A Boy After His Daddy’s Heart

Liam made this picture today.  To many it will look like a snapshot.

It’s not.

This picture was made, not taken.  And for that reason, it’s not a snapshot; it’s a photograph.

Photographers distinguish between taking and making a picture.  If you see a scene, raise the camera to your eye (or, as is now the case with most small digital cameras, hold it at arm’s length in front of you) and fire away, you are taking a picture.  If, on the other hand, you see a scene or subject, visualize how you want the final image to look, consider the background, think about your composition, analyze and–if necessary–modify the light, and thus create the means to achieve your vision–then you are making a photograph.

Liam is always cooking up and working out some idea in his head.  He is great at visualizing and works hard to execute and achieve his vision.  For this reason, he loves building toys: Legos, Snap Circuits, K’Nex.  He also loves tape and paper and scissors because, to him, these are tools for creating things.  One of his favorite Christmas gifts was a bag of various kinds of tape–duct, masking, transparent–from his grandma.  Liam isn’t just building things; rather, he is creating with intent.

He’s often seen or helped me set up an environment for making portraits: set up a background, put up lights, measure, shoot, check, repeat.  This evening he was building with his K’Nex blocks and evidently decided he wanted to make a picture of the tractor he built.  As we were preparing for dinner, he was building a background for his photo session.  He used two sheets of paper, a ruler, the lid from a container, and, of course, tape.  All of this was unprompted: he didn’t ask me for advice or help; he just set himself to it.

After dinner I walked into the den and found him hard at work on the next phase of his project, making the pictures.  Here are some “behind the scenes” images:

While reviewing his pictures on the camera’s monitor, Liam noticed that the white background didn’t fill the frame completely on some of the images–he hadn’t achieved his vision.  We talked about how to correct this (move back physically from the subject and zoom in).  Some were blurry (hold the camera steady after you focus).  He wondered if maybe he should be using a tripod; I suggested that setting the camera on the floor would work for this session.  He asked if there was a way to use the computer to take out parts of the image you don’t want, like the carpet instead of the white paper.  Sometimes, I said, but it’s better to get it right “in camera” whenever you can.  He wasn’t pleased with the way the shadows appeared in his photos; I told him we’d work on off-camera lighting another time. 🙂

As a photographer, I love the way he came up with this idea and then pulled it all together.  Liam had a vision and worked with the tools he had at hand to execute that vision–brilliant.  Not too shabby for a seven-year-old.

As his daddy, I just love him.

How to Help Haiti

As Suzanne noted yesterday, we’ve both been to Haiti before and have seen for ourselves the poverty before this week’s devastating earthquake.  As we’re all seeing now, the people of Haiti are now faced with unimaginable conditions and many people, thankfully, are eager to help.  Since so many organizations–both good and bad–will make use of our contributions, how can you help?  Here are three responsible and credible organizations we’d feel confident giving our money.

Red Cross – The American Red Cross is well-established in the disaster relief community.  If you own a cell phone (and who doesn’t?), you can easily donate $10 by texting haiti to 90999.  As of 6:00 AM today, the Red Cross reported via twitter that nearly $3M had been raised through the texting campaign.

World VisionWorld Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization in locations around the globe, including Haiti.  Suzanne and I have supported the work of World Vision for over 13 years and have complete confidence in its leadership and mission. They’ve provided a quick link on their home page for donations to help the people in Haiti.

IDES – Founded in 1973, International Disaster Emergency Services is another well-respected Christian organization that brings desperately-needed food, water, and services to hurting people around the world.  Our local church has partnered with IDES for two decades and we highly recommend them.

Please support and continue to pray for the wounded and dying in Haiti.  This impoverished country faced many challenges before the disaster; it is difficult to imagine how they will recover.

First Snow, First Snowman

The kids pose with their first snowman of the season today. Buttons and eyes came from Dum-Dum suckers, the mouth from a Twizzler strip, and the nose from a carrot. He also sports a Notre Dame hat and scarf (hopefully new Irish football coach Brian Kelly can turn things around). We’ll see how long Frosty stands–temperatures are expected to be above freezing the next few days with a strong chance of rain…

Does your Christmas nativity scene have a dragon?

