The way of things

On the weekend I was in Launceston, and I drove past this church. It was formerly a Presbyterian church built in the late 19th Century and deconsecrated 100 years later. It's been left to develop, to take on its own life. There's something terribly sad about building such as this - built with such care, but abandoned to slowly disintegrate, but there's also something beautiful in watching the natural progression of a structure. It takes on its own character, separate from that intended by man, and continues to stand with such dignity even as the wind steals the paint from its very walls.

Someday something will happen to it. It will be restored to its former glory, all traces of these years of neglect scrubbed away as some shameful thing. Or it will continue to disintegrate, until one day it will be deemed too hazardous for any work and torn down, while a faithful few protest against such destruction.

This building has character, it has soul. I hope it fights back against the ashamed restorers, forbids them from removing every trace of its empty years. To me it is, right now, glorious.




500 blips hey? Theoretically they're in a row, although I have a couple left to backblip from the weekend, so my track record doesn't quite look complete. When I joined, 50o days ago, my hope was to partner blipping each day with reading my Bible each day. The two would hold each other accountable. That hasn't entirely gone to plan, but neither has it failed dramatically. I didn't realise on that day when I went looking for a significant first blip that I would find people here to swap postcards and emails with, that I would learn to use a shiny new camera quite so publicly, or that more than 130 people would be interested in my everyday life, everyday. I was too scared to tweak photos, not sure what all the settings actually meant. And now look at me. I didn't know there'd be a new cat in the coming 500 days, or a failed subject. Going to do my masters in England seemed only the remotest possibility, while now it seems a little more likely. In fact, life after uni seemed incredibly vague and an abstract concept. Well, that hasn't changed.

Despite falling a little back on my initial aim, blipping has affected my faith. It has taught me to notice the world around me more, to always be looking for photos and beautiful moments. And that has taught me to look for God's work more, and to be thankful when I see it. I often miss the photo opp, but if I could print out my mind I could show you whole albums of moments in which I have said 'Thank you Lord!'

Lately my photos have became fairly meh as life has run rings around me. But I think, I hope, that they are better meh than 500 days ago. So who knows what will happen in the coming 500 days. Perhaps someday a shot that is 'meh' to me will be 'ooh' to someone else. Let's just wait and see, and rejoice in what comes on each of those days.