It doesn't seem fair...

...that while hearts are ripped open

and foundations crumble

and families grieve

and hope slips away...



...that I slip away, too

without camera

or phone

or computer.

Without dirty clothes to wash, dinner to cook, cats to feed, or floors to sweep.



For seventy-two hours...

To serve and be served

To listen and love

To pour out and fill up

...and I don't take this slipping-away gift lightly.

For when much is given, much will be required.

Brushes...

Mine is a camera - and I say that with all humility. It's simply a "perspective gift" with which I've been entrusted...and Pollywog Creek is a canvas where that "camera brush" paints - where the abundance of my heart speaks in digital photo words of pixels and light.

And it's a sobering thought.

There's no hiding what turns my head or my concept of beauty - what captures my heart.

My idols.

With what brush(es) do you paint and the abundance of your is heart revealed?



Ann - who paints with a multitude of brushes, asks us to share on Wednesdays how we practice Ressurection. (Might you join?) It's my desire - my hope - that I am doing so as I "cultivate an eye for life's mercies" and brush those mercy images onto this Pollywog Creek canvas.

Photos - blanket flowers in all of their glorious stages - my current fascination (as well as the bees) - flourishing in the small flower bed under the study's east-facing window.

Spreading the fragrance...

In sharp contrast to the stale musk of an overcrowded waiting room and the lab's medicinal odors, the delightful and calming fragrance of the technician's perfume lingered behind as I followed her down the hall to the small cubicle prepared for drawing blood.

Lord, let that be me today.

May the sweet aroma of Christ fill the air around me as I wait in crowded and messy circumstances and linger as I wander down the halls of uncertainty. May the fragrance of the knowledge of You flow in and through me and into the hearts and minds of those whose lives I intersect this day.

Photo: Aromatic rosemary from my herb garden under the oak tree by the pond.

Ten tips for backyard photography devos...

With the most delightfully cool days, steroid induced bursts of energy and considerably less pain and swelling, I've had more Pollywog Creek wandering hours these past four days than all winter and spring. It's been a gift of time and well-being for which I'm most grateful.

Hundreds of photos from these hours are waiting to be edited or deleted - a task I'll consider more seriously when the weather changes and I'm forced to begin tapering off prednisone.

Nature photography enhances my devotional life - to walk and pray and discover beauty in the thickets, fields and around the pond - life rising from dead places, symetry and order in the life cycles of insects and wildflowers and the way all of life is nourished by light and rain and good rich soil.

It's deeply satisfying to sense that this is God's direction for me at this moment in time - and to offer the works of my hands (and camera) up to Him and trust that He will do with them as He pleases - even if every lesson learned from clinging vines and loud-mouthed blue jays is for me alone.

For those of you who'd like to have morning and/or evening photo-devos in your own backyard, I have a few suggestions:

• Always begin with prayer. Ask God to speak to you - to open your eyes to glimpses of His glory and the beauty in the not-so-beautiful around you.
• The best outdoor light is the hour or two just after sunrise and the hour or two just before sunset. 
• The weight of morning dew on insects makes it easier to get close enough for photos. It also adds sparkle to the pictures. 
• Wear clothing colors that blend in with the surroundings. Avoid wearing bright colors.
• Wear quiet shoes. Avoid flip-flops and sandals. I like to wear ballet slippers or old heavy socks without shoes. It's much easier to quietly sneak up on something. 
• Get as close to your subject as you can. Fill the frame, leaving as little "white space" in the photo as possible.
• Practice patience. Be willing to sit, lean against a tree or stand in one place for long periods of time. 
• Work with what you've got. Wildlife will not cooperate. You can't tell a screech owl to get out of the shadows or a blue jay to move out of the leaves. If you move around too much trying to get the best angle, your subject is likely to flee.
• Expect the unexpected. It's okay to have a particular photography subject in mind - but be open to surprises elsewhere. If I'm too focused on duplicating a prior wildlife encounter or experience, I'm likely to miss something new God wants to show me. 
• Make it a habit to keep your camera batteries charged. At the end of every day, my camera batteries are placed in the chargers to be ready by morning. Put fully charged batteries in your camera before you walk out the door.

