Tag Archives: gina minton kearns blog

When bad things happen to good people being bad but trying not to be

Posted on September 14, 2011 | 1 comment

Bad people.  Well, there are the usual suspects that immediately come to mind, the ones who kill, maim and destroy lives … the ones who brag about the chaos they’ve caused and dream about doing it again … those that are beyond the scope of what we can understand, but are still loved by the Father, and nonetheless, I have and am sure many, if truth be told, can say that “they got what they deserved” … but what about the others?

For instance, although I couldn’t pick him or his pick-up out of a line-up, this dude passes me, partly in my lane and flying.  My first thought was “I hope you get a ticket, you idiot”.  Yep.  My first thought. Not “Lord, watch over this man and get him to his destination safely” … nope, it was actual hope that he would be pulled over and given a ticket.  Something that everybody hates.  The little voice whispers “do unto others” … but …

And then, there is that person who pulled out at the last minute, went half a mile and turned.  I slammed on my brakes and screeched to a halt to keep from hitting this person and the first thought in my head isn’t “Thank You, Lord, for sparing me and not letting me wreck”.  No, it is “you moron … just pull out and stop why don’t you?   Jerk.”  Again, that little voice reminding me to “do unto others” …

and then I put myself in the place where the stones I was throwing were landing

What about all those times that emotions or family or both had me discombobulated?  When work was like a millstone around my neck and I could barely force myself to go.  Distracted and unfocused, it is very believable that I was either of these people.  I hope that anyone behind or beside me did not react as I did, but as I should have.

In my own way, I am bad.  I snap at my family and friends and think thoughts that I know can lead nowhere good.  I sometimes go for days without reading my Bible.  I think about it, but don’t do it.  I often begin the morning with groans of disappointment that I have to get up instead of embracing it as the miraculous gift that it is.  I am so imperfect that any stone I throw could be thrown at me.  Sometimes bad things happen to good people when they’re being bad but trying not to be.  This doesn’t make us bad, but it should make us take notice.

Never, ever reject Grace when it is offered.

clicking will open new window for link to Through the Eyes of the Spirit greeting cards

1 Comment

Posted in Life

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

It’s a little like riding a bike …

Posted on September 8, 2011 | 2 comments

Cooking.  Something that I love to do.  Something that I haven’t done more than a handful of times in the past two years.  When Jim died, the love of food that we shared caused a nearly cataclysmic reaction in my psyche.  Food itself repulsed me and I lived for nearly six months on toast-chee crackers and Nekot cookies.  I would make a grocery list and buy the ingredients to make a dish … then I would get them home, put them away and eventually, throw the stuff in the garbage after it had turned rotten in the fridge.  I would buy milk and sometimes open it and sometimes not, but it always ruined.  Bread molded before even a third of the loaf was gone.  Each of these things, in its own way, reminded me that there weren’t enough people in the house to keep the food from ruining.  I could lie and say that the thought that I could eat the food and stop being so weird never crossed my mind.  It did.  When I threw out food that I had let waste because for whatever reason, I couldn’t bring myself to cook it, it crossed my mind.  When I fed nearly full loaves of bread to the dogs, it crossed my mind.  When I had to open the jug of milk to pour it down the drain, it crossed my mind.  But as quickly as it would cross my mind, I would put it aside to deal with later.  I spoke of this anomaly many times to my mother and sister.  The need to cook and the paralyzing inability to follow through.  A couple of times, I would make something or other and feel great, nearly high, from the accomplishment.  But the high was short-lived and it would be months before I cooked anything again.

Today, I turned a corner.  A real corner.  Not one that leads into another corner, but one that turns into a long straight road without obstacles.  I stopped at the store, came home, put up the groceries and then cooked supper.  It was not very good.  It was much, even for me, who eats jalapeno peppers out of the jar, too hot.  The pan seared spinach, though a beautiful visual compliment to the red tomatoes and beautifully browned chicken, was a bad idea.  All in all, it was pretty nasty, but it was mine and though it lacked in too many things to mention, it wasn’t burned.  It reminded me of when I tried a few years ago to ride a bike.  My sister and I must have ridden 100,000 miles when we were kids and I was hoping to get back into it.  I found that somewhere over the past few decades, my center of gravity has changed and balancing was no longer second nature.  Though I knew how to ride a bike, I had to make some adjustments in myself to make up for the way that I had changed over time.  But, it came back.  Not on the first try, but eventually, I was riding like I was ten years old.  Tonight taught me that I haven’t forgotten how to cook … I’m just rusty … and while the first attempt was a definite fail, I find myself thinking about how I can adjust the way I look at food to compensate for the changes that time and circumstance have made.  It’s a little like riding a bike.

