It has been a really long day today, but another thanksgiving-filled day! I wonder if everyone has the wonderful kind of days I have. As always, the most marvelously amazing things happened to me, but I'm just going to give you one highlight from today. Angie Barmer is a reporter for the New Albany Gazette and covers Blue Springs. Before most people knew Blue Springs existed, Angie was attending board meetings and writing articles. Over the years, we've learned to trust her. She's not after the sensational. She just wants to inform and educate the public with the facts.
Angie is a gifted, and award-winning, writer, but she has more than writing on her mind these days. Angie is also an extraordinary photographer. She has longed to have her own photography business. Incredible photographs require an artist's eye and a poet's heart, as well as an impeccable sense of timing, all of which she has.
What she has also had was a bad case of "busy". For the last six years, her desire to be a photographer has been stifled by her busy lifestyle. She would drive past a field of flowers or cotton in the boll, see breathtaking photos in her mind's eye, but never stop to pull out her camera. She was so pressed by the next thing on her schedule that she completely missed "the moment". Some moments, once missed can never be regained. Flowers die. Cotton is picked. Photography opportunities vanish.
A few weeks ago, Angie began to make some changes. She says, " I decided to give up the hamster wheel I was running on in my brain and begin to appreciate the beauty around me. I decided to live in the moment." She has not only opened her eyes to the beauty around her, she has also opened her camera case and her car door. She has stopped on the side of the road to capture an eye-catching image. She has hiked through woods and walked in fields, not only enjoying nature along the way, but also recording it on film. The results are astonishing.
Angie very tentatively brought her framed photographs into the town hall after the board meeting tonight. What a treat! We were stunned by how lovely her work is. I bought the photograph of a butterfly resting on a daisy as soon as I saw it. The colors were amazing and it was the happiest and most peaceful photograph I've ever seen. It turned out that today was the first day of her new business (Angela Barmer Photography - she has a Facebook page ) and I was her first customer! How cool is that?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, "In the whole of world history there is always only one really significant hour - the present." He and Angie have it right. The only moment we can affect is now. It's where we are. It should also be where we live.
My challenge for you tonight is to make an effort this week to slow down, live in the moment, and enjoy now.
Happy thanksgiving.
No comments:
Post a Comment