Monday, December 19, 2016

Christmas Reflection on Visible and Invisible

My friends, family and followers of The Turn-Up Patch....    Several years ago, I wrote this post and felt that this reflective message was worth repeating as we approach Christmas and the closure of 2016.  Christmas can be a time of celebration but for some, it can also be a time of sadness, depending on personal circumstances.  One profound event has and will remain a solid force despite circumstance and that is the movement of Light in the form of Jesus - the Visible and the Invisible....

The Visible - The Invisible - And Christmas
I begin this post with threads of thought that eventually leads to a pivotal event we celebrate known as Christmas.  The birth of Christ has impacted and influenced the world and its humanity that began nearly 2000 years ago.  I'd like to mesh Christmas and weave within, the dynamics we have of infrared and color, filter and illumination, the visible and the invisible.  As this occurs in our natural world, so it is spiritually.

There are complicated definitions of visible and invisible light.  Simply said, the visible light is an electromagnetic wave that the human eye can see.  It runs along a spectrum from short wavelengths of violet to longer wavelengths of red, which gives us color perceptible to our eyes.  There is another kind of light that we can't see.  This is infrared light and is a thousand times wider than that of visible light, but it is invisible to our eyes.

In photography, for an effect or artistic component, an infrared filter can be used either on the camera or in photo editing.  This filter blocks all visible light and can produce a dramatic look in transforming the subject matter in the exclusion of color to an infrared image.  The camera subject is illuminated  by infrared light and the every day scene becomes extraordinary in the absence of color.



Color -  visible light
Infrared - invisible light





















 

Illumination!   A source of light that can brighten and make clear.  All of us have had an 'aha' moment when one has a sudden insight in awareness or comprehension in understanding.  It can also be called an 'epiphany', which is any moment of great and unexpected insight or intuitiveness.  Belief is also a component of illumination -  it is the Holy Spirit filter to see into the invisible that thrusts us beyond the visible color of  human knowing.  For some, the aha or epiphany moment can lead to belief; for others, belief can be the catalyst to revelation that occurs along the way in the walk of faith.

We are just a few days short from an event that changed the course of humanity - the birth of illuminating Light that came in human form - Jesus, the Son of God, the Light of the world.    We honor the mystery, significance and magic that Christmas brings and are humbled by the fact that God, the Father of Lights, so loved the world...



You can also view at this link:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zb1AsyltkpA


from The Turn-Up Patch to each and all ~

                                           Have a Blessed and Merry Christmas! 






 

 
Until we meet again in the New Year on Monday, January 2.....


Monday, December 5, 2016

What Really Matters

Hard to believe that we are in the final month of 2016.  As many people have wondered.... where did the year go??   The endeavor to 'catch-up' is lost in the 'way-behind' category.  To live in the moment is blurred by the constant having to do.  Many of us are consoled by the fact that we are still able to do but appreciation is lost in the piling up of busyness in preparation for whatever lies ahead demanding attention.  The below quote is quite significant when a person stops to consider what is important in a moment of time....

We just finished celebrating Thanksgiving last month.... a time to remember and to thank our God for the many blessings we enjoy in these United States.  A time to reflect on what really matters.  It was Abraham Lincoln who set in motion an annual National Day of Thanksgiving in 1863 and proclaimed it to be....  'a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.'  Our 16th President goes on to say that it is... "announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord... But we have forgotten God.  We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, by the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of own...  It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people..."

Words that were spoken by President Lincoln cited spiritual ailments in his day that ring true today in the 21st century. Oh, that the human condition would evolve as quickly as the advancement of knowledge.... perhaps, time would then have a wonderful way of showing what really matters.


 Join me at The Turn-Up Patch on Monday, December 19th....