unveiling - { this } Restless Heart has moved

Seven days ago, I simply disappeared from the Interwebs.

The time had come.

For too long, I've been living two separate identities online - writer and photographer.

When I got a second Flickr account to keep the writer photos separate from the photographer photos, I knew something was coming. I couldn't keep living in two worlds. It was too much to keep straight - a photography Twitter name, a writer Twitter name, a photography blog here, a writing blog there - remembering where to leave what was getting confusing.

To be honest, my motives weren't pure. It was easier to set God aside while trying to present myself as a photographer. Easier to display my photos without explanation of the Inspiration behind them. Easier to critique my work than to admit how deeply it moves me, how deeply He moves me.

James makes a good point when he says that a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. I couldn't decide one day to the next which I wanted to be: photographer, mother, writer, wife... It was all compartmentalized. Too compartmentalized.

So I have spent the last week relearning my life. Relearning who I am, what I am, why I do what I do. Relearning old code, learning new code. I've been acknowledging that I am not the photographer I want to be - but I am what I am. I've been allowing the writing-God into my photos and the photos into my writing.

And I have moved my writing. And my photography. To one site, where I will be me, all of me.


If you still care to follow me, you can find me here: http://www.kellylangnersauer.com/


I will be deleting my @informalmoments Twitter account and using only @arestlessheart.

I will no longer be updating http://www.thisrestlessheart.com/ or http://kellysphotographyblog.blogspot.com/.

I will also be allowing Informal Moments Photography to lapse; I will use my own name for my work.


Please update your links and feeds using the buttons below:



If you have questions, please do drop me a line or a comment at my new place.


I know this is abrupt, and I apologize. There have been so many changes here. This was necessary for me, though. It was past time.

Hi. I'm Kelly.

I'm still a work in progress; the new blog is still in progress. I've been there and with my family over the last week, and that's it. But it's up and running now and I'm still alive. Please come see me there.

breathe

The baby is no longer sleeping through the night. I think he is on a growth spurt.

I get up early with him, put him back to sleep, find some quiet time that is just for me. I stay up late too, after the kids are asleep, to find some quiet time that is just for us.

We played Yahtzee last night. I retooled my photography blog yesterday. It is still unfinished. I've not had time to choose something for branding the site yet. It's not a big deal; I'll be getting a flash site after my wedding in May.

I've not been very active on social media this week. I am measuring time, trying not to measure time, being more vigilant here at home where Piper is into the pantry or the refrigerator every ten minutes or so. (I think she is also on a growth spurt.)

I have been breathing too.

escape

still eludes
in crashing
crushing
purge of rolling wave upon sand
upon shore,
in breaking stone and silver bone and wood to salted grain

breath floats away
with bird-wings
on wind mounting cool and warm
beneath wings
leaving earth behind, leaving me to

stand wishing,
hoping
believing i could
fly

if i wanted to.

(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

a monday rain ramble

Sometimes the living is more than the processing of it; that is what my weekend was. We went to a wedding where I took no pictures, talked with the bride only briefly, didn't even meet the groom. I missed my camera when we passed a local cat taking in the status of the wedding guests at the church next door. The bells rang loud before my friend said her vows - the wedding next door ran shorter than hers - and her flower girl left her seat to gaze out the open window and find the music.

The reception was Chinese-lantern-lit beneath a high, full moon that the hired photographer didn't even notice, and I was sad; my friend missed some incredible pictures from her wedding day. We lived a few hours beneath a tent and ate home-cooked catering better than hired as we took advantage of the gratuitous bug spray, because outdoor receptions in South Carolina can get very itchy.

And we talked with friends, and the next day went to the beach with them - but we were late, because my phone had died so I missed their call. I left my camera at home again and missed a spur-of-the-moment wedding on the beach, and I didn't mind too much. We stayed long, since my little sand-Piper loves the water; Pete went for a swim, and I stayed dry and burned a little in the warm water-sun.

We had salmon for dinner last night, sautéed with garlic, tomatoes, basil, and capers - my happy meal. "Eat your heart out, McDonalds," my husband laughed as I raved contentedly on.

And this morning the rain came and the sun forgot to get up at our house, so I have puttered and doodled and it is four o'clock and I am not awake yet, spinning words and worlds on a rainy day, like spinning tires in flying mud and getting nowhere.

Sometimes the living is made better after the resting, if I forget myself for a little while and remember why I love it so.

---------------------------------

I'll post another installment in my authentic relationship series sometime tomorrow - I have a little one who needs a Mama cuddle.

