Cold Streak In SoCal

⁶ Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; ⁷ and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Philipians 4: 6&7

I stumbled upon this hilarious clip form Jimmy Kimmel Live regarding the cold spell we have had here in Southern California.  I'm ashamed to admit it, but this is me to a "T"!

I get upset becasue I have to put on a sweater at night, or actually sleep UNDER the covers of my bed, instead of on top as I am accustomed to doing.

What really got to me, after the good natured fun of the clip, is how I am guilty of being a bit too petty in my prayer life with Jesus. Lately I have been praying for little things, selfish things.... things that when I step back and look at myself honestly and objectively, I come accross like the well meaning people in the clip above. Shallow and a bit selfish.

The verse above reminds me to be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, let your requests be known to God.

God wants us to be prayerful and he wants us to go BIG. Come to him with EVERYTHING not matter how big or how small. 

God does indeed like the small stuff, however, if we all we do is concentrate on self-centered requests without faith that the Lord can work mighty and wondrous things, then we too can end up looking like the newscasters above.  Privileged, blessed people who are, living in one of the most pleasant climates on the planet, complaining because we had to put a sweater on our dog. In other words, petty and self-centered.

Lord, keep me humble and more focused on others and help me think outside of the box when coming to you in prayer.

=BM=

A Simple Altar

Almost exactly one month ago today, I had the great honor of taking some group photos of a local choral group here in town "The Quire of Voyces" whom I am a big fan of. If you ever catch wind of them holding a concert, I encourage you to attend. You will LOVE them!

They asked me to take a group photo as they wanted to use something for promotional purposes, so I gave them the photo above, which was taken inside the chapel at St. Anthony's Seminary here in Santa Barbara. The idea was to give them a shot with LOTS of head room, so they can populate the top portion with dates, maps, concert graphics etc to advertise for future events.

The intricate stone carving (actually I believe it's plaster) is at the back of the chapel and is quite ornate and absolutely beautiful.

I edited these photos just after this morning's sermon which was based on Exodus 20:18-26 when Moses had just received the Ten Commandments. Lord tells Moses, (paraphrasing) "Don't make and gods of gold or silver (idols) and then procedes to tell Moses to build an altar, but with very specific instruction on how NOT to build it.

Verses 24 and 25 read: ²⁴ An altar of earth you shall make for Me, and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. In every place where I record My name I will come to you, and I will bless you. ²⁵ And if you make Me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stone; for if you use your tool on it, you have profaned it. 

In verse 25, God says "you may make make a stone altar, however, it must not be hewn, or carved stone." God did not want the altar to be made with any man-made carvings or anything ornate as to distract the worshiper from the spirit of and beauty of God.


As the sermon was fresh in my mind, while editing the photos, I was struck by the ornateness of the background in the images I was editing. Although it is absolutely BEAUTIFUL sculpted artwork, I couldn't help but think of this mornings sermon. As I looked at the image, the ornateness and beauty of the background competes with the choir at the bottom of the image.

Now, when the photo will be used in promotional purposes, there will be graphics and titles, dates, maps and all sort of other items covering the background so it wont be that big of a deal. However, on its own, I could see how such ornateness could be a distraction. Would that not be the case if one were listening to sermon in the chapel, particularly a very BAD sermon? How easy would it be to drift of and study and admire the beauty of the art, instead of focusing on the word of God being taught at that moment?


In looking at the sculpture, at the very top of the image, we clearly see God the Father, followed by Th Holy Spirit descending down from heaven in the form of a dove, followed by the crucified Christ, with a glowing sun and what appears to be a rainbow beneath him.

I am told the giant circle above the choir, is a communion wafer, obviously representing Christ's body.  

To the mediate left, you can see what looks like a priest with two loaves of bread and a chalice of wine, and next to that, it appears to be a group of people partaking in communion.

A closer examination of the full-sized picture can be found HERE.

The rest, I'm not entirely sure about. If you know, then please leave your comments below. I would love to know.


