Photo Prayer 2019-26 — Spinning
Too often, I identify my self with my thoughts and the brain that thinks them. Sometimes I think so hard, my world starts spinning, like when I consider a word like “soul”. Is my soul, not my brain, the center of my being? And how is it different yet connected to my heart and mind? The Bible talks of souls finding rest and refreshment, of them being downcast, disturbed, lost, and even destroyed. Are souls something God breathed into our bodies, not like air into a balloon but like meaning into a sentence? Questions like these make my brain, or my mind, or my soul, or all three, spin — and that is good. Spinning keeps gyroscopes, bicycle wheels, planets, and galaxies steady — my soul mates.
Photo of spiral staircase in the Electra Havemeyer Webb Memorial Building, Shelburne Museum, Vermont.
Photo and text copyright 2019 by Danny N. Schweers.
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Comments
Kay wrote:
Dear Danny: As of today I have 33 proton therapy treatments, 6 chemo and 6 infusions left for throat cancer. My world has been spinning but now I am using the Lord’s Prayer and prayers for others in need, prayers of gratitude for my family and friends, and prayers in general to slow down the spinning. Love the image of my soul not my brain as spinning. [DANNY REPLIED: I am CCing these comments to another friend undergoing proton therapy and chemo. Me, I am spinning faster and faster while my health lasts!]
Lloyd wrote:
Danny, How profound and beautiful. Thank you. You should preach one Sunday, or, perhaps lead a photoprayer study/reflection group. I could imagine rich, prayerful and soulful conversation emerging from this one. I recall having mentioned to you once before. [DANNY REPLIED: You are scaring me, Lloyd! It is one thing to compose these, quite another to lead a study/reflection group. Then there is the process of publicizing the group, arranging time and place, getting institutional buy-in, etc. Let’s talk more!]
Peter wrote:
Very good! The photo reminds me of a chambered nautilus.
Craig wrote:
You left out one thing: spinning keeps politicians going too… I like the figure in the upper right. Normally you see just a straight shot down the barrel; this shoe and leg makes it different and more interesting. Another example of compositional guidelines being broken; never used to be able to cut figures
in two like that. You knotty boy you…. [DANNY REPLIED: I was, however, obeying other rules of composition such as lines to corners and rules of third. And there is another that says to uses the golden ratio to create Fibonacci spirals as found in the chambered nautilus.]
Rosemary wrote:
Loved today's photo prayer. Here is a staircase from a mansion in Shanghai's former a French Concession where we lived in 2005-09. Such a romantic city within a troubled country. Off to Italy Sunday. Ron Meick’s show [at the Washington Printmakers Gallery] looks off the charts. [DANNY REPLIED: I saw you used this photo in one of your prints that I saw Saturday at the gallery in D.C.]