2 Comments

Posted in cooking, Life

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

You are what you tweet

Posted on September 5, 2011 | 1 comment

Social media.  One of the best things, in my opinion, since sliced bread.  I love being able to connect to people all over the world as well as the ones in my own back yard, see what they are up to and give them a little glimpse into my life.  Do they care?  Yeah.  I think they do … at least some of them, anyway.  Of course, it is a lot like everything else in life in that we all want everyone to like us, but reality is a real killjoy.  And like life, some people will like the content that is posted, some won’t and others will be either indifferent or oblivious.  I know when I tweet, Google+ or Facebook something, there is a chance that somebody will read it, relate to it, laugh at it, cry over it, get their back up about it, come to my defense for it, rally for a cause or just pass it along because for whatever reason, they found it interesting.  When they do, they are passing along a little piece of me.  And I want that little piece to represent who I am, what I believe and the things I stand for so that at the end of the day, I know that I have been true to myself.  Same goes for the things of others that I pass along on what started out as a grapevine but has grown into a vineyard that has branches all over the globe.  Look at your own activity.  Do you re-tweet, share or +1 everything you read?  Of course not.  If we all liked everything that everyone else wrote, and they liked everything we wrote, then that would mean that we were all alike and I, personally, would not want to live in a world full of people just like me.  We would brain each other with a hammer inside of a week.  No thanks.

1 Comment

Posted in blog, Life

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

To Paris (with a little help from my friends) via a Greeting Card

Posted on August 31, 2011 | 1 comment

In the late spring, early summer of 2012, my daughter, a member of the UVA-Wise Highland Cavalier Marching Band, is going to Paris.  I am blown away by this and plan to give her all the financial help I can so that she will be able to go.  On my own, I cannot afford to pay for us both to go.  While I have a passport and have had the wanderlust for so long I can no longer remember when it started, I am struggling with the notion that I might not get to go.  It isn’t jealousy or envy, for I couldn’t be more happy that our Tay gets to go on such an amazingly incredible adventure.  No, it is the photographer in me that wants to see.  That needs to see.  That longs to see.  One of my most constant prayers has been to ask that my photography enable me to travel.  That greeting cards would allow me to go places that I’ve only dreamed of and to visit each place, across the globe, where my cards have sold.  When I pray, what I see is being able to just jump in my car or on a plane and go wherever, whenever, with only a few changes of clothes, my camera, my phone, my laptop and my tripod … just any old time and for as long as I want.  While I believe in my heart that such will happen eventually, as it was God who set me on the path of photography in the first place, and so I feel very strongly that it is He who has put this wanderlust in my heart, I have no doubt that photography will take me where I am meant to go.  I am hoping that it will take me to Paris.  I have a specific destination, besides Ardmore in County Waterford, Ireland, to pray about.  So I am praying specifically this time.  I am praying that the money I make on my greeting cards in the last quarter of the year, September through December will take me to Paris.  While I wish that hundreds of thousands of people would share this and would talk up Through the Eyes of the Spirit, I leave it to the Father, who already knows how it will end.

To check out the greeting cards, click the photo below to open Through the Eyes of the Spirit in a new window.  If you feel led to do so, share the link with friends and family.  God is in control, but your support and encouragement is appreciated.  While everyone may not understand the need to go and to see, some will.  As for me, being accepted, even when I’m not understood, is priceless.

1 Comment

Posted in blog, faith, help, Photography, travel

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Light’s Little Surprises

Posted on August 21, 2011 | Leave a comment

Light.  A photographer’s best friend and worst enemy at the same time.  I think it is safe to say I spend much of my time chasing the light, hoping to beat it to the punch and be there waiting for it when it decides to bring out the beauty of whatever it is that I have come to see.  Sometimes, though, light throws me a bone and lets me see it in ways that I wouldn’t have imagined.  One of those times happened here.  This shot was and continues to be one of my favorites and it was a complete surprise.  I got some curious glances, but they weren’t the first and likely will not be the last.  Thankfully, I never go anywhere without my camera … not even the bathroom, which is where this glorious image was found.  I’m grateful for every shot, but I always feel a little like I’ve won the lottery when I get a great shot that I wasn’t expecting and didn’t have to work for.

