Blurb Magazine

 

When I want to publish a book online, Blurb is my go-to company. Here's their ad on the internet:

Passion + Design = Perfect Book. Make a Book. Leave Your Mark.

If you, like me, have a passion, and love to design, how can that not speak to you?

Recently, I posted a blog entitled Eternity, and my sister suggested I might add to it and turn it into a book. 

So that's what I did.

Or, more specifically, I used Blurb's magazine format to make a book.

Blurb's design and layout application, Bookwright, is downloadable, and I found it to be intuitive and user friendly. I chose the magazine format, quite honestly, because the price was remarkably low. On my first attempt, I ordered the economy magazine--20 pages for $3.99. The paper was thin, and the photos didn't have the rich saturation I had hoped for.  So I ordered another one with premium paper, still only $5.99 (plus postage, which runs high) for 20 pages, and I am very happy with the result. The cover has a soft gloss, and the colors pop off the substantial matte paper inside. Perfect.

About that passion? 

I think knowing about the next world is one of the most encouraging things in this one, and who of us can't use a little encouragement?

Linking with Our World Tuesday

A Glimpse of Eternity by Connie Smiley | Make Your Own Book

Eternity

Have you ever had one of those “glimpse of heaven” moments? The trigger may have been something as simple as clouds parting to reveal a patch of clear blue sky, or light streaming through an open window, and for a split second, you’ve ached for heaven.

Those moments can be brief and unexpected, and characterized by something close to pure joy, and then maybe there’s a small catch in your throat, and you’re left with an ache for more. I think that’s what C.S. Lewis was referring to when he said, "Our best havings are wantings".

The Bible gives us glimpses of eternity in word pictures, using things we already know and love, to give us a glimpse of the unknown. Let’s consider a few of them:

BROAD VISTAS

Your eyes will see the King in His beauty, and view a land that stretches afar.

Isaiah 33:17

WATER

...the Lord will rule there as our mighty King.

Rivers and wide streams will flow through it...

Isaiah 33:21

 
"I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the End.
To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the springs of the water of life."

Revelation 21:6

LIGHT

There will be no more night.

They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, 

for the Lord God will give them light.

Revelation 22:5

TREES

On each side of the river stood the tree of life,

bearing twelve crops of fruit, 

yielding its fruit every month.

And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

Revelation 22:2

PEACE

"The wolf and the lamb will feed together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent's food.
They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain," says the Lord.

Isaiah 65:25

Though heaven may be mysterious, God never intended the way to heaven to be a mystery. On one of Jesus' last days on earth, He had a conversation with His disciples about heaven, and Thomas voiced what a lot of people wonder about:

"Lord, we don't know where You are going, so how can we know the way?"

Jesus answered:
"I am the way and the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through Me."

John 14:5, 6

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God,
so that you may know that you have eternal life.

1 John 5:13

Then will the eyes of the blind be opened

and the ears of the deaf unstopped.

Then will the lame leap like a deer,

and the mute tongue shout for joy.

Water will gush forth in the wilderness

and streams in the desert.

Isaiah 35:5, 6

Linking with Still Saturday
Little Things Thursday
and Skywatch Friday

Heaven and the Ice Storm

2009

2012

On a recent frosty morning, Barley and I set out on our usual morning walk through the woods, Barley with his stick, me with my Nikon.  Barley is always searching for bones as I look for beauty, but on that particular morning, it was hard to look past the effects of the ice storm of January 27, 2009.  Beginning that night, three years ago, a large swath of country, from Missouri and Arkansas east, was gripped by its effects, with downed trees and power outages, which lasted in some places for as long as a month.  

2012

Before that time, I had never thought of ice as being devastating, but all that night, with over 3/4 inch of ice coating everything, large branches and trees fell to the ground, shattering with a sound like gunshots.

2009

The view from our windows the next morning was chilling, and the ground around the house was a maze of broken trees and branches.  It took months to get our grounds cleaned up. Since that time we've reclaimed a few trails through the woods, but we won't live long enough to clean up all the woods on this acreage.

Now, after all this time, the devastation in the woods is not too obvious in the summer, when leaves cover some of the damage, or at least draw the attention away, but in the winter, it can look pretty stark.  I usually point my camera away from this rubble, or crop it out, because there is always some beauty to be found.

I'm not saying this to elicit sympathy, but rather to inject a dose of reality into my sometimes rosy look at the world.  After all, we all see ugliness, in one form or another, and we deal with it in various ways.

