your instagrammable life, and mine

I've been having SO MUCH FUN on instagram.

(You should follow me. I'll follow you back. It'll be great.)

Instagram is an amazing place, full of fascinating people doing remarkable things. It's a feast for the eyes, and it makes me glad to be human.

If you're not careful, though, it can also become a place of envy.

Getting behind the camera helps with this.

(Producing art helps with most things!)

Photography is the art of focus and framing. Always, always, there is something else you could have focused on. Usually, there's some kind of mess lurking just outside of the frame, as well as spectacular beauties that will have to wait for some other picture.

In this fallen world, we are surrounded by brokenness, ugliness, and pain. Pain is violent, forcing itself upon us, whether we are ready or not, and the more we flinch away from it, the more powerful it becomes.

Joy, on the other hand, is gentle. It will never force itself onto your consciousness. It simply waits, quietly hidden. Sometimes it is easy to find, and sometimes it takes quite a lot of searching. When you do find it, it offers up the strength to face pain with a full and open heart, and sometimes even to transform it.

The times when you have to look the hardest for joy are the times when you need it the most.

The flood of picture-perfect images on instagram is not evidence that everyone else has a better life than you. Rather, it is evidence that joy is worth finding and framing: in their life, in my life, and in yours.

natural law and wellness

"Oh."

He sounded mildly disappointed.

"'Natural wellness.' For a minute, I thought you said 'natural law,' and I was really excited."

And then it was MY turn to get excited.

Because even though 'natural law' and 'natural wellness' are very different buzz-phrases, the actual concepts are deeply interconnected.

Both are based on the premise that everything is designed for a particlar purpose, and flourishes best when filling that purpose.

I believe that people and plants were carefully, intentionally, and brilliantly made for one another.

Learning how to use plants well is helping me to experience God's love more deeply. It is also helping me to understand what it means to flourish as a human being.

We were made for this.

breathing together

When the scent of lavender fills the air, everyone seems calmer. Kinder. More peaceful.

On mornings when I put lemon in the diffuser, the kids have an easier time waking up. 

To be honest, it's a little bit scary.  

I'm not used to thinking about fragrance as something that powerful.

But of course it is powerful. How could it not be? When we percieve a smell, it is because it has become a part of us.

At least a dozen times a minute, we draw air into our bodies, take from it the things that we need, then send what we don't need back out into the space we share.

Breath is terrifyingly intimate.

We are inextricably connected to our environment, and to one another. We are so vulnerable.

Vulnerable... and yet resilient. Dust, pollen, smog, smoke, air frehsheners, mold spores, bacteria, viruses... we bring all sorts of things into our lungs, and most of the time we can handle it just fine. Not always, but most of the time. We are so amazing.

And the good smells... the rich woodsy, spicy and floral aromas that we crave... we want them for a reason. 

We can fool our noses, of course, just as we can trick our tastes with artificial flavors. But our bodies have more wisdom than we credit them. So long as they are honest smells, the good smells are usually the ones that support our incredible, resilient bodies.

And whatever there is in the air, we all breathe it together.