Do you have a tip or suggestion you could add to that list?

Happy Birthday Mom

“No one is useless in the world who lightens the burden of it for another.” – Charles Dickens

A while back, my mom gave me (Emily) access to her blog and today I am going to take advantage of it.

Today is a day to celebrate one of the most amazing women in the world. I am a bit biased, but I would even say she is the most amazing woman that I know. I know what you’re thinking “it’s her birthday, you have to say that”. Now, I am the baby of the family and could win gold medals for how well I suck up to my parents at times, but this is truly how I feel about my mom. Just ask her, I can’t write about something I’m not genuinely passionate for.

I started thinking about writing this on Mother’s Day. Our pastor preached on what a Godly mom looked like, the kind of example they should set for their children. As a daughter I feel especially blessed to have a mom who for each thing listed I could check off. She has taught me the importance of prayer and worship. She looks forward to every Sunday like it’s a holiday, she loves the church. She enjoys the fellowship. Even if it isn’t perfect, she realizes the Biblical importance of being a part of a congregation of believers. More importantly, she has set an example of non-Sunday worship and intimacy with God. She’s sure to make time to get in the Word every day and really process all that she learns. While she doesn’t write on here as much as I’m sure you all want her to, she values the personal lessons that God teaches her and I look forward to one day reading her recorded thoughts the way she has been able to read those of her own mom.

Of course she also uses her photography to document Creation and marvels at His handiwork. I admit, I’m usually bored (or grossed out) by her finds, but maybe one day I will share her love for even the tiny, disgusting critters of God and the pretty birds. Though I will say, she broke my heart when she had my gator (Brantley) removed from the pond. Apparently gators don’t have the same place in her heart as painted buntings. No one is perfect…

While she has taught me a lot about having a relationship with Christ and enjoying Him thru thick and thin, she has also played a big part in my love for sports. If you met her, you would think, “oh what sweet, quiet woman”. Let me tell you, watch the Florida/Georgia game with this lady and that will forever change your perspective! Her dad was the king Gator fan in our family, but since he died when I was 7, there wasn’t much time for him to pass on extreme fandom to most of his grandkids. My mom took the torch and has done quite well. I’ll bet you didn’t know she even broke her ankle while watching a Florida football game because she got so mad. True story. Her dad was also a Red Sox fan and she was raised to be one as well. Luckily for us though, she married a Yankees fan and, as a good, faithful wife does, she converted to the light. She knows pretty much the entire roster and loves to go watch the guys play in Tampa.

She has also set an example of a servant attitude. I would like to think I got some of her drive to help the least of these, the broken-hearted and those who are looked over. When I read the quote by Charles Dickinson, my mom instantly came to mind. From bringing in her mom to live with us for her last year of life on earth, to taking someone incapable of doing it themselves to get their nails done – she has a heart of gold for people.

She has always been someone I can talk to about anything and everything. She has talked me thru things I didn’t want to do, but that made me stronger on the other side (which of course she knew would happen). She is definitely mine and my brothers’ biggest fans. She brags on us, but also encourages us to be the best at whatever we do and wants to see us reach our fullest potential. While always wanting us close, she willingly lets God lead us even if it takes us further away from her than she would like. It completely blows my mind when I think that she left a job where she excelled and loved to work all because she wanted to be with her kids. That type of attitude is so rare in today’s culture. She didn’t care about promotions or a title. She gave it all up to truly raise 4 kids. She wanted to make sure she was a part of our lives and knew us better than she knew her patients and co-workers. She poured into our lives 24/7.

