Laying Foundations

Coldfront

There’s a cold front coming through here out of the blue. I was feeling chilly, having chills, and fearing the worst when I noticed the weather was simply changing. I still don’t feel great. But – praise God for the glorious skies.

We had internet put into place both at St. Micheal and at St. Jane. (Gosh this place needs a ton of work.)

Some Parishes are prerecording their live streams – we’re not. We throw caution to the wind, hit “Record”, and pray!

Who’d have thought that instead of preparing for the Triduum and the many events in the last days of Lent which we’re certainly still doing – we’d be learning how to live-stream and communicate an abundance of information to you without seeing most of you at any point at all. Go figure!

This cold front though. So nice. So odd. So April.

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Action Shots

At the Altar of God

At the Altar of God

I’d like to think I don’t look like this all the time during the middle of Mass. We needed some photos for an upcoming project, ran over to the Church and launched right into an impromptu photo shoot. It was sudden, fast, abrupt… and I kept chuckling. But, prayerfully.

At the Altar of God Redux

Fr. Kevin on the other hand, he’s a seasoned pro.

oldchurch

But seeing pics of the Church always brings me back to wanting to do a historic renovation. What did they do for light? And airflow? We have hanging ceiling fan/lights, and the fans come in very handy. So do the lights! It’s a place of mystery…

St. Jane in the Fog

Paella Day

paella

Because it’s the end of summer, and because I’m cleaning and reorganizing everything from the ground up in general, and because I’m ready to tackle every project hanging over my head and conquer it victoriously… I’m cleaning up my dusty, musty website here.

In doing so, I found some old directories filled with photos for friends to look through. My site is filled with hidden directories where I send links for friends to look through photos…

One of them was for Paella Day. If you have to guess, some friends invited me over for paella. With all of the problems in the world today, sometimes it’s best to relish the simple joys of a meal with friends.

My photoshop skills make it look like something out of a 1970’s Dixie-Roto Magazine. But, what? I’m progressing slowly but surely in my mad photoshop skills.

tasty paella

Sort of.

I often imagine morphing my strange, photo diary of a website into something a bit more meaningful and insightful, like Daniel Greenfield, Lisa Graas, Fr. Z, or The Anchoress. But the reality is, that’s really not where I’m led in prayer at the moment. And I don’t have that level of political expertise, although I’m well informed and certainly have a world of opinions.

For now, I’m pleased to be cleaning things up, tying up loose ends, and bringing closure in many areas. Frankly, that’s where I’m at.

Ciao.

Old Oak in Abita

grand old oak tree

This is an oak tree in Abita Springs, near one of our parishioner’s farms. I posted this on Instagram and Facebook.

I’ve driven past if before, but for whatever reason I just didn’t take note of it. And this time, it’s not that anything was really different; it’s in the middle of the day so the light was pretty direct. It was hot as blazes and I wasn’t really paying attention… Then, bam! I careened to a stop, backed up and snapped this from the auto (a very bad habit, don’t start. I was pulled over in Kansas for taking photos from my car, though the officer admitted there wasn’t anything wrong with it. “It’s just strange,” he said. So of course, I said.. “Well what’s strange about it?”

It’s true that most people get out of their cars to take photos, and I usually do. But a lot of photographers will do things like stand on their car hoods, and I don’t do that for any number of reasons. I’m tall and don’t need too, too heavy and my car doesn’t need that. Etc.

Thankfully we ended up having a good laugh and I drove on; but I didn’t take any more pictures from my car for quite awhile. That was in Greensburg, Kansas, by the way, two years after their devastating tornado, and it reminded me so much of Katrina reconstruction. And in fact it was after Katrina that the whole photo-snapping-from-the-car-window thing started, since you often could not get out of your car to take photos. I know, you’re tired of hearing about Katrina, and so am I, I’m just scarred. Deeply scarred.)

I’ve been looking for a good subject to photograph and experiment with wall art, like a blown up canvas print. I’ll keep you posted, still so much to learn – in art, in life, in faith.

The Rev. Kenneth Allen