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!

All That Glitters

Unwrap the hidden beauties in an ordinary day.

 –Gerhard E. Frost, author

(Until I typed his name, it didn't register that the quote was from a guy named FROST - ha!)

 

All that glitters is not gold. But it can be valuable, just the same.

Sometimes, though, that glitter is fleeting, so it should be appreciated in the moment.

One cold, cold day last week, I walked by an east-facing window and stopped in my tracks. The rising sun was creating a temporary art installation in my bathroom. 

The window pane provided a natural frame for the intricate patterns created by frost crystals.

The scene was modified slightly by the window screen covering a portion of the window. More camera clicks followed.

Even though the temperature didn't get far out of the deep freeze that day, the artwork on my bathroom windows soon disappeared, a combination of furnace heat and the sun's ascension.

And it again made me think about appreciating the small things as they happen. 

Whether it's a sunrise ...

Or a sunset ...

 Or frost on a window.  

 

In the Eye of the Beholder

A Time to Think

Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature–the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.

 –Rachel Carson

That was a message from an email devotional I saved awhile back. I thought about it again as I looked through photos I've taken in the past couple of weeks.

There is beauty to be found far off the beaten path ...

Down a dirt road in Central Kansas

 

... and in carefully-cultivated gardens.

Ted Ensley Gardens, Topeka, KS

 

Lake Shawnee - Topeka

It's just a matter of taking time to appreciate them - whether a man-made lake ...

... or a lazy tributary to a Kansas river in the middle of nowhere.

 

One recent evening, we drove to the Ninnescah pasture to check cattle and fences. That mission accomplished, I asked to stop at the bridge to watch the water gently ruffle the grasses along the banks.

A closer look revealed that other creatures also enjoy a water view!

Then I asked for the drive home to include a road nestled between century-old trees.

The light wiggled its way through the green canopy of trees, leaving a lackadaisical pattern of light and shadows. 

 

There was no one around except for an overflow crowd of mosquitoes. 

But as much as I enjoy the simply beauty of a Kansas country road, I can appreciate well-cultivated gardens. (Not that I find those at home!)

Maybe my pleasure in being at the Ted Ensley Gardens in Topeka had just as much to do with the company I was keeping!

It's getting easier to capture good photos of the girls.

Brooke - almost 6

 

Kinley - 8 1/2

This time, I was more interested in photographing people than flowers. (See another flower-forward visit to Ted Ensley Gardens at this link.)

 These three had to stop at every map to make a plan.

I wasn't the only one being inspired by the setting. Kinley carefully arranged her little sister for a snapshot. 

And she snapped plenty of photos on her mom's phone so she could show her dad, who stayed behind to mow.

 

But she also borrowed my camera for a few shots. I'm thinking 4-H photography may be in her future!

I did manage to find a couple of non-human creatures in the gardens. A butterfly didn't seem to care that I wanted it to alight on the flowers for a still shot. Most of my efforts captured the blur of its wings. But I did manage to get one in focus - though it certainly wouldn't win any prizes. 

     

The squirrel was too busy eating to worry about what I was doing.

While we enjoyed the sidetrip to the gardens, our trip to Topeka was mainly a mission to deliver desks for the girls. The girls' school will begin with a combination of in-person and online learning. Brooke and the next door neighbor will begin kindergarten in the playroom on their stay-at-home days. They have plans to add a colorful border of letters above their desks.

And, by the time we left, Kinley already had some items on the desk she'll use at home to begin third grade.

Bonus? The desks were free. You can't beat that - especially since it seems that desks are the new "toilet paper" of the pandemic, as Jill says. 

Maybe that devotional would come in handy for students, parents and teachers trying to navigate this new way of doing things. It's worth looking for beauty everywhere - from unmanicured roads to tended gardens to the people in our path.

God's Handwriting

Sunrise, September 17, 2019 - Happy Birthday, Jill!

A Time to Think

Never lose an opportunity for seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God's handwriting, a wayside sacrament.—Ralph Waldo Emerson

A Time to Act

Open your arms to beautiful moments and they will come to you.

A Time to Pray

Today God, let me shine for You.

From a Guideposts email devotional

I like to bracket my days with beauty on both ends.

From sunrise skies in the east ...

to sunset skies in the west.

Most of the time, I witness these spectacles by myself with cicadas' buzz as a white-noise undertone. But one evening this week, I had some company. When I saw the pretty clouds and setting sun, I drove to a neighbor's windmill, a vantage point I've used before when featuring the western sky.

When I arrived, the cattle were congregated at the windmill, the bovine equivalent to an evening cocktail hour, I suppose.

I was the party crasher. And they were curious. They kept creeping closer ...

... and closer ...

... and closer ...

 

 ... until I had several standing at the gate. I don't know whether they thought I had grain or hay. But I arrived at the party empty-handed (other than my camera, of course), so we just had some polite conversation before I departed.

I made a couple of other stops before going home ...

... watching the day's light dwindle away like a cowboy riding into the distant sunset.

And I was again reminded of Ralph Waldo Emerson's words:

Never lose an opportunity
 for seeing anything that is beautiful; 

for beauty is God's handwriting,

 a wayside sacrament.