Leave a comment

Posted in black and white photography, blog, Life, Photography

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

When laughter won’t come

Posted on August 11, 2011 | Leave a comment

I can feel it coming on.  The darkness.  First, only around the edges, creeping in like a dense fog that I know will, if it continues, consume me and completely separate me from everything except the thoughts that swirl in my head.  Thoughts that taunt me with hurtful things and imaginings, making me cry, then weep, then become angry in a way that I cannot grasp.  Words and faces become harder to focus on and forgetfulness struggles to keep me bound within the prison that is rapidly surrounding me.  The walls close in and yet I cannot bear the thought of getting out because then the vastness of space overtakes what bit of sanity I feel I have left.  I look around at the beauty I saw only yesterday and find it colorless and lacking and am even more saddened that it holds no interest to me and for that moment in time, I can’t find it within myself to care about anything.  Music, which is a source of great enjoyment becomes, instead of melodies, waves of noise that threaten to send me over the edge.  I become isolated by my own insecurities and emptiness and there is nowhere to go and to no one that I can turn.  At least that is how I feel during these dark days.

From one end of the house to the other, I pace, pace and pace some more.  Food doesn’t appeal, and all I can think of is how angry I feel.  There is never any warning before these days come, they just come.  Sometimes the darkness lasts for a day and others for several days.  I can’t sleep or think.  Working is a chore as it takes every fiber of my being to do my job without screaming, crying or just collapsing in pile of despair. I hope the phone will ring, that someone will call just so that I know there is another human on the planet that cares about me and at the same time, I can’t bear to talk to anyone.  There is nothing to say and no way to say it without sounding like a complete nut.  Forcing a smile becomes second nature for without it, there are the questions of what’s wrong? Are you ok?  Why are you so quiet?  And there are no answers to these questions.  What could I possibly say?  That I just want to disappear into a mist of nothingness until whatever it is that is consuming me goes away?  And then comes the niggling thought that maybe I’ll feel like this forever and that the laughter will never come back into my life and the despair overtakes me.

I spend a lot of time avoiding God, or at least trying to.  While I try to run from Him, He is steadily waiting for me to come to Him.  I find that I cannot out-wait God.  His mercy and patience far exceeds anything that I can even fathom.  I cry out to Him to take this darkness from me because I cannot fight it alone.  It is a scary place to be, where screams won’t come, laughter is lost and there is no release from the constriction that threatens to suffocate me.

And then, a ray, small at first, but a ray … and then a note, then a melody, then a bubble of laughter.  The darkness opens up and hope shines through, a bright beacon in what has been a harrowing space in time.  The smile becomes genuine and my heart, once heavy and burdened, becomes lighter.  The mercy and grace from a patient and loving God opens the door and I am able to walk through, safe again from the depression that would, if it could, destroy me.

It is usually at this time that I crash, sleeping twelve or more hours at a time, waking to feel groggy and hung over, but better nonetheless.  After the crash comes the healing.  It isn’t possible to explain to someone who has never experienced spirals of depression how it feels.  It is not possible to explain to a Christian how I can be so hopeless and still believe in a marvelous God.  Just because I cannot find it within myself to come out of the darkness doesn’t mean that I don’t believe in the light.  For now, the moment has passed.  Maybe it will be years before it happens again.  Maybe it will never happen again.  Or maybe I will wake up in the morning feeling as though the floor of my world has fallen away and I, too am falling into nothingness.  But until then, I will glorify God, shoot my Pentax and bask in a life worth living.

If you suffer from episodes of depression, you are not alone and you have nothing to be ashamed about.  While it may seem that you are in a world of one, you are not.  Hope doesn’t desert us when we give up on it, it just waits until we are able to look for it again.  And, as always, it is there and with it comes the laughter.

Leave a comment

Posted in depression, God, laughter, Life, spiritual healing

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sometimes dad is just a word

Posted on August 8, 2011 | Leave a comment

I look at my beautiful, grown, college attending daughter and I can scarcely believe that she is mine.  A blessing she is, with a big and seeking heart, brains and a musical talent that I can say, without reservations, she did not get from me.  Her life, in the grand scheme of things, is just beginning and she is on the cusp of adulthood.  But her journey to get here wasn’t an easy one.  She has faced many obstacles in her short time on earth, each one causing what could have been life-shattering circumstances.  But, like the Phoenix, she continued to rise above that which threatened to consume her.  When she was only four, her dad walked out and never looked back.  She was a senior in high school when she next heard from him.  To his credit, he came to her high school graduation, but that is a small consolation when considering all he has missed, and inconsequential in the formation of the astounding person she has become.

As often happens with people, especially children, when they haven’t seen someone in a very long time, she was expecting something amazing.  I guess in her mind, he would still be young, strong and the daddy she so adored.  Instead, she found an older man who was a complete stranger to her.  There was nothing to talk about.  There were no birthdays to reminisce about, no past Christmases to remember and no bond between father and daughter to hold them together. They had nothing, other than blood, to connect them.  While she tried to make small talk and get to know this stranger, the years between the last time she saw him and the present became a chasm that was too wide to cross.  If there had been a desire to cross it, it could have been navigated, but that desire to reconcile must work both ways.  Sometimes, all you can do is let it go.

