Not So Picture Perfect

Remember my word for the year?

Faith.

Yes, I have it.  No, I don’t know how to photograph it.

Last month’s prompt from Ali Edwards’ workshop focused on capturing your word through the lens of your camera.  I loved the examples that she shared about her word (which is “light”) and both the literal and figurative representations.  Christmas lights, a shadow on the wall, sun streaming through a window, her running shoes (she is working on being lighter and running more lightly).  Interesting, creative, authentic.

As I have thought and watched and hunted for a way to capture my word over the last six weeks, I have found myself wanting something different.  Something better.  Something more true to what I feel faith is.  I could take a photo of prayer or the church or the scriptures.  All of those things certainly represent faith for me.  But for some reason I have hesitated.  They seem so ordinary or overdone or….something.

Luckily, spring has started to show itself out the window of my home office.  I love crocuses.  They are the first color after the gray skies of winter.  Their thin green leaves poke their way through the semi-frozen soil (and often a layer of snow) with determination.  They are tiny.  The first autumn after we moved in, I planted three patches of crocuses in my front yard – one patch for me to see as I drive to and fro and two patches for me to look at every time I pass the window.  I gasp with delight as the first green centimeters come up and again when the flowers start to bloom.  I find myself pausing to open the shutters just right so I can see them more clearly.

This year, Cole is old enough to get a day-by-day exploration of the growth and it does my heart good when he points to all the new shoots saying, “Green!”  I think faith is the color green.  We plant something not knowing if our efforts will be rewarded but believing that something beautiful and healthy will find its way above ground.  Sounds a little like life, doesn’t it?  Having faith that our hard work to overcome challenges, to be kind to others, to live positively and all the other good stuff will help us rise to the surface?

So, here is my first photo representing faith.  I’m working on more – Cole will certainly be included in the bunch and definitely something that represents my religion.  But I’m not sure how they will be captured quite yet.  I might even include a photo or two from the past that I feel are a true reflection of my personal faith.  Maybe some from those times in my life that I have exercised faith, trusted completely in something bigger than me and realized faith’s empowering qualities.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that this has become so difficult for me.  Isn’t this precisely what faith is?  Something intangible yet real.  Invisible yet so clear when we see its reward.  Something fleeting yet powerful.  Faith is a belief in something.  A feeling.  A conviction of hope.  Of course it would be difficult to translate that into something as two-dimensional as a sheet of photo paper.

Here’s to capturing faith.  Not only in my heart and mind but on my camera, too.

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Certainty

So, my word for the year is “faith.”

As I was thinking about it the other day I was trying to reconcile the idea of being right when it comes to having faith.  Faith is believing something will happen or believing things will be ok even if you aren’t sure of the outcome.  Faith is peace.  Peace of mind.  Peace in our hearts that the future is not as scary as it might seem.  Peace that we can overcome even if it turns out as scary as it seems.  Peace = Faith.

Does this mean that what we anticipate for the future must be right in order to have faith?  This is what I was trying to work through in my mind because even when I have faith in something, it often doesn’t turn out the way I thought it would.  Did that mean I wasn’t right in what I had faith about?

It occurred to me that being right is different than being certain.  Hmmm….being certain.  I like that.  Two words that appear to mean the same thing as being right but upon further contemplation, are not the same at all.  Being right is so black and white.  You either are or you’re not.  There is not much room for gray and as we all know, life is made up of all the shades of gray.

Being certain, however, invokes something different.  It is the essence of faith – feeling conviction about something even though we are unsure if that something will actually become reality.  Being certain lives in the gray area.  It gives room for change and leaves space for adaptability – the things that life is all about.

I have faith.  Does that mean I am always right when I think about what is to come?  Hardly.  But I can always be certain.  Certain that we can manage it.  Certain that our strength is greater than our circumstances.  Certain that we can be happy in spite of it all.

That is faith.  Of this I am certain.

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One Little Word

Ah, the power of just one little word.

For those of you who have taken Ali Edwards‘ challenge to choose a word each year that you want to focus on, learn more about and develop more completely in your life, you know that this exercise can be quite empowering in our individual quests of becoming more than who we currently are.

Two years ago my word was “savor.”  I wanted to live in the moment more and savor every second of being a new mother.  It helped me to be more present and live with greater intention.  Last year I chose “hope.” Oh, how I love that word.  To me, it is so much more than just a wish thrown out into the universe with the desire that something will return back.  It is a word filled with gratitude.  It is a word calling for action.  It is a word reflecting optimism in it’s most undiluted form.  Hope is a state of being for me and comes with it a determination to move forward with a positive mindset and open heart, ready to create whatever it is I am hoping for.

This year I am choosing a word that is a neighbor of my friend Hope.  They walk hand-in-hand and often cannot be found one without the other.  Why am I choosing a word that is so similar to what I chose last year?  Well, because it keeps coming back to me.  Presenting itself in and out of the center of my vision, asking me to pay attention to it.  So, pay attention, I will – gladly welcoming the opportunity to dig deeper into my understanding of this word.  To broaden the strokes of my experiences and knowledge with it so that it is even more ingrained into who I am.

I choose Faith.

See what I mean?  They are so similar, don’t you think?  Why then, is this the word for 2011?  I have asked myself that question many times already, as I have ignored the cues steering me toward it, looking instead for something different or more unique.  But no, in the brainstorming of a variety of words, each shuffling against one another for the top spot, Faith has won.  Has jockeyed itself to the top of the list and the forefront of my mind.

I think one reason why Faith is on my mind right now is because, as you know, I am at the end of overcoming an intense challenge in my life.  My body is different.  I have a huge scar on my stomach and my organs have been shifted, added to and removed.  I have lost half of my hair and too much weight.  I carry a slowly shrinking, but still swollen belly that keeps me from wearing normal clothes without major overhaul done first.  I have bruises on my thighs from daily insulin shots.  I walk more carefully, sleep more often and eat more cautiously than I did a year ago.  And that is just my physical condition.

I could list similar changes to my emotional, mental and spiritual health as well.  Everything is different than it was 8 1/2 months ago.  I understand this is normal but I also find myself feeling a little unsteady about where I go from here.  What is reality for me?  I am still healing so I know it will keep changing but certain things are starting to come into focus as being my new normal.  What are those things and how do I sort them out and fit them together to create the person I am supposed to become because of this experience?

Where I do go from here?

Finding those answers is going to take some faith.  Faith in God, faith in healing, faith in my family, faith in myself.  I already know a lot about faith.  I use it and believe in it and understand it from experiences I have already had throughout my life.  To me, faith is hope solidified and is centered in gratitude.  I want to explore these ideas and learn even more about what faith means to me personally.  I want to dig deeper.

But mostly, as I step with what seems like a lot of caution and hopefully some determination along my path of life, I want to remember to simply have faith.  I want to remember to use it, remember that it works, remember that it is a power that can help me understand and create the person I am supposed to be.  I want faith to help me not lose sight of hope.

Things will get better.  I will continue to heal.  I will continue to become something more than I was before I got sick.  We will emerge even stronger as  family.  It will get better.

Just have Faith, Kolette.

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