Wonder

“The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders; where morning dawns, where evening fades, you call forth songs of joy.” (Psalms 65:8)

What makes a photo personal and meaningful? What about a particular image stirs your soul and ignites your imagination? It may be the beauty of the image itself capturing the awe and wonder of a natural wonder or it might be as simple as the memory you have of the journey that it took to get to the spot for the shot. The image that I have shared today is one of my very favorites of all time not because it is particularly stunning in quality or that it captures some amazing landscape. It is a simple lake in a beautiful meadow far into the wilderness at a place called Golden Lake in the Sisters Wilderness of Oregon but what always brings me back to this one is the memories of watching these five teenage boys take in the wonder of creation for the first time. Watching the morning dawn and the evening fading over the glorious mountain peaks. Songs of joy in these boys screams of delight as we dove into an ice cold glacial lake together. The joy and wonder of watching them chase and temporarily (gently!) catch a small bird only to let it go again.

What makes this picture special is the fact that I was there at the dawn of these five boys lives as they discovered who they were as men, formed lifetime friendships, and made their own memories together. It was watching my own son discovering his own physical limits as he pushed through the final few miles of a 13 mile hike on an oven like Summer day in a burned out section of forest without adequate shade having finished his last rations of water and telling me at one point that he was completely at his physical limit. It was coaxing him the last mile and encouraging him to finish while I maintained a few final precious ounces in my own bottle as an emergency reserve for him even though I was just as thirsty!

This trip was the awe and wonder for these young men of tenting out underneath the earth shaking thunder and non stop lightning of a Central Oregon wilderness thunderstorm magnified by the sound of the thunder bouncing off the nearby cliffs of Broken Top Mountain. Five young men in the morning of their lives discovering who they were and who they would become as they raced toward becoming men. These are the kinds of memories that we should take the time to build and give to our next generation and this is one of the finest examples I can share with you of exactly why I take pictures.

I hope you have enjoyed this small glimpse today into a beautiful place and some beautiful memories. God bless… I hope you are able to have the opportunity to create some memories today with those you love!