She’s the family nurse. God knew this family would need someone with medical experience… She’s made late night trips to the hospital for her grandchildren and knows the perfect way to ease the little sick bugs that seem to come frequently in the Hunter house. She simply knows how to make you feel better! She is one of the most patient people I know. She is always gentle with her words. She admits mistakes with grace. She has a surprisingly large amount of energy, but it’s the quiet and relentless kind. She is the best mom ever. Happy Birthday, Momma.

A Pollywog Creek Creature Feature...

And for those of you brave enough to look: I almost stepped on this one while walking around the pond.

Not all that spectacular, really, except the first one (cuz he's so stinkin' cute) and the last one (if you dared to look), but the photos are proof that I've been outside walking.

I have three more days on a ten day prednisone blast (in preparation for a high resolution c-t scan next week); and though it makes me want to eat everything in the house and stay awake all night, I'm delighting in the extra energy and mobility the high dose prednisone has given me -  to wander out into the pasture at dawn to greet the little screech owl (who's moved into one of the fox squirrel breeding boxes) before he retires for the day, and to chase the rabbit around the back yard at dusk.

I've no profound commentary to accompany this brief creature feature (I'll blame it on the prednisone), but I do have a few rambling thoughts to share while I'm here.

Heather Holleman's blog Live With Flair is one of my favorites. She never fails to inspire me with her fresh perspectives and insights, and her journal prompts at the end of each post are thoughtful, as well. Heather teaches writing at Penn State and is the author of the recently published How to Write with Flair. Always searching for ways to improve my writing (especially since I know that Heather reads what I write here on Pollywog Creek), I'm working on lesson one from her book this week: Finding Flavor - learning to "eliminate feeble verbs and spice up the sentence with powerful, image-provoking verbs."

Mary Demuth is a well-known author, speaker and writing mentor. She is an excellent story-teller and her works of fiction are deep and compelling, but it is her heart-rendering memoir Thin Places that has most profoundly affected me. I will soon be interviewing Mary about writing and how she encourages and mentors other writers. It is an interview my writer friends and those who love Mary will not want to miss.

Robbi Cary has been my personal encourager and writing mentor for at least three years. We have been together through multiple "critique group" changes, and I am honored to be collaborating with her on one of her beautiful creative projects that will hopefully be published soon. I encourage you to visit and subscribe to her blog Tough Times and Peace.

I read many excellent blogs nearly every day, which makes me hesitant to mention just a few, but I do want to close by mentioning my friend Barbara Thayer and her new blog A View from Serenity Acres. Barbara and I became friends almost thirty years ago when our boys were babies. Once a week we'd get together in one of our homes for Bible study while we nursed our babies, and our toddlers and preschoolers played all around us. Barbara has been a devotional writer and speaker for many years. I hope you will stop by and tell her hello. She loves to make new friends.

Psalmist with a camera...

Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him. ~ John 14:21 ESV

Writing this post was a bit of a dare. I'll jump if you'll jump, Betsy and I timidly agreed. It can seem so self-serving to ask others to affirm you. And yet - do any of us want to waste time pursuing fruitless endeavors?

The responses you kindly left here and elsewhere have been beautiful grace gifts. I hold each of them close and humbly accept the common threads and high standards they demand. Thank you - each of you - for your passion-clarifying words.

The grace and clarity continued to unfold on Sunday, with a gift that I'm processing still - a small and yet peculiar manifestion as though it came to me directly from the hand of God Himself...and I risk being misunderstood as I consider these words from Spurgeon ...

The Lord Jesus gives special revelations of himself to his people. Even if Scripture did not declare this, there are many of the children of God who could testify the truth of it from their own experience. They have had manifestations of their Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in a peculiar manner, such as no mere reading or hearing could afford.  

Except for the dust cover, the gift - a book - seemed brand new. "It was an inexpensive Tallahassee thrift store find, but it had "Pat" written all over it," Kevin - who knew nothing of that self-serving post of mine - explained. He placed the large, thin hardcover book in my hands just as the morning worship service began, and I ran my fingers along the title: Psalmist With A Camera.*

In awe I opened the cover...