Regardless, at the end of the sermon, we then went on to learn that greatest sacrificial altar ever made, was simply two intersecting wooden beams, in which Christ's blood was shed for the ultimate sacrifice for mankind. 

Truly, the simplest and must humble of altars.

=BM=

Having Once Fallen Away

             

                      16 Wisdom will save you from the immoral woman,

                          from the seductive words of the promiscuous woman.

                      17 She has abandoned her husband

                          and ignores the covenant she made before God.

                      18 Entering her house leads to death;

                          it is the road to the grave.[a]

                      19 The man who visits her is doomed.

                          He will never reach the paths of life.

                      20 Follow the steps of good men instead,

                          and stay on the paths of the righteous.

                      21 For only the godly will live in the land,

                          and those with integrity will remain in it.

                      22 But the wicked will be removed from the land,

                          and the treacherous will be uprooted.

                      Proverbs 2:20-22

                      New Living Translation (NLT)

Ack... What can I say? I have had a rough couple of days. I have been hit with the flu bug that has been going around and stayed home from work Monday and Tuesday, so I have been dealing with being physically down, but I have also been burdened by an extremely heavy heart.  I wont go into details, but pray for the Lord to intervene in a supernatural way for a peaceful and humble resolution.

This afternoon, as I like to do, I went out to the Deveroux Slough for lunch time and went through today's passage in my One Year Bible. Today's lesson ended with the proverb above. 

I thought it had pretty well encapsulated my life over the last 20 or so years, before rededicating my life to Christ almost two years ago.

Here, the writer uses a promiscuous woman as an example, as someone who "ignores the covenant she made before God." as she seduces men taking them away from the Lord.

My friends, that was me just two years ago.  I was seduced by the immoral woman (the sins and lusts of the world) and turned away from Jesus Christ.

Now don't get me wrong. If you had asked me if I considered myself to be a Christian, I would have said "Yes I am".  However, the term "lukewarm" would barely do me justice. I neither lived nor acted in a way that glorified the Lord for a period of 20+ years.

I believe it was pastor Jack Hibbs of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills who once said of believers who identify themselves as having "Fallen Away" is that (paraphrasing) "The great tragedy of the believer who identifies himself as having fallen away from the Lord, is that he once knew what it was like to be in the close proximity of the Lord" - Ouch!!!

The first half of my life, I grew up in the church and loved the Lord, but then around my early to mid 20's "I entered her house" (the ways of the world) and turned away from the covenant I made with God.

Verse 16 says that "Wisdom will save you from the immoral woman" and thank God that I had enough wisdom to see and recognize the path to destruction this world is on, and that the path I was currently on was leading to death. It took 20 years for me to see that, but by the grace of God, the Lord delivered me and he can deliver you too!

Continuing my reading, I then found great joy in verses 20 & 21 "20 Follow the steps of good men instead, and stay on the paths of the righteous. 21 For only the godly will live in the land, and those with integrity will remain in it.

I have been so blessed to reconnect with some past friends who are believers, as well as make some incredible new friendships with other men and women who truly love the Lord. Find good, strong believers and hang out with them! Seek their wisdom, pray with them! Sing songs and enjoy each others company. There is so much garbage and foolishness in the world (Have you tried watching MSNBC? :0) get away from it and turn back to Jesus Christ.

It will be the best move you ever make and will help tremendously when dealing with days of sickness or a heavy heart.

=BM=

The Shot That Almost Didn't Happen

Living very near the beach, just a mere 200 yards away from the waters edge has its privileges. Santa Barbara is known for its sunshine and warm weather but we do get an occasional storm rolling in. This past Sunday I woke up just as the sun was about to rise, looked outside my window and noticed some amazing looking clouds. With sleep still in my eyes trying to clear my mind from having just awoke, I did what most photographers would do in a situation like this...

I checked my Facebook account. 