ALSO - I have been using a widget on here with the "you might also like" links to other posts of mine. Is anyone particularly attached to this feature on my blog, or would you be sorry to see it go?





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

a ramble about Being

"I enjoy the challenge," I told P the other day. The challenge of writing at least something every day, putting some words together, casting something of me out into the world on my blog. Hoping to be noticed. Wishing to define my worth to you. Or prove it to me.

But the "high thoughts" I want to share don't come today. Or yesterday, really. Or the day before that. I think it is because sometimes life just has to be lived, and I can scribble out anything I like about what I think of life, but it will not teach me about itself as I write, but as I live.

So I learn of life through tears and worry and disappointment and learning-the-waiting. I learn through toddler-lectures and impatience and grace. I learn through sorrow, both mine and yours. I feel life in the strength of my womb-child, kicking hard against... well, all of my insides. I live in conversations and excitements and unexpected blessings - the serendipities I used to count.

The grass, it just is. From green to grain, it waves in summer to fall, soaking in the blue of sky, the warmth of sun, the rain and wind and growth. And it praises Him, by doing what it was created to do.

Un-self-conscious.

Abandoned.

Beautiful.

Speechless.

If You made me like the grass that is green
Growing tall and covering the hills above me
Maybe I would pray for sunshine and a little rain
To fall now and then to make me lovely
I could be a place where sheep could graze
Or barefoot feet could play
And I would grow and grow and hope You'd bend down low
To hear me sing my offering

Open up the heavens, open up the skies
All of Your creation wants to testify
I have a song, so let the earth sing along
'Cause I just want to praise You

And the sun every morning cannot wait to shine
And the stars every evening are all standing by to light the sky
Give the rocks and the stones voices of their own
If we forget to sing praises to our King

-Nichole Nordeman, My Offering

I should be so soul-still.

the simple that is true

Several years ago, God really challenged me to speak the truth in my heart before Him. I don't just mean speaking the Truth - reciting Scripture, etc - but setting aside my own self-justification and ideas of what was true about me and being completely honest with Him about what I knew was going on inside me. This meant admitting to a lot of things that I'd never acknowledged before, letting Him in on the things that "shouldn't" be talked about, and being practically honest about both my feelings and my sin.

Obedience to Him in this area dramatically changed my relationship with Him. I left what had been a static, affectionate, rather distant approach to a God I knew was true for a dynamic, passionate vulnerability that required a drastic trust. The extra of the "what is supposed to be" was slowly pared down to the "what is" and I found that much of what I believed I needed to be a Christian and know God was really just extra stuff piled on to support my own human idea of spirituality.

Any human can be spiritual. We are spiritual by nature, created in the image of God to be more than just chemicals and hormones and flesh and blood and bone. There is much in this world that we call holy that is not necessarily of God.

As my human perspective of spirituality has been refocused on simply the Truth that is Jesus Christ and nothing else, I have found that so much of what I thought I had to do to please God was for me only a cover-up of the depth of my heart, the truth of who I am that I never shared with anyone, least of all the God who created me.

I'm not naturally a rebel, so letting go of the things I feel I am supposed to be has not been easy, but what I am finding beneath the surface is a simplicity I could only dream of having a few years ago as I was trying to cover all my bases with God. I'm finding that it is possible to really want to know God, that it is possible to live my life in Jesus Christ without adding anything of my own to sweeten the deal. All my righteousness is as filthy rags, you know. The spiritual gain I sought before in trying to please God by doing right or supporting the right cause or fighting the right battle is really pretty worthless.

I am finding that I can live in only one place: the simplicity of the truth that I know only by faith in Jesus Christ and what He became human and lived and died to do - to bring me into relationship with a God I have tried and failed to be. The excess "supposed to" is being removed, and I'm discovering something real, something more true than the vague, universal, human spirituality, a hope that transcends this time and this flesh, that enables me to be in the world, and I am not of it.

I never understood before what it means to live this way. I'm not sure I understand now. But I do know it. And I know it by faith in the Son of God. His work is to believe Him who He sent. And I do.

And that too is His doing.

this is a post about politics

"I think of my children asking me why God created mankind if mankind was going to make battlefields and slums and insane asylums. The city around our pleasant apartment building is not an easy place in which to see the hand of God. Mankind has imposed its imprint of ugly buildings and dirty streets and desperate people. But if I cannot see God's love here... where we seem to have done everything possible to destroy the beauty of creation....

