How Can You Not See God?

 

I don't have to travel 2,150 miles to find beauty. It is literally in my own backyard.

After a month's worth of blog posts from our trip that took us to Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky and Indiana, it may seem that I can't find anything noteworthy in my own backyard. Nothing could be further from the truth. For the past 13-plus years, I've been taking photos and writing at Kim's County Line. 

The majority of those thousands of photos and millions of words have celebrated my little corner of the world on the Stafford/Reno County line in south central Kansas. This Friday, my photography will be featured at the Nora's Gathering at the Nora Larabee Memorial Library in Stafford.

The library will be open from 6 to 8 PM for viewing the photos, listening to piano music by Anita Meschberger and eating goodies from the Wheatland Cafe. Kids can make a Father's Day card. If you're local, ride your bike to the library for a chance to enter a prize drawing. (I will not be riding a bike 15 miles to town.)

The photo display will stay in place at the library all day on Monday, June 12, when Stafford hosts Bike Across Kansas. That day, come and enjoy the air-conditioning, view the photos and eat homemade pies and Johnny-Pop ice cream.

None of the photos I'm featuring in this particular blog post are in the library show. But a whole lot more are. (I had more than enough without adding these!) But they represent the philosophy I've taken as I've photographed our life here in south Central Kansas. Here's my artist statement for the show:

Seasons - Photos by Kim Fritzemeier

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.

Ecclesiastes 3:1

 

Those who don't live in Kansas may think we live in a so-called "flyover state." Kansas is just that place to travel through to get to the mountains, right? 

But it's my contention that beauty is all around us - whether it's as big as a Kansas sky at sunrise or as small as a butterfly sipping nectar from a flower.

While I've always been interested in photography, I've been more committed to capturing the beauty around me since beginning a blog called Kim's County Line in 2010. My tagline for the blog is "Camera Clicks and Commentary from a Kansas Farm Wife." It gives me the opportunity to share some of the photos I take while living and farming along with my husband, Randy, on the Stafford/Reno County Line. 

 

Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.

Dorothea Lange

As I worked on matting photos and preparing for the show, I've sometimes listened to Sirius radio's The Message.

One of the songs that has captured my attention lately is "How Can You Not See?" sung by Leanna Crawford.

After I heard it a few times, I looked up all the lyrics. It says, in part:

I see the sun rise in the morning
And a million stars at night
I hear the birds: They can't stop singing hallelujah
I see His goodness when I fall down
And His grace that picks me up
Every day, I can't stop singing hallelujah.

How can you not see God
In every little thing, in every little moment?
How can you not feel loved?
How can you not? How can you not?
'Cause He's in the middle of
Every little thing and every little moment
How can you not see God?
How can you not? How can you not?

I see the sunset and I wonder
If He paints it just for me
Nobody else could make a world so beautiful
How could I question His love when it's everywhere I go
Wherever I look, I find another miracle ...

There are miracles all around us. They may not come with tongues of fire or a holy wind like we just heard about at Pentecost. Instead, they arrive in the miracle of everyday things like irises and bird nests. It's just a matter of opening our eyes to see.

Give the song a listen, if you'd like. 

I'd love to have you come and view my photos at the Nora Larabee Memorial Library. The stained glass window featuring the library's namesake is at its most beautiful in the evening as the setting sun enhances the colors.

The library board and committees, along with library staff Gerry Ann Hildebrand, Denise Dickson and Sandy Gere, are working hard to make the library one of THE places to be in Stafford! Check it out. (Pun intended!) Click HERE for a link to a blog post with lots more photos and information about our amazing library!

Hills and Valleys

A song has played in an intermittent loop on my mental soundtrack for the past couple of weeks. It momentarily gets bumped to the background by a hymn we sing at church or a song on the actual radio dial.

But, if there's no music playing, it's a song that keeps resurfacing on my internal radio feed. It started on a trip to South Dakota.  Randy had gotten a phone call that his brother, Lyle, was in the hospital in Rapid City, so we hurriedly finished some obligations, then got in the car a couple of days later for the 12-hour trip.

We traveled across our Kansas plains, skirted the Nebraska sand hills and arrived on the plains of South Dakota. But as we got closer to Rapid City, the plains gave way to the Black Hills. It was dark by the time we arrived that first day, but I could still see the faint outline of hills as we drove west. And I first began thinking of Tauren Well's song, "Hills and Valleys," a song that I've heard quite a bit on K-LOVE, a contemporary Christian radio station.

Hills and Valleys

(Find all the lyrics at this link)

Find the story behind the song at this link

Sung by Tauren Wells

On the mountains I will bow my life to the One who set me there
In the valley I will lift my eyes to the One who sees me there
When I'm standing on the mountain I didn't get there on my own
When I'm walking through the valley I know I am not alone
You're God of the hills and valleys, hills and valleys
God of the hills and valleys
And I am not alone

The next few days, we spent most of our time in the hospital ICU, but we also went to Deadwood to retrieve a few things from Lyle's apartment.

  

Painted Lady butterflies danced and swirled in the flower gardens in front of his apartment building, reminding me of their "cousins" I'd left behind in Kansas.

There's beauty everywhere, even when your mind is swirling with other concerns. On the way back from Deadwood, we made a wrong turn and ended up in Wyoming.

But our "wrong" way transported us to the "right" place all along. We saw glimpses of a small stream as we drove. Finally, there was an extra-wide shoulder and we pulled off to explore.

Before I ever reached the clearing, there were more butterflies.

 

And then we stepped into the stillness of the pine trees. It was quiet. Just the rush of water flowing over a small waterfall hidden in the trees marred the silence. The water was enough to mask any sounds from the highway, though it wasn't busy anyway.

The tall pines and their shorter neighbors provided a maze of light and shadows.

Light and shadow ... our little oasis of beauty and pleasure in a sea of illness and shadow and uncertainty. And I remembered more of those lyrics ...

I've walked among the shadows
You wiped my tears away
And I've felt the pain of heartbreak
And I've seen the brighter days

And I've prayed prayers to Heaven
From my lowest place
And I have held Your blessings
God, You give and take away

No matter what I have, Your grace is enough
No matter where I am, I'm standing in Your love

Later, after Lyle was transferred by ambulance to a hospital in Montana, we drove to Mount Rushmore.

It was overcast, and the rain clouds blew in, causing pine needles to pummel us as they fell from the trees surrounding the monument.

And, again, the words from "Hills and Valleys" came to mind:

Father, You give and take away
Every joy and every pain
Through it all, You will remain
Over it all ...

And I will choose to say
Blessed be Your name
And I am not alone

Yesterday, we started planting wheat. My trip to Zenith to get a load of fertilizer was on the flat landscape of our Central Kansas home. There were no literal hills and valleys to traverse. But as tragedy unfolded on television screens and on radio stations yesterday from Las Vegas - and in real life for way too many people - those words again resonated.

And I am not alone.