Yesterday, running my errands, checking off the boxes one by one, I was stopped cold. The doors to the art gallery I manage were unlocked and, try as I might, I could not lock them. The gallery was accessible to the world! What to do? My day was suddenly derailed. I was stuck. I couldn’t […]
Incarnate Ideas
Deep thinkers like you and me are fond of our ancient Greek philosophers, our Socrates, our Plato, but if we are also Christian, we believe that the Ideal is not separate from this world. We start with Jesus, God incarnate, the Word made flesh on Christmas Day, celebrated at every Eucharist with bread and wine, […]
Now No Way None
There is something right with the world. Again and again I pause in wonder. Whatever my task, it is momentarily delayed as I stop to marvel at what is and my unexpected place in it. Here, now, there is no way, none, that I could have planned for or predicted this home which welcomes me […]
Honored Things
PHOTO PRAYER 2024-06. They are mute; seemingly inert; senseless. Even so, I should care for things a lot more than I do. They deserve to be respected and honored even when their usefulness has ended. I am not as thoughtless as once I was. Now I hold a pencil stub or a pair of worn-out […]
Apartment Lights featured in Your Daily Photograph
This is not a prayer, but perhaps an answer to one. On June 21, 2024, Duncan Miller Gallery in Malibu selected my photograph “Apartment Lights” for their eBlast. The gallery had asked for images of New York at Night, so I went back through all the 51,615 photos I have not deleted since we moved […]
Passionate but Reasonable
PHOTO PRAYER 2024-05 — God help me, I am not passionate about politics or social justice, but I do admire people who are — just as long as they are not dogmatic. Give me Gandhi. Give me the mature Malcolm X. Give me speakers who are passionate but reasonable, people eager to convince me, not […]
Finding Redemption
PHOTO PRAYER 2024-04 — Once you start wondering why things go wrong, sooner or later you will ask why an omnipotent God allows terrible things to happen. An answer I dislike is that God works in mysterious ways, that while individual or even historical tragedies seem bad, they are part of a greater good we […]
I Needed A Break
PHOTO PRAYER 2024-03 — I was working too much and needed a break. Workaholics like me don’t take breaks, so God, seeing my need, gave me two. Today, eight days after my fall, Dr. Sowa and his talented crew set the two broken metatarsals of my left hand back in place. I am now taking […]
The Same From Age To Age
PHOTO PRAYER 2024-02 — If everyone leaves but new people arrive to replace them, how is it that an organization stays the same? This year, at my church, about ten percent of those who pledged last year did not pledge this year. The total number stayed the same — thank God! — but at this […]
The Task
PHOTO PRAYER 2024-01 — The grains of sand on Waikiki Beach, the stars in Andromeda Galaxy — those numbers are humbled by the number of tasks waiting on my TO DO list. Do I despair? No. Am I dismayed? Occasionally! Yet joy keeps welling up — not because I work more, harder, and smarter; and […]