Snap-Shots of Marriage

In one of her recent, daily "Marriage Moats," Lori Odhner responds to the mystery and questions prompted by Caleb Kerr's photography. In thinking about stories told by photographs, Lori shares her growing view of marriage and its dynamic nature. -Editor

My personal feelings about photography have changed. Drastically.

I used to want only photos of my own children, clean, cute, and facing the camera. Now I think that is vanilla. Pictures like that mark the end of a scene... the one in which I struggled to comb and coax, lick stray strands into place, and hush rebellion into submission. Ta-da. Click.

Not only that, I was incredibly ego centric. I wanted the snapshots to tell about my progeny, and how they reflected well on me.

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Skinned Knees and Hurt Feelings Build Character

One of the things Chad does is raise children. Here he shares an anecdote of hiking up a mountain with his kids. Through analogy, and reference to the work Divine Providence, Chad explores ideas about the Divine perspective when caring for His Human children. This essay comes across as humorous and light hearted while conveying satisfyingly grounded philosophical conclusions. -Editor

Lately I have been thinking about the Lord as the Perfect Parent and Divine Providence as His consistent implementation of a flawless parenting philosophy based on the everlasting mercy of His Divine Love and Wisdom! I like this approach because it helps me think of Him in a more intimate way: He is the Person who has been in my life from the very beginning, making things work and loving me unconditionally—rather than my boss, or my coach, or my best buddy or some of the other perfectly acceptable ways of thinking about God. What I like best about this concept of the Lord is that, being a parent myself, it helps me: understand the limited nature of my own freedom; recognize some of the ways that the Lord is raising me toward heaven; and accept that I cannot grow up to be an angel unless the Lord lets me learn from my own mistakes and the mistakes of others.

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Practice

Normandy is a ceramic artist and she shares her love and insight found in working with clay. She delights in the spiritual discipline of committing to the task in her hands. She offers some photos as proof.

Clay is such a responsive material. Each choice and touch is in some way evident in the finished vessel, from its infancy as a mound of wet clay in my hand, to the finished vessel: glazed, fired, and functioning in the world. The process of making ceramic vessels by hand is rich in metaphors for ourselves and spiritual lives. Even the words potters use to describe a pot relates to our bodies: lip, foot, handle. The vessels of our lives are filled with our desires, relationships and beliefs as surely as the mug in my hand is filled with coffee. With all things, form follows function.

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