A guest writer and photographer offers lens and verse — a shared exploration of what it might be like to see Love.
Love is Light — Zoom in
Years ago, when a dear friend began exploring the world through her camera, she talked about pointing her lens toward the light. Once her focus was set, she’d simply zoom right in. “Love is light. Zoom in!” became her motto.
Rose Anne, one of our one-on-one participant’s, has a similarly creative interaction with spiritual direction. This focusing in is one of the ways I lean most needfully into in my own interaction with compassionate listening. My spiritual director listens deeply to my shadowy bits and dark wonderings; she capably and consistently nudges my gaze toward the light. “And in all of this, can you see Love? Can you find Spirit anywhere?” she wonders aloud.
The answer is always, “For sure!” Original Love (God? Creator? The Universe?) is always up to some holy mischief! If I shift my gaze just a smidge — from the grim and scarred and scared and guilty — to curious Wonderment, suddenly I can breathe. Laugh. ‘Not take it all so, so seriously.
Rose Anne, has a practice of photography and writing that joyfully illustrates this Way of Being!
One of the things she has taught me: If you trundle through the world with a camera in hand, you can bow at the feet of a daisy and no one asks a thing about it! And so she does. Bow at the feet of daisies. Lens in hand, mental pencil jotting tender-clever thoughts. She offers photos and poetry as prayer. She sees love.
We asked her to share some of her written experience of her interior journey. How do her words and photos touch in to your own experience today?
Limbs and Branches
tree limbs and branches
as if in testament
to the derecho storm
that blew its way through here two weeks ago.
and almost as if to say
but even so
it doesn’t have the last word
a bunch of daisies bloom their way
out from under the pile of wreckage
piled high by the sides of the streets
A Silent Shout
it is early morning
the sun not yet up
but I glance out the window
and small pink-stained clouds hang in the sky
a sky that yesterday
was full of black clouds and lightning flashes
and now,
the whole sky has assumed a light pink
showing off the sunrise as it were
shouting out in a silent voice
that our sun is rising
to shine on us for another day
the sun, our source of life on planet earth
rises in a silent shout
Creator Artist
the Webb telescope
captured light that is 13 billion years old
the universe is 13.5 billion years old
scientists can distinguish what is close
and what is far
stars being born
stars dying
and the question pops into my mind
will we discover God out there one day?
and the answer
comes equally fast:
we already have
God is love
God is in love
where you see love, you see God
A little foot note on this last: Rose Anne shared one of the stunning images from the James Webb telescope as companion to her lines here…but we opted to use her personal photo, “Creator Artist” instead, because it’s Her!
Space for it all
What do you notice rumbling around in you as you read Rose Anne’s verse or sit with the things her lens rests on? Is this a point of view that resonates? Perhaps it doesn’t work for you at all. It may be that your own journey is taking you in an entirely different direction. Maybe it’s just too much work to look into the Light just now.
Rose Anne would remind us that it’s all okay — it all has a place — because godself is Love, and we are loved. We might wonder, how are you doing in finding the light these days? Are you able to point your own interior lens toward brightness? Is God-as-you-understand-god present to you? Is Love present to you? Do you see Love?
‘Looking for a compassionate listener? Michelle and Sandra offer one-on-one spiritual direction as well as group session. Curious to learn more? Connect here, or find us on Facebook and Instagram. We are here to listen.