Twenty Seventeen

52/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2017."

50/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2017."

47/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2017."

46/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2017."

I think this is the closest we're going to get to Christmas pictures with the boys together in the same shot.  It's really too bad because their Grandmama bought them matching shirts and the looked adorable!

45/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2017."

2nd Autumn

The maples blazed in September and mellowed by October's end.  Now the oaks and beeches herald a second autumn, before the winter takes its turn.

44/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2017."

Afon: on Halloween we went to Bodafon farm for a family day.  He liked the tractor ride and feeding grass to the donkey.

Roan: we found a place where the trees were flush with color.  The day before that, the little boys dressed in button-downs for All Souls' Day.

43/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2017."

42/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2017."

This week I don't have a picture of Roan, for a change!

Autumn

Autumn

The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,
as if orchards were dying high in space.
Each leaf falls as if it were motioning "no."

And tonight the heavy earth is falling
away from all other stars in the loneliness.

We're all falling. This hand here is falling.
And look at the other one. It's in them all.

And yet there is Someone, whose hands
infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.

By Rainer Maria Rilke

{Photos on Fujifilm 200 and 400, taken on a Pentax K1000.}

41/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2017."

Domesticity

{Pictured: silver dollar pancakes from St. Matthew's Day.}

I don't remember where I read it, or even if I did read it. It is a thought that is knitted into my knowledge, its roots planted there without recognition.  The more we draw closer to God, the harder it is to go back to "real life."  It's a paradox and a conundrum.  I want to live in the presence of Him, and miss Him terribly when I fall away or fall short.  When I do grow close to Him, turning back to the domesticity of everyday life is a bit anti-climactic.  It is like turning back to the country table after having feasted in the castle.  The problem (which is not really a problem, except if I make it one) is that I'm an all-too cerebral soul.  I'm full of lofty ideals and good intentions.  I romanticize the ordinary, but sometimes the ordinary falls short of my romanticizing.  And that's okay.  It doesn't make it any less sacred.  This is what it means to live in a God-breathed world.

These days, I am trying to be cheerful when I turn away from my mystical inclinations toward the drudgery of dirty laundry, and wiping noses, and cleaning children who soil themselves for the second (or third) time in one day.  And I tell myself -- it is not a prayer or a hope or even a mantra -- that I serve Jesus profoundly in these tasks.  That it is, in fact, an honor greatly bestowed upon me, carefully chosen, and undeserving, to clean a disabled child who cannot use the toilet.  I know this to be truth.  And then I think about the people, about the society, who don't know this is true, and I feel grateful.

 

40/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2017."

Taken on Kodak 400 film with Pentax k1000 camera.

39/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2017."

Film Summer