Along with the ground nesting wildlife, and, of course, the termites and spiders, I'm growing to appreciate this old, battered woods, because it reminds me that ultimately, my hope doesn't lie in this world.  Those broken trees waken that longing in me for the place Jesus promised to those who love Him, where:

...there will be no more death, or mourning, or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.  Rev. 21:4

Your eyes will see the King in His beauty, and view a land that stretches afar. There the Lord will be our Mighty One; it will be a place of broad rivers and streams.  Isaiah 33:17, 20

 "I am going to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." John 14:2, 3

Back down to earth on that particular day, we followed the trail to a quiet, grassy opening in the woods, rimmed by cedars.  There, the ground is rocky; no trees have found a foothold. But Barley found a bone.

You could say that I found beauty that day, too, but not just the kind we see with our eyes.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen,

but on what is unseen.

For what is seen is temporary,

but what is unseen is eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:18 

Linking with Deep Roots at Home
and This or That Thursday

The Homeward Path

On this early morning, a thin layer of ice covers the pond. Before breakfast, a crow tests it cautiously. I bundle up for a walk with Barley and we are off for the hollow, the sun illuminating our breath and bringing out the highlights in Barley's golden coat.

We follow our familiar trail at first, but where it forks, we head down a path I haven't been on much since the ice storm of January, 2009. I used to walk this way a lot, with other dogs. Our 2 Yellow Labs knew our trails well. In fact, Baxter had a tremendous instinct for finding her way around the woods. Whenever I got off the path, all I had to say was, "Baxter, we're going home", and she'd take me right back to the trail. It's good to follow a dog who knows the way home. Barley is new to this route, but he is imprinting all this information, and soon will know his way around the woods better than Don and I do.

We wind our way through trees and deadfall, only guessing where the path used to be, until we get to the winterberry trees, which still stand just south and west of the spot where the path used to slope down sharply into the hollow. Deer had bedded under those trees recently, and a well worn deer path follows our old trail from the trees to the hollow.

In the hollow, we stand and listen to the quiet. Barley's breathing is the only sound at first, then there's the beat of wings, and soon songbirds rise from the undergrowth, flying away as we advance. Cardinals flash their crimson feathers, and juncos flare their black and white tails like pleated skirts.

We head for home, Barley running ahead. When I get back to the yard, he's already there waiting for me. At my approach, he stands up, wagging his tail in welcome. It reminds me of another homecoming.

My mother died 3 years ago, and the memory is still fresh, of Mom, in her bed, looking small and frail, her family gathered around her. We held her hands and talked about treasured memories, and sang her favorite hymns. When we got to "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms", she flew away to heaven, following the One who knows the way home. And when she got there, I like to think He stood to greet her.

I am the way...

Jesus/John 14:6

First posted on 12/8/10

Longing For Rain

It was hot yesterday, 

in a string of so many hot days it was impossible to remember winter.  

At the pond, the air was alive with dragonflies, 

zipping back and forth like errant kites on a string, seemingly energized by the heat.

  Hummingbirds, too, were active, massing at the feeders morning and evening.

This morning early,

clouds cover the sky and a rare breeze blows from the north,

cooling the air and bringing the vultures out to soar overhead.  

A patch of blue opens in the dark sky,

and I long for heaven.

In the meantime, we long for rain.

                                        

Frames

A few years ago, Don and I were having lunch with a friend of ours, a doctor, in a local cafe. Don had just brokered a deal in which the doctor had purchased a piece of property on the lake.  Having seen the property recently, I mentioned how beautiful it was, with sunlight sparkling on the lake through the trees.  The doctor turned to Don with a twinkle in his eyes, and said, "you know those artists, always putting a frame around something".

I suppose I'm guilty of that.  I'm often looking for something with which to frame a photograph or painting, and I do it in my mind without even being conscious of it.  We're encouraged by the popular adage to "think outside the box", which, at times, is very valuable. Last night, for instance, Don and I enjoyed watching the iconic movie, Field of Dreams which is definately an "outside the box" kind of film.  It removes the "frame" of time and space.

But it seems to me that there are many circumstances in which it is appropriate, even advantageous, to think inside the box, or, if you will, the frame.  Frames make things simpler, they isolate a manageable amount of information.  The noted 19th century German calligrapher, typographic artist and teacher, Rudolf Koch, put it this way: "the spirit needs fetters, freedom needs order, imagination needs solid matter".

We sense the whisper of Spring's approach in the song of the tree frogs, in daffodils pushing their way up from the soil, and in the return of the red-winged blackbird.  Just today I heard the cry of geese overhead, and looked up to see a large ragged formation flying north.  Their flight, which seems so free, fits into the frame of ancient established patterns.

I think it's only in heaven that there are not only limitless possibilities, but also limitless actualities.  Our friend, the doctor, left us recently, after a battle with cancer, to fly to heaven, where, we're told, there is "no more death or mourning or crying or pain".  And, quite possibly, I think, no more frames.