This last month and a half has been quite busy and I brought down the level of activity with a retreat in southwestern Indiana last week.

This was at Willow Pond Retreat, a small retreat center owned by Charles and Sarah Gipson.  Charles had been pastor at Church of the Saviour in Indianapolis in the period just before my wife and I joined that community.  I was at the retreat center for several days and while I spent a lot of time photographing the beautiful landscape, I found myself concentrating on the one acre pond that is part of the retreat center and within the pond, just along the shore.

Leaves in water are fascinating.

I suppose one could see melancholy in photographing in the autumn but it is enormously inspiring to me.

Inspiring because there is beauty in both the life and death of these leaves and beyond that, regeneration will follow.

Is this a metaphor for our own lives?  We can see beauty in life all around us and my mother in some respects became even more beautiful as she was dying.  Mom remains as a gift that will be with me for the rest of my life.

But what about regeneration, life after death?  My religion teaches that there is life beyond but I can’t speak from personal experience.

All I can say for sure is that there is life here and now and our sacred job is to live it.  Thank you, Charles and Sarah.