"It is the nature of love to create, and no matter what we do to creation, that love is still there, creating; in the young man who is holding his jacket closed cross his chest; in you; in me." (L'Engle, The Irrational Season, p. 13)

See this picture? This is what is left of one of these. See how the glory has fallen. See the beauty that is still here.

I ran across a post recently from someone whose photography I love. She is a "liberal" Democrat trying to cling to the hope that caused her to vote for President Obama as the economy continues to freak out. Someone responded to her post describing some "bigot" coworkers who bash the president in her office. And I just wanted to cry.

I don't generally talk about politics because I accepted something a long time ago: the people who make up politics are PEOPLE. And people make mistakes, wherever they are. People have different ideals and different ways of making their dreams come true. People can be really stupid, and people can do the best they can with what they have. And people will always, always, always do anything they can to get around their fear.

And this is what November proved. It didn't matter who we voted for - we were all voting out of fear. Fear that if one candidate was elected, the war would continue; if the other, socialism would become the rule in our country. Fear of change. Fear of the much-griped-about status quo. Fear that we were not or would no longer be safe.

And we elected a president. A president who is doing what he thinks is the best way to alleviate our fear and guarantee our safety and prosperity. A president who is initiating some very drastic changes in our government. A president who is a person being assisted by people to do what some people do to make themselves feel safe.

I did not vote for President Obama. But I am honestly ashamed to call myself a Republican or define myself politically in any way. I voted because I had the right and reason to vote, because of my own fear, because of what I knew could happen. But at the end of the day, as I cried myself to sleep, I had to release my safety and my future and my children's future into the hand of God, who holds the heart of the king.

God's Kingdom is not of this world. Jesus came to His people in captivity, and did not seek earthly dominance. But He holds the world in His hands, and each of us who seek Him to know Him. In His love, there is no fear. What can man do to me?

We all want to feel safe. We all want what we feel is best for our children. The day may come when all of that is taken from us, whether by nuclear holocaust or economic crash or creeping socialism and government control. But this I know: God is still God. He has been God since the beginning of time. Before the beginning of time. He is my surety and my salvation. He alone makes me dwell in safety, whether He is protecting me from getting hit by a car walking across the street on a normal day or protecting me from a terrorist bombing. He provides my needs.

I will not react out of my fear and hate people who do not know Him, who choose different comfort for their fear. We are not "liberals" and "bigots" or Republicans and Democrats. We are people. They are people. We will never, ever agree on everything. God made us to be able to choose. It is His gift. If we couldn't choose, we could never choose Him.

I wish that everyone would just stop. That the media would quit their bias in both directions. That we could all take a step back from our fear and realize that it is what it is and it's our mess and God is still in control.

He is so other, you know.

Let go, please let go. Fight for what is right, yes, but if you don't win your battle, overcome evil with good! Remember those coals of fire? Those could only be His love, given freely, without reserve.

And be of good cheer - He has overcome the world! There is no need for anger or bitterness when we set aside fear and believe Him. There is no need for victory; we already have it in Jesus.

"The LORD looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men. From the place of His dwelling He looks on all the inhabitants of the earth; He fashions their hearts individually; He considers all their works.

"No king is saved by the multitude of an army; a mighty man is not delivered by great strength. A horse is a vain hope for safety; neither shall it deliver any by its great strength. Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His mercy, to deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine.

"Our soul waits for the LORD; He is our help and our shield. For our heart shall rejoice in Him, because we have trusted in His holy name. Let Your mercy, O LORD, be upon us, just as we hope in You."

(Ps. 33:13-22)

variations on a theme...

I had an interesting revelation this morning while I was cruising around in Flickr. Several times in the last week, I've run across photos from non-Christian photographers of pillows and blankets and beds and soft and things that make you think of rest. Many of these were shot off on Sunday. With commentary about refreshment and rest and rejuvenation and gratitude for a day off.

I think it's almost funny how unbelievers get to rest on Sundays, and we Christians are the people running around like chickens with our heads cut off. And not just Sundays. Every day of the week.

God made the Sabbath for man, because He knew we needed rest. He wanted to give us a picture, I think, of what it means to enter into His rest. He wanted us to want more of it, more of Him, the Lord of rest.

A day to rest was a pretty cool gift from a God who knew how hard life was going to be for us, and how far short we would fall of His glory. When do we ever STOP to accept the gift and rest for a day in Him? Just as we are, no striving or measuring up necessary, just finding ourselves in His love?