After a bout 5 minutes, wasted on Facebook, I kicked myself and got off of my lazy butt, got dressed (unshowered!) and made the 200 yard trek to the waters edge and snapped off a bunch of frames. 

The contraption you see above, is called a dredge.It is essentially a large underwater vaccum cleaner that is used to suck sand off of the bottom of the harbor and then depost it further down the beach. This keeps the mouth of the harbor deep enough for the larger ships to pass in an out safely.

This was a standard bracketed 3 exposure shot with a base exposure and the an addition +2 stop and -2 Stop exposure. The three images were processed in Photomatix and then furhter refined in Lightroom 4.

I am still putting the D600 through it's paces and so far, I am loving what I am seeing. The detail of the image above at full resolution is just AMAZING! I was having an awesome time this eving blowing up teh shot on my 30 inch monitor to a 1 to 1 pixel ratio..All of the machinery, hoses, pipes and tools are visable ont he deck of the ship. Truly amazing stuff....

As I was looking at the picture this evening, I was reminded that it almost didn't happen.  Had I been lazy and stayed planeted in front of my computer, the light, the clouds, all of the elements that make up this shot would have been lost forever and I would have nothing to share.or enjoy.

National Geographic Photographer Joe McNally says "The most important piece of equipment in your bag, is your attitude".

Amen to that, Joe.

=BM=

Game On!

OK, I'm a day late on this, but HOORAY for NHL and NHLPA for finally reaching a labor agreement and (partially) saving the 2012/2013 season.

Now, my beloved LA Kings can get on with raising the Stanley Cup Championship banner at Staples and get on with defending their title.

This pleases me to no end!

Yahoo!

-=BM=

A Lovely Day for a Wedding

HDR Image of the Cottage Lobby

ACK! My cousin Dianne just got married! 

Before I start, I have to say that I grew up with one younger brother, Mike and then two cousins who live just a mile away, so they are essentially like another brother and sister to us McGee boys.

Keith is the youngest, then his sister Dianne, followed VERY closely by my brother Mike, then myself.  Keith the youngest got married first, then my brother, and now Dianne. I'm the oldest and the only to have never married. What gives? ;0)

Gratuitous shot of Mom and Dad

Patience... I know the Lord has something special lined up for me, all in good time... In the menatime, I'm just a "work in progress" for my future unknown wife. ;0)

Cousin Keith and Nephews Austin and Tyler

I digress...

The ceremony was a very small, intimate wedding of 18 attendee's at San Ysidro Ranch in Montecito yesterday afternoon at 4:00PM. Although there was a professional photographer on hand to do the majority of the shooting, I took the liberty of being "That guy" aka "Uncle Bob with a fancy camera" (the guy professional wedding photographers generally disdain ;0) and took some pictures where the pro could not or did not fill in. 

Gratuitous shot of delicious Double Chocolate Mousse cake

Dinner was a delicious 1st course of risotto, followed by a 2nd course of mushroom soup (delicious) and then your choice of Halibut or beef.  I chose the halibut and it was to DIE FOR!

This was my first time at the San Ysidro Ranch, and I can see why it is considered to be one of the top resorts in the US.  It is an AMAZING place to stay (So I'm told, as I just had to "settle" for for dinner ;0)

I'll leave you with the happy couple slicing the wedding cake.

=BM=

A preview of heaven?

⁴⁶ Then a dispute arose among them as to which of them would be greatest. ⁴⁷ And Jesus, perceiving the thought of their heart, took a little child and set him by Him, ⁴⁸ and said to them, “Whoever receives this little child in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me receives Him who sent Me. For he who is least among you all will be great.” - Luke 9:46-48

Aw man... I just got back from a teary-eyed viewing of Le Mis, and now THIS.

Although not perfect, this serves as a touching earthly model of Jesus's love towards us when we meet him in heaven. When he reaches out to embrace us, we will be the blubbering, unworthy but greatly jubilant children of God? (Yes, only about 1000 times over. ;0)

Amen!

=BM=