It is impossible to write this post without thinking of my own dad.  He who worked his whole life just so myself, my sister and my mom could have a better life.  There were summer vacations, surprise Christmas presents, Sunday mornings in church, trips to the lake, rides on the boat, love and punishment meted out fairly and the knowledge that this wonderful, strong man would be there, no matter what.  He didn’t stop there, though.  He became a surrogate father to my girl, giving her the male influence that she otherwise would have not had.  He cheered her on and supported her, grinning just as big as the rest of us at every accomplishment.

When I look at my dad now, surrounded by his grandchildren that bring him immeasurable joy, I think how different life would have been if he had not been such a integral part of it.  My heart goes out to children all of the world who have had to grow up in a fatherless home with the weight of the knowledge that he isn’t there because they just weren’t enough to make him want to stay.  Some of them will overcome the obstacles and others will join the ranks of addicts, criminals and the overwhelmingly confused.  I am one of the lucky ones and I thank God that I had a father who stuck around even though there were likely times when all he wanted to do was run away.  Seeing what I see and knowing what I know, I congratulate and encourage dads everywhere who stick around because their kids are worth it.  I can promise, based on my own experiences and those I watched my baby go through, it may be hard but in the end, it will absolutely be worth it.

The biological father of my daughter wasn’t, when all was said and done, a bad person, but he was, without doubt, a bad father.  He’s not the only one and he certainly won’t be the last one.  It just goes to show that sometimes, dad is just a word.

Leave a comment

Posted in dad, Life, story, Time

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Riders, Fighters, Fallers, Get-Back-Up-Againers …

Posted on July 27, 2011 | Leave a comment

It’s hard to know at what point in the history of the sport that someone scratched their head and said “hmmm… I think I’m going to see if I can ride that bull”.  I’m sure there were pals around that cheered them on as they tried, and likely failed, to ride a wild bull.  Maybe they were able to stay on and maybe they were trampled.  But whatever they were, a spark was ignited.  Rodeo has taken on a life of it’s own.  Bullriders and fighters don’t say they are going to a rodeo tomorrow or they went to a rodeo last week.  They say they “rodeoed”.  They took part.  They were part.  They were the rodeo.  It takes nerve, courage and good dose of half-crazy to be a bullrider or a bullfighter.  To put yourself in a position that you know may very well be the last thing you ever do takes guts.  It also takes an enormous amount of selfishness.  To think only of staying on the bull or outrunning the bull, forgetting family, friends and other important things takes a single-mindedness that is hard for the layman to understand.  I watch the riders as they are pummeled, thrown, stomped and dragged.  They know going in that this is a real possibility, but they do it anyway.  For what?  Simple.  For the thrill of beating the bull.   I can say over and over that I don’t know why they do what they do… and then I get way too close to the edge of the waterfall, go into the mountains looking for a family of bears, kneel down in the road a foot from a snake.  Why?  Simple.  For the shot.  Now that I think of it, everything I have said about the bullriding, bronc breaking, fighting, falling, riding cowboys, I could say about myself.  In that moment, when the shot has caught my eye and my camera is at my face, there is nothing else.  I guess we’re not so different, after all.

Leave a comment

Posted in blog, Bull Rider, Bullriding, Life, Photography, Rodeo

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Worshiping God in the Middle of His Creation

Posted on July 18, 2011 | Leave a comment

This morning, for Sunday worship service, our congregation didn’t meet in the churchyard as happens each time we have church services.  Instead, we took a detour and went down to the creek.   The beauty of nature became a sanctuary like none I’ve ever been in.  Overhead, the trees, bursting with the leaves that come with mid-summer, made a canopy that swayed in the morning breeze.  The overcast sky threatened rain and the light, soft and yielding, cast a lovely glow on the people that had gathered to worship God and on the beauty of God’s creation surrounding them.  Behind the “pulpit” made up of a picnic table underneath one of the huge trees, the creek gurgled and laughed as it flowed over rocks and made it’s way, as all flowing water does, to the sea.

