Coming soon... Eranus!

As a perk to the rental of the lens this week, I took a couple of shots for my friend's nonprofit website that I'm building for him.

It's coming soon, we still have to transfer everything over to his hosting company and register a domain name, but for now, here are some of the opening shots from the front page:

Woodruff Family

My sister asked if I could take her family's Christmas card pictures this year. Of course I said yes... and used it as an excuse to rent a toy for the weekend... an f/4 L 24-205mm lens. Oh, my goodness, I am in love!

Loving without strings

Sometimes we have a problem loving without strings.

I think this is because we're taught from a very early age to not get screwed over, so we want to make sure everyone/thing feels balanced and equal.

But that's not very biblical, is it?

We absolutely should love without strings. We should show love to others no matter what the price to ourselves.

Why we love the New Testament

Talk to any Old Testament scholar, and they will tell you the church by far does not concentrate enough on these texts. They will tell you that without this earliest of histories of the church, we cannot fully comprehend the stories of the early church (i.e. New Testament). While I agree with them on so many of these counts (please read your Old Testament! Learn about Covenants and Levitical law!), I have redacted why exactly we love the New Testament so much. Both good and bad.

• New Testament is a quick, easy read-While I feel Numbers is very important in understanding the exodus fully (who knew?), you have to get past all of those censuses and names that, to us, seem to mean nothing
• New Testament is one big, bad, life application book-Do this, don't do that, love the Lord, etc... Truly, and unfortunately, we only tend to read the Bible for what it's going to give us in a tough time. If you need to know how to make a decision, you probably won't be surfing in the part of the Bible that tells you not to mix meat and milk (PS-there is life application in the OT as well... In case you weren't aware, just read Deuteronomy)
• We secretly like to hear people getting yelled at-Paul was all about scolding some people for their bad habits. OK, so maybe "all about" is a little unfair, but let's face it, the New Testament is filled with Paul's letters talking to the sinners of the early church about what they do wrong.
• If you love science fiction-Revelation, 'nuff said