

If you were busy being kind,
Before you knew it, you would find
You’d soon forget to think ’twas true
That someone was unkind to you.

If you were busy being glad,
And cheering people who are sad,
Although your heart might ache a bit,
You’d soon forget to notice it.

If you were busy being good,
And doing just the best you could,
You’d not have time to blame some man
Who’s doing just the best he can.

If you were busy being right,
You’d find yourself too busy quite
To criticize your neighbor long
Because he’s busy being wrong.

Easter Sunday

Inspirations: Thoughts on Faith No Responses »

Apr 082012

Photo by Cheryl Doyle-Ruffing

New Readings

Although the letter said
On thistles that men look not grapes to gather,
I read the story rather
How soldiers platting thorns around CHRIST’S Head
Grapes grew and drops of wine were shed.

Though when the sower sowed,
The wingèd fowls took part, part fell in thorn
And never turned to corn,
Part found no root upon the flinty road, —
CHRIST at all hazards fruit hath shewed.

From wastes of rock He brings
Food for five thousand: on the thorns He shed
Grains from His dropping Head;
And would not have that legion of winged things
Bear Him to heaven on easeful wings.

—Gerard Manley Hopkins

Holy Saturday

Inspirations: Thoughts on Faith No Responses »

Apr 072012

Detail of Michelangelo's Pieta (side view)

Detail from Michelangelo's Pieta

Beneath the cross the Mother kept
Bleak vigil under darkened skies.
Upon the cross her Son hung nailed,
Stabbed through by crowds of hostile eyes.

“And your own soul a sword shall pierce,”
The old man in the Temple said,
The Spirit’s sword, the word of God —
God’s word be done, was all she said.

Upon the cross the Savior died;
Beneath, the Mother bowed her head;
Above, the storm broke harsh and wild —
God’s word be done, was all she said.

A soldier came and thrust him through;
The blood and water proved him dead.
They laid his body in her arms —
God’s word be done, was all she said.

At vigil’s end, the Crucified
Arose from death her glorious Lord.
O Father, Son, and Spirit, God,
We praise and magnify your Word.

—Genevieve Glen, OSB
Abbey of St. Walburga
published in Magnificat, Holy Week 2012

Good Friday

Inspirations: Thoughts on Faith 1 Response »

Apr 062012

Photo by Cheryl Doyle-Ruffing

You who created everything,
My sweet Father, heavenly King,
Hear me, I your son implore,
For Man this flesh and bone I bore.

Clear and bright my breast and side,
Blood on the whiteness gushing wide,
Holes in my body crucified.

Held stiff and stark my long arms rise,
And dim and dark fall on my eyes:
Like sculptured marble hang my thighs.

My feet are red with flowing blood,
Their holes washed over by the flood.
Show Man’s sins mercy, Father on high!
With all my wounds to you I cry.

—from Medieval English Verse
translated by Brian Stone

Holy Thursday

Inspirations: Thoughts on Faith No Responses »

Apr 052012

Photo by Cheryl Doyle-Ruffing

How could a friend betray you,
A follower deny?
How could they then forsake you
And leave you there to die?
How weak our claims of fealty,
How little does it take —
A handful of their silver
To put your life at stake?

Yet you, when handed over,
Accepted at the hands
Of brutal and dishonest
The pain of torture’s brands.
And when they crucified you,
You prayed, “O God, forgive”;
You knew the ones who slew you
And died that they might live.

How could we doubt the mercy
That bled for us that day?
When we have seen the nail marks,
How could we walk away?
Our sin deserves your anger;
You give us life instead.
Before your cross we tremble,
To take your wine and bread.

—Genevieve Glen, OSB
Abbey of St. Walburga

Simple Pleasures

Inspirations: Thoughts on Faith No Responses »

Apr 022012

Photo by Erin Brierley

With crumbs of stale bread,
He devises to expose
The Great Mystery;
The choicest fruits are transformed
Into the nectar of love;
And with these simple pleasures,
Soft breezes, wildflowers
He offers us a taste
Of heaven above.

—Erin Brierley

And No One Saw Your Footprints

Inspirations: Thoughts on Faith 1 Response »

Mar 082012

The earth was moved and trembled
when your way led through the sea,
your path through the mighty waters
and no one saw your footprints. (Psalm 77)

The Seed’s Renewing Death

Inspirations: Thoughts on Faith 1 Response »

Mar 042012

Before the fruit is ripened by the sun,
Before the petals or the leaves uncoil,
Before the first fine silken root is spun,
A seed is dropped and buried in the soil.

Before we gain the grace that comes through loss,
Before we live by more than bread and breath,
Before we lift with joy an empty cross,
We face with Christ the seed’s renewing death.

—Thomas Troeger
Magnificat, February 23, 2012

Older Entries

Faith-filled Photographers

Who Are You?

Poem for a Rainy Day

Heaven Begins Now

The Quest for Light

Where’s Your Focus?

Easter Sunday

Holy Saturday

Good Friday

Holy Thursday

Simple Pleasures

And No One Saw Your Footprints

The Seed’s Renewing Death

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