A Portrait of Life

Today's theme has seemed to be all about water, that ever-present element that I am so drawn to.

First, a friend and I went to Waterfront Park, a local park located along the Cooper River. I recently bought a new digital camera - a Nikon Coolpix P100, and I wanted to experiment with it. All of the pics shown within these posts, as well as my new profile pic, are pictures that were taken today with that camera.

  One of the more beautiful things about this park is the water fountain. It arcs beautifully in streams from the edges into the center.  It's a great thing to walk through on a hot summer day. 

Nature was in a very good mood this morning. In response to the late night rain, the sun had risen and made the morning nice and warm. Birds sang. Pelicans and birds I do not yet know the identities of swam in the river, digging for food and enjoying the Spring. 

After the walk in the park, we went to church. Currently, as part of its' Lenten practices, my church is holding an 8:30 AM Celtic Meditation/Contemplative service on Sundays before Conversations in Faith and the regular 11:00 Service. The service centered around water and spirit. Water is everywhere. Spirit is everywhere. The Natural World and Spiritual World are equally holy. If only more people realized this.

The Sunday School topic was "Who Killed Jesus?", a part of the "Saving Jesus" curriculum developed by the liberal theologians who also contributed to another class curriculum, "Living the Questions". It focused on Christians' history of blaming the Jews for Jesus' crucifixion, rather than who really executed him - the Romans, who were the only ones who were able to carry out death sentences. The discussion further turned to how society undermines the already underprivileged, and how much more commonly, for example, minorities are executed under capital punishment laws as compared to prisoners who came from Caucasian, middle-class backgrounds.  After Conversations in Faith, we went to the main service, which again focused on water and the spiritual connections of water.

After church, we went on a miniature graveyard tour given by one of the church members, detailing the history of the church, which I have detailed in previous posts. I took some pictures of some of the gravestones and their "soul effigies" (a Google search failed to provide me a description of the symbolism behind a soul effigy and what it is). I then took some pictures of some of the fauna as well.

After  this, we went to a local Irish restaurant and ate some lunch, before heading to the South Carolina Aquarium. This was my second time going to the aquarium, but the first time I got to really enjoy it, as the first time I visited, it was with a group of kids from work, and keeping up with a bunch of teenagers makes it hard to really enjoy such tourist attractions. I had a little more difficulty taking pictures in this setting, as it was indoors, but I still quite enjoyed it.

All in all, it was a very good day. It was a reconnection to nature, to spirit, that I needed after stresses of the week. And it reminded me once again of why I do what I do: life.