I saw a large red dragon… He stood before the woman as she was about to give birth to her child, ready to devour the baby as soon as it was born. She gave birth to a boy who was to rule all nations with an iron rod. And the child was snatched away from the dragon and was caught up to God and to his throne.

Most of us know the Christmas story from the Biblical accounts in Matthew and Luke. Those of us who grew up watching the classic TV special “A Charlie Brown Christmas” likely remember Linus’ recitation of Luke 2.8-14:

And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

Did you know that there’s another version of the Christmas story in the Bible, one without shepherds and sheep, one that portrays what was most certainly not a silent night?

Our friend and mentor, Dr. Bob Lowery, points to the story in Revelation 12.1-5.

Yes, Revelation.

Dr. Lowery suggests that this version written by the apostle John is “a PG-13, if not R-rated, rendering of the story.” John’s story doesn’t have lowing cattle and a straw-filled manger but instead has a fierce and terrible dragon, hungry for the flesh of a newborn baby.

Read Dr. Lowery’s meditation and see if your nativity scene needs a dragon, too.

The photo above shows one of our nativity scenes with the dragon poised to snatch up the baby. (IMPORTANT: if you read to the end of the story, the baby wins.)

Quote of the Day (QOTD)

Me: What are you going to do with that wire, bud?

Liam: I’m using it for my evil genius.

Me: Your evil genius?

Liam: No–I mean my mad scientist.

Somehow I’d guess those are still closely related.

Thanks to the Lincoln Christian Church folks

A couple of things to get this site started with a real post.

First:

As I mentioned late yesterday (when I created the site), Suzanne and I spoke about our adoption journey at Lincoln Christian Church this morning. Suzanne met with Ron Otto, our preaching minister, several weeks ago to ask if we could have a few minutes to tell the church about our adoption decision and to enlist their support.  Ron was enthused about the idea, especially since it coincided with the church’s annual Harvest of Talents weekend.  Harvest of Talents was begun in 1983 by Pat Snyder, a faithful woman in our congregation who wanted to see if we could do something to help hungry and hurting people around the world. On the fourth Saturday of October, people from within and without the congregation fashion crafts, offer their services, and make food available for sale.  Since the beginning, every penny raised is given to IDES to help those in need.  This year’s Harvest raised over $82,000, bringing the 26-year total over $1.4 million. Pretty good.

So Suzanne and I were given some time to talk in this morning’s service about how we believe God has been leading us in this decision and how we foresee the church being involved with adoption ministry.  We were moved by numerous conversations after the services, well-wishes and offers of support from this community. We’re truly looking forward to seeing how God uses this church in Lincoln, Illinois, to continue to help those in need around the world.  Thank you, friends.

Second:

I mentioned in part of my comments this morning that I believed God used a couple of experiences last fall to help turn my heart toward adoption.  The first of those was a series of photographs I’d seen on The Big Picture, a photoblog published by Boston.com. A post entitled “Congo’s crisis worsens” captured my attention in a way that surprised me.  Background: I was in high school during the 80’s, at the height of the famine in Ethiopia. Since then I have seen thousands of pictures of the people of Africa whose lives have been altered by war, poverty, and famine. At some point, a lot of this simply became noise which I’d learned to ignore over time. When I saw the photos that day on The Big Picture, however, I was moved and couldn’t really explain why. These photographs weren’t all that different from others I’d seen but something was different inside me.

The other experience was a chance(?) viewing of a two-minute video called “The Girl Effect.”  Go ahead and watch it.

This too had a powerful effect on me that I wasn’t prepared for. Although neither of these were related to adoption, they are related to Africa and caring for some of the world’s neediest people. In conjunction with the prayer and reflection I’d been doing last fall, these seemingly random bits of media shook me. I’m convinced that God used them to help me better see his vision for our family.