~An Unedited Weekend~

Sunday, July 05, 2009

An Unedited Weekend       We spent the holiday weekend with my parents at their little "getaway" spot. The weather was amazing....even a little bit cool.....which is very strange for this part of the country. It was nice having Brad with us for the weekend. For a brief moment, due to car trouble, we thought he wouldn't make it. BUT...where there's a will, there's a way!    Somewhere in the weekend, after a few conversations about some people's fear of commitment, disillusionment in how children "turn out", or the ever climbing divorce rate, I started thinking about ....expectations. I thought about various things I've read about our beloved World War II generation. Guys that had spent years away from home, fighting a war on behalf of their nation and the people they loved, just wanted to survive. Many of them didn't expect to live, but if they should make it, they wanted nothing more than to get back home, marry their sweethearts, get a job, and live.  Drive a cab, work in their parents store, go to school.     ~Breathing was a blessing~   Somewhere along the way, we began to hope for, and even expect perfection from ourselves and those around us. I started thinking about photography and how it's no longer enough to simply document the faces and places of a moment in time.   It must be edited, beautified, cropped, softened, and perfected.  It's got to look better than it actually is!  (I'm NOT knocking editing!! I love it and will be doing it tomorrow. Photography is an art form and I believe God created and loves beautiful things....I think it honors Him when we use our tools and talents for creative expression.) .......just go with me on this for a moment and hear my heart.   I thought about my grandmother's few cherished photographs. You do well to find one where everyone is smiling.  I thought about my parents wedding album and how much I love it. It was 1970. There were no frills, no "beautification" that happened in the photo development! But it's a treasure to me because of the people and time it represents. Even our homes have become showplaces. Heaven forbid there be a basket of unfolded clothes on the sofa when someone drops by. Or....how dare the laundry room actually LOOK like a laundry room. The purpose of a house used to be to meet the need of shelter.  Our homes should be places of warmth, acceptance, and hospitality. A safe haven.  (And if you can squeeze in some beauty here and there , then marvelous! Just don't make it the main ingredient.) My challenge is this. Enjoy life for what it is.   LIFE.   Accept the beautiful and the not so beautiful. The smooth rides and the bumps. Every  person, no matter how horribly imperfect they might seem has immense worth for reasons we can't see with our physical eyes. Okay. That was a really long way to explain why this is a post filled with unedited photos from this weekend!  Some of them are a little out of focus and have crying children in them, but I LOVE them because of how much fun we were having when they were taken. Sometimes raw best captures reality.     I love my Daddy's hands. Always have. Before......      And After..... That was NOT fun as far as she was concerned! Dodge Ball is one their favorites.    Here's to FREEDOM in every way, shape, and form!