Monday, July 21, 2008

envious of innocence and belief

in truth that isn't and life that isn't

in time that lied and sight that failed

and hearts that used to beat

and breathing that comes so easy for everyone but me

disillusionment used to be routine


cuz only tears flow

and air is in short supply

i can't find my watch to stop the time

that taunts and teases and promises to wait

but all along has been cheating me


searching for black and white in a prismatic universe

something to cast some shade from relentless light

shut it off! smash the bulb that only illuminates

labyrinths and ruins from a forgotten time

instead of stars and magic and possibility


quicksand seduction

coolness desired

but I can't breathe let alone sink!!

and I can't see and I don't know how to be!!

cuz all there is

is seductive chaos and exhausted rage

naked truth that is and never ends,

life that might be

and if I've been mistaken for this long

how can I begin to perceive


merely another blind person on the street

in my house and in my head

smashing into once-familiar walls

now ethereal and indistinct

fingers and ears and eyes that refuse decrees


predictability on every corner

not part of this identity

uncertainty, supposed to

outsider that can’t afford the fee

this madness

that is me

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Gravity

(An excerpt from Donald Miller's, "Blue Like Jazz," that has moved me a great deal and that I wanted to share with you.)


What gravity is this that drew my soul toward yours? What great force, that though I went falsely, went kicking, went disguising myself to earn your love, also disguised, to earn your keeping, your resting, your staying, your will fleshed into mine, rasped by a slowly revealed truth, the barter of my soul, the soul that I fear, the soul that I loathe, the soul that; if you will love, I will love. I will redeem you, if you will redeem me? Is this our purpose, you and I together to pacify each other, to lead each other toward the lie that we are good, that we are noble, that we need not redemption, save the one that you and I invented of our own clay?

I am not scared of you, my love, I am scared of me.

I went looking, I wrote out a list, I drew an image, I bled a poem of you. You were pretty, and my friends believed I was worthy of you. You were clever, but I was smarter, perhaps the only smarter one, the only one able to lead you. You see, love, I did not love you, I loved me. And you were only a tool that I used to fix myself, to fool myself, to redeem myself. And though I have taught you to lay your lily hand in mine, I walk alone, for I cannot talk to you, lest you talk it back to me, lest I believe that I am not worthy, not deserving, not redeemed.

I want desperately for you to be my friend. But you are not my friend; you have slid up warmly to the man I wanted to be, the man I pretended to be, and I was your Jesus and, you were mine. Should I show you who I am, we may crumble. I am not scared of you, my love, I am scared of me.

I want to be known and loved anyway. Can you do this? I trust by your easy breathing that you are human like me, that you are fallen like me, that you are lonely, like me. My love, do I know you? What is this great gravity that pulls us so painfully toward each other? Why do we not connect? Will we be forever in fleshing this out? And how will we with words, narrow words, come into the knowing of each other? Is this God’s way of meriting grace, of teaching us of the labyrinth of His love for us, teaching us, in degrees, that which He is sacrificing to join ourselves to Him? Or better yet, has He formed our being fractional so that we might conclude one great hope, plodding and sighing and breathing into one another in such a great push that we might break through into the known and being loved, only to cave into a greater perdition and fall down at His throne still begging for our acceptance? Begging for our completion?

We were fools to believe that we would redeem each other.

Were I some sleeping Adam, to wake and find you resting at my rib, to share these things that God has done, to walk you through the garden, to counsel your timid steps, your bewildered eye, your heart so slow to love, so careful to love, so sheepish that I stepped up my aim and became a man. Is this what God intended? That though He made you from my rib, it is you who is making me, humbling me, destroying me, and in so doing revealing Him.

Will we be in ashes before we are one?

What great gravity is this that drew my heart toward yours? What great force collapsed my orbit, my lonesome state? What is this that wants in me the want in you? Don’t we go at each other with yielded eyes, with cumbered hands and feet, with clunky tongues? This deed is unattainable! We cannot know each other!

I am quitting this thing, but not what you think. I am not going away.

I will give you this, my love, and I will not bargain or barter any longer. I will love you, as sure as He has loved me. I will discover what I can discover and though you remain a mystery, save God’s own knowledge, what I disclose of you I will keep in the warmest chamber of my heart, the very chamber where God has stowed Himself in me. And I will do this to my death, and to death it may bring me.

I will love you like God, because of God, mighted by the power of God. I will stop expecting your love, demanding your love, trading for your love, gaming for your love. I will simply love. I am giving myself to you, and tomorrow I will do it again. I suppose the clock itself will wear thin its time before I am ended at this altar of dying and dying again.

God risked Himself on me. I will risk myself on you. And together, we will learn to love, and perhaps then, and only then, understand this gravity that drew Him, unto us.

Monday, July 7, 2008

Cat's Eye Photography photo pricing

For anyone interested in prices for my photography, I'm posting them on here until I get my webpage updated with current photos and information. That website is www.catseyephotography.us if you ever want to check it out. There are more sizes available so just ask if you don't see the size you want.

Print Price list:
Size Price
Wallets: $10.00
4x6: $3.00
5x5: $3.00
5x7: $6.00
6x6: $5.00
8x8: $9.00
8x10: $10.00
8x12: $15.00
10x10: $10.00
11x14: $25.00
16x20: $55.00
20x24: $90.00

Portrait Packages

Package One

Approximately 50 proofs

1 8x10

4 5x7

16 wallets

$150.00

_____________

Package Two

Approximately 75 proofs

2 8x10

6 5x7

16 wallets

$220.00

_____________

Package Three

Approximately 75 proofs

4 8x10

8 5x7

32 wallets

$275.00

_____________

Package Four

Approximately 75 proofs

6 8x10

10 5x7

32 wallets

$315.00

_____________

Package Five

Approximately 100 proofs

5 8x10 or

3 8x10 & 1 11x14

16 5x7

32 wallets

$530.00

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Package Six

Approximately 130 proofs

1 16x20

2 11x14

6 8x10

12 5x7

32 wallets

$650.00

_____________

All photographs are shot digitally. Any additional photographs can be purchased separately. Any wallets can be exchanged for larger sizes, should you choose to change them. (8 wallets = 4 4x6’s or 2 5x7’s or 1 8x10). If you prefer digital proofs, you can purchase a high resolution cd that will include all the edited images from the shoot for an additional $150.00.

A minimum of half of the price of the package is due before the portrait session and the second half on delivery of photos. If you are interested in my photography, please contact me at catseyephoto@hotmail.com.