Shutter Sisters

hymn of loss and gain

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At my church we roast marshmallows, and everyone arrives on tricycles. There are banjos, and there is woodsmoke. Everyone is loved without conditions, and nobody is judged, as long as they are kind, and that is the only rule that’s absolute. Snotty noses are welcome, as are rosy cheeks, both being great and worthy tributes to whatever universal energy sparked all this.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.

On this night a song merged with photographs and got me to thinking, and I went to my imaginary church, and hey, that’s pretty neat. It made me feel peaceful. So tonight, share with us a song informed by a photo, or a photo informed by a song—and tell us the story of why they go together.

Forgive me for issuing a challenge and not quite meeting it. I had written about Ben’s upcoming birthday, and how I’m going to do my best to appear with a Star Wars cake in one hand and the memory of Liam in the other, and it didn’t feel right. So it’s gone poof and all that’s left are some very tenuous threads from tricycles to banjos to a hymn, and now it’s 2 AM. But you’re all inventive sorts, and so I’ll leave you to just listen, and look, and knit the rest on your own.

Comments

  1. I have been humming "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" ever since I added this picture. No deep thoughts today. Pretty surface level.

  3. i love sufjan stevens. particularly around the holidays. there is something so peaceful and simple in the concept of a man playing on stage while the orchestra behind him wears wings.

    such as your photo, your words. i love that you share them here like a conversation i would love through the eyes of a friend. and the vision of you with the cake in one hand, creeping up on something so much larger in your other hand. i just see life. and how we walk through it, not with our backs turned only facing one event, but walking sideways always bringing with us the past while we glide towards the future.

    so often music goes with photos and writing for me, but this morning i’m just gonna sit with your song awhile.

  6. I love the description of your church, how true is that? Bless the gifts we are given and the by products of the expenditure of it all…snotty noses rosy cheeks, scruffed knees…touched my heart today. No photo – but thanks for this!

  9. Oh, Kate, I love that hymn and particularly Sufjan’s rendition of it…And your church of the woodsmoke and tricycles sounds perfect.

    xoxo

  16. Absolutely beautiful. Love your post. It’s touched my heart. Thank you!! I feel like I have a constant soundtrack in my head — images, words, smells, memories always seem to provoke a song that inevitably pops up. Happy Monday to you. xoxo, ~ M.

  17. I recently posted this on my blog actually, a song and photo post:
    http://sarah-ji.squarespace.com/blog/2009/4/13/what-light-for-hilary-and-temma.html

    That photo was from Easter at our church. It’s a photo of my friend Hilary cradling Temma, our pastor’s 23 year old daughter who has been profoundly disabled since she was just a few days old. Temma has never had developmental milestones. She is fed through a tube, is cortically blind, often has seizures, and parts of her body are permanently dislocated. And her parents have loved her so tenderly all these years, never even knowing if she can perceive any of it.

    Hilary, who is in the photo, has helped to take care of Temma when her parents are out of town or need a sitter. On this particular Sunday, Hilary sat w/ Temma during church because Sherrie, her mother, is the pastor and was presiding over the service, and Tim, her father, was leading the band. I remember looking over at them and just being filled to the brim because of how beautiful they both looked. It reminded me of this song by Wilco, What Light, which basically proclaims that there is a light inside all of us. It’s the first song on the Self-compassion MixTape I made as part of Brene Brown’s read-along assignment: http://www.mixpod.com/playlist/20672934

    Kate, it’s interesting you would mention your church of the banjos and woodsmoke and tricycles, because I think our church would be just as happy (for some of us, even more so) in that type of an environment.

    The light that is in me honors the light that is in you, my Sister…

  18. thanks for the link to Blip–had never heard of it and it seems like a really great concept. All of these stories+photos=songs are beautiful… thanks, commenters.

  24. i was thinking about you and ben and liam as my boys’ birthday approaches. i don;t have a picture with a song in mind, just a song that is in mind because of a woman i think of often and her lost little one and then the song you chose to share…

    here is my song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RREPLrtxI8E the words are my church.

    kisses to ben and liam.

  27. …seeing the images and hearing the music I closed my eyes and he touched my forehead and cheek with his everlasting soul. his surrounds us all always…