Photography, like all art, expands our vision. As the psalmist sang praise with words, Gail Rubin used her camera to capture her vision of the beauty and inner harmony she saw in the flora and fauna of Israel. When she set forth on what she would later describe as a "biblical safari" to photograph all the birds and animals mentioned in the Bible and still present in the Holy Land, she began to acquaint herself with the source for her project, the Hebrew Scriptures.

Thumbing through the glossy pages to the back cover, tears threatened to spill over as I continued to read...

Gail Rubin's photographs "...are epiphanies of nature, assisted by the hand of a sensitive photographer with an artist's vision."

How manifold are thy works, O Lord!...the earth is full of thy creatures. ~ Psalm 104:24

Could that be me, Lord? A sensitive photographer with an artist's vision? 

I read more about the sensitive Gail Rubin as we drove home from church. She was a young Jewish woman from New York - an editor who blossomed into a photojournalist. In June of 1969, she traveled to Israel on vacation, fell in love with the country and decided to extend her stay. Still in Israel after the 1973 war, she concluded that the pace of photojournalism did not suit her shy, contemplative personality, so she began to concentrate on nature photography and to work on projects with the Israel Nature Reserves Authority. On March 11, 1978, while photographing rare shore birds near the beach at Ma'agan Michael north of Tel-Aviv, she was murdered by Palestinian terrorists at the age of 39. I grieve that she died without knowing Jesus and the whole of Scripture beyond the Hebrew prophets and psalms, and yet I think if I had known her, she'd be the closest of friends.

All afternoon I continued my search to know more about Gail - her all-too-short life, her photography, and the circumstances of her tragic death. Buried in Union Field Cemetery in Queens, New York, it's on her gravestone that the words Psalmist with a camera are inscribed.

In the introduction to Gail's posthumously published book, Rabbi Michael Graetz wrote...

Her work...has the magical quality of inspiring the viewer, so that he will walk in the fields and see the world as he had never seen it before. One who has seen her photographs can never again read the prophets or the psalms without visualizing the harmony and beauty they reveal. In that sense she joins in the long history and tradition of biblical exegetes whose insights illumine the Scriptures. With the psalmist she says, "I will sing praise to my God while I have any being."

As I remain in awe of how this thrift store find came to be my treasured gift, I think of Ann Voskamp and her response to discovering Eucharistique in the monastic bookstore in Paris...

Back by old wooden stairs climbing up stone wall, standing in a pool of afternoon sun, I pick up a CD of hymns. I read and I shake my head in wonder. Can that really be the title?** p.220

...and I, too, shake my head in wonder - at the timing and that God would so lovingly speak affirmation to me - a peculiar manifestation - through a thirty-year-old book in a second-hand store hundreds of miles from home.  

*Rubin, Gail (1979) Psalmist With a Camera, Photographs of a Biblical Safari New York, Abbeville Press, Inc.

**Voskamp, Ann (2010) One Thousand Gifts Grand Rapids, Zondervan

Pirates and RiverDogs...

As a mimi to two four-year-old rookies, I can't imagine a sport more entertaining than t-ball. It's a season that sadly (for me) comes to an end today with Mason's last game.

Gavin played in his last game over a week ago. I asked him earlier this week if he was glad t-ball was over or if he missed it like I do.

"I'm glad it's over."

"Why are you glad?"

"Because it just takes too long."

From the perspective of a four-year-old, I suppose he's right. Most rookies spend the season in the outfield, where there's little more to do than dig in the dirt or search for snails and grasshoppers in the grass.

At one of Mason's games, after most of the players had consumed their sports drinks before the game started, half the outfield HAD to go to the potty at the same time in the middle of an inning.

I suspect that coaches (and some parents) find t-ball antics less amusing than the rest of us. I pity them. It's been hilarious - the joyful heart medicine this mimi with a camera needed.