It’s been 20+ years now, but I’ll never forget my telephone interview with several people on the campus of the University of Louisiana Monroe, at that time Northeast Louisiana University. Like a good job candidate, I had done some online research and viewed a number of photographs of the campus. So when they invited me to ask them questions, I had one ready. “Are there any fish in the river that runs through campus?” I asked. They laughed. And then, in unison, they said, “That’s not a river. That’s a bayou.” Black Bayou Lake was formed when the railroad tracks…

The Sierpe River flows from the mountains of central Costa Rica into the Pacific Ocean. But it is far from a “straight shot.” “Sierpe” comes from “serpiente,” Spanish for “snake.” The river is true to its name, it’s voluptuous coils most visible from the air. Life is like this. The distance between two points is rarely a straight line, getting from here to there often involves wandering in the wilderness for a time. But #go we must, wherever divine love leads us.

The hiking trail through Alexander State Forest in south central Louisiana runs along the convoluted shore of Indian Creek Reservoir. Walking it on a summer afternoon, I occasionally glimpsed water through the trees, and on one of those occasions, purple flowers on tall stalks. Pickerel weed! I left the trail and made my way carefully over fallen wood and through thick brush to the water’s edge, planted my feet carefully and leaned out over the shallow inlet to get the best possible shot of the flowers. I shot several frames, adjusting focus and angle slightly and then, without moving my…

It’s a weed. Really, it is. It grows in a road ditch a few minutes from my house. It’s also what author Barbara Brown Taylor would call “an altar in the world.” I mean, look at it! Look at the architecture, the shapes, colors and textures. It once wore a small corolla of yellow petals to seduce the pollinators. Now the curvaceous “belly,” with its flirtatious tutu of re-curved sepals, holds the next generation of the plant. Look closely. Do you see that another tiny creature has made its home here? Maybe more than one! I’m guessing the spider responsible…

Pray. Pray? Pray! It is impossible to come up with one photo to carry the weight of an Advent reflection on the word #pray. The reason is really quite simple. Every time I raise my camera and turn it toward creation is a prayer. It’s a prayer of wonder, a prayer of adoration, for sure. It’s also a prayerful interaction between creatures, a communication, if you will, grounded in the common source that animates us. I mean that even if the other creature is a tree, or even a rock. It’s a prayer of respect, and occasionally, it’s a prayer…