As I looked around at the people, I saw an array of dress and I couldn’t help thinking that there are places some of us, myself included,would not have been allowed.  Knowing what hangs around creeks and pastures, I wore my jeans and boots.  Nobody cared.  We were there to worship the Lord, not critique what each one was wearing.  While we sang songs from the old Church Hymnal, I walked around taking photos.  I could not pass up such a rare opportunity to get shots of God’s people worshiping Him in the midst of His creation while all that surrounded us sang along with us and, in my mind, took an active part just by being.  After the service, the food and fun began.  There were grilled burgers and dogs with all the fixin’s.  Not long after they got their bellies full, the kids found their way into the water.  With splashing and squealing, the ones who were fishing were, I’m afraid, wasting their time.

All in all, it was a wonderful day of worship, prayer, food, fun, playing, wading, swimming and fishing.  Amidst it all was laughter and fellowship.  I can only imagine that God was pleased to see His children gathering under His canopy to sing His praises and worship His glory.  When I count my blessings, I count photography with them for, through the eyes of the spirit, I see what magnificent beauty God has made.

Leave a comment

Posted in blog, God, Life, Photography, worship

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Through the Eyes (and the nerve) of the Spirit

Posted on May 31, 2011 | 1 comment

A spirit of fear… something I am very familiar with.  Although God doesn’t give us a spirit of fear, I made my own.  From a very young age, my earliest memories, as a matter of fact, have me running from something.  If it jumped, hopped, mooed, flew, chirped, slithered, creaked, groaned or growled, chances are, I was running, screaming at the top of my lungs in fear that whatever it was would get me.  Now, only a few of the things were really something to fear.  For example, the time the hogs chased me down the hill… that was a fearful moment that was legitimate. My mom and mamaw always kept one ear open for my shrieks of terror for they were many… and they would always come running to save me from whatever it was that had sent me into spasms that time.  This fear followed me through my childhood, teenage years and right on up into my adult life.  I have nearly cracked glass many times as the objects of my fear, real or imagined, manifested in my life.  Once I delved full speed into photography, some of the fears were faced through the zoom lens of my camera.  It became apparent quite quickly that if I wanted the good shots, I had to get closer.  And my need and desire to photograph nature went a long way to helping me overcome fear of things like grasshoppers, caterpillars and bees.  Over time, I got closer to frogs and even managed to get within several feet of snakes.  Spiders, well, there is really little to say.  Terrified doesn’t even begin to cover it and I doubt that will ever change.  I remember the big garden spider with the amazing web that I photographed a few  years ago.  I was looking at it through a zoom lens and was several feet away from it.  When I focused that creature, I actually felt sick, so I feel it is safe to say that once an arachnophobe, always an arachnophobe.  But I digress… a few months ago, I made a conscious decision that I was not going to be such a baby about everything.  That decision was challenged when my zoom lens was broken and I had to practically get in the pond with the frogs to get the good shot, but I prayed fervently that they wouldn’t jump on me and God was faithful and kept them preoccupied with each other and they didn’t jump… at least not on me.  But today was my crowning achievement.  I was in the cornfield, chopping out weeds, mom and I talking and having as much fun as you can have when you’re doing hard manual labor in the burning heat.  Dad was nearby working on some piece of equipment or other and talking with one of his friends.  I turned to say something to mom and there, slithering across the field, was a black snake.  A pretty big one, likely four feet or a little better.  It was heading toward the house and I stepped closer to get a better look.  My spirit of fear, which would usually kick in and have me running in the opposite direction, did not show it’s face.  Dad told me to be careful, that it would bite, and with same breath to not let the dogs get it. I walked up to that snake, picked it up behind its head and held it.  It wrapped itself around my arm, tongue flicking out and eyes beady, but I just looked at it.  I had a good grip on it just behind it’s head and I had no fear.  I was so thankful for that moment.  It was, and will continue to be, a turning point in my life.  God used this snake to show me that my fear did not have to control me.  I carried the snake, still wrapped around my arm, to the edge of the field and tossed it across the creek so it could slither elsewhere.  Now while I don’t plan on becoming a snake charmer anytime in the near future, I feel empowered, nearly high from the accomplishment.I went back to chopping the weeds and heard my dad, who has saved me from many critters, say to his friend “I would have bet $500 she wouldn’t have done that”.  I told mom what he said and she said “Phhht… I would have bet the farm.”  This has been a good day, one filled with hard work, serious sweat and jumping a hurdle that even I didn’t know I could jump.  At this point, I don’t think there is anything I can’t do… well, unless it has to do with a spider.  God didn’t give me a spirit of fear… I brought it on myself and am well on my way to overcoming it.  Since I am the photographer in the family, no one can document this on film, but three witnesses should be as good as a photograph.

Cinderella, dressed in yellow, went upstairs to kiss her fellow…
Made a mistake and kissed a snake, how many doctors did it take?

1 Comment

Posted in Life, story, wildlife

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,