It’s official….I have a new website ~ sojournerphoto.com.

It all started a couple of months ago, when Brando was here and took a look at my blog…he wasn’t impressed. Well, the content was fine, just he didn’t like the look. He said, “Mom let me make you a real website.” So that started me thinking, and that’s always a bit dangerous. And in anticipation of some life changes, I really thought it would be a good idea to have a new site. But as I told you before, I lost my old domain name to a hooker…sniff, sniff, and coming up with a new one seemed to have me stalled at the starting gate.

And then Brando started school again, and poof! webmaster gone. I’m sure if I begged and nagged and waited patiently for a break, he would have done it eventually. Might have cost me a lot of garlic chicken/bacon/avo/provolone sandwiches is all. But I didn’t even want to bug him. I know what summer school is like. So finally, I decided, I’m going to try. Scary. What I know about web stuff, php, html, blah, blah, blah…uh…nada. But where angels dare to tread, fools rush in. Well, I didn’t exactly rush. More like held my breath, crossed my fingers, prayed a lot, and then after a month or so, took the plunge. Did the domain, webhosting, set up pages etc., added content, even set up google ads…..drumroll please…ALL BY MYSELF! Seriously. And it works. I think. And it looks pretty dang good considering I did it, not Brando.

So come visit me at my new home. Click on everything and let me know if anything doesn’t work. Take a look around and let me know what you think. I’d really like some feedback. Or Kudos. Cause I’m pretty darn proud of myself. Four years ago, all I knew about computers was how to turn one on.

The new site is all photos, all the time. I’ll come back here and write periodically, but for now, I’m concentrating on the photo front…and I think that’s good. I had 407 hits yesterday, my first day. Happy. Very happy.

Oh, and if you subscribe…please add the new site to your feed-reader. Well, even if you don’t subscribe, feel free to add it anyway. 8~)

Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance.
- John Ruskin

Mom’s garden is absolutely glorious. The Master Gardeners came and toured Thursday, and they really loved it – stayed for ever, just wandering around taking it all in. And the view from the porch or the swing under the trees is spectacular. I’ve been out taking photos everyday…usually fill at least two cards, some days three…that’s, um…12Gs a day. Yikes. No wonder I’ve used up all of Darlings space. Must delete or move tons to the external right away.

I have been trying to get some finished and posted, but I’m just way behind. But I hope to be sharing a lot of them in the next couple of weeks. Mom literally has hundreds of varieties blooming, and I just can’t get to it all at once. Here are a few from this week. Go to my smugmug, by clicking on any image, if you want to see a photo in large or to see more. Or if you just want to leave a note for mom to congratulate her or tell her which ones you like. And if you’re in Tyler….stop by and enjoy the garden. It’s fantastic.

This is not an actual blog post. I was just chatting with a friend and referred to an article that I couldn’t locate at the moment, so I promised to find it and send it to her. Found it. But then I thought, hey, it would be nice to not have to search google if I wanted to find it again….love is not a term you want to enter into a search engine….trust me on this. So wallah…copy and paste and I’ll know where it is next time.

From: The Five Love Languages, by Gary Chapman

She showed up at my office without an appointment and asked my secretary if she could see me for five minutes. I had known Janice for eighteen years. She was thirty-six and had never married. She had dated several men through the years, one for six years, another for three years, and several others for shorter periods of time. From time to time, she had made appointments with me to discuss a particular difficulty in one of her relationships. She was by nature a disciplined, conscientious, organized, thoughtful, and caring person. It was completely out of character for her to show up at my office unannounced. I thought, There must be some terrible crisis for Janice to show up without an appointment. I told my secretary to show her in, and I fully expected to see her burst into tears and tell me some tragic story as soon as the door was closed. Instead, she virtually skipped into my office, beaming with excitement.

“How are you today, Janice?” I asked.

“Great!” she said. “I’ve never been better in my life. I’m getting married!”

“You are?” I said, revealing my shock. “To whom and when?”

“To David Gallespie,” she exclaimed, “in September.”

“That’s exciting. How long have you been dating?”

“Three weeks. I know it’s crazy, Dr. Chapman, after all the people I have dated and the number of times I came so close to getting married. I can’t believe it myself, but I know David is the one for me. From the first date, we both knew it. Of course, we didn’t talk about it on the first night, but one week later, he asked me to marry him. I knew he was going to ask me, and I knew I was going to say yes. I have never felt this way before, Dr. Chapman. You know about the relationships that I have had through the years and the struggles I have had. In every relationship, something was not right. I never felt at peace about marrying any of them, but I know that David is the right one.”

By this time, Janice was rocking back and forth in her chair, giggling and saying, “I know it’s crazy, but I am so happy. I have never been this happy in my life.”

What has happened to Janice? She has fallen in love. In her mind, David is the most wonderful man she has ever met. He is perfect in every way. He will make the ideal husband. She thinks about him day and night. The facts that David has been married twice before, has three children, and has had three jobs in the past year are trivial to Janice. She’s happy, and she is convinced that she is going to be happy forever with David. She is in love.

Most of us enter marriage by way of the “in love” experience. We meet someone whose physical characteristics and personality traits create enough electrical shock to trigger our “love alert” system. The bells go off, and we set in motion the process of getting to know the person. The first step may be sharing a hamburger or steak, depending on our budget, but our real interest is not in the food. We are on a quest to discover love. “Could this warm, tingly feeling I have inside be the ‘real’ thing?”

Sometimes we lose the tingles on the first date. We find out that she dips snuff, and the tingles run right out our toes; we want no more hamburgers with her. Other times, however, the tingles are stronger after the hamburger than before. We arrange for a few more “together” experiences, and before long the level of intensity has increased to the point where we find ourselves saying, “I think I’m falling in love.” Eventually we are convinced that it is the “real thing,” and we tell the other person, hoping the feeling is reciprocal. If it isn’t, things cool off a bit or we redouble our efforts to impress, and eventually win the love of, our beloved. When it is reciprocal, we start talking about marriage because everyone agrees that being “in love” is the necessary foundation for a good marriage.

At its peak, the “in love” experience is euphoric. We are emotionally obsessed with each other. We go to sleep thinking of one another. When we rise that person is the first thought on our minds. We long to be together. Spending time together is like playing in the anteroom of heaven. When we hold hands, it seems as if our blood flows together. We could kiss forever if we didn’t have to go to school or work. Embracing stimulates dreams of marriage and ecstasy.

The person who is “in love” has the illusion that his beloved is perfect. His mother can see the flaws but he can’t. His mother says, “Darling, have you considered she has been under psychiatric care for five years?” But he replies, “Oh, Mother, give me a break. She’s been out for three months now.” His friends also can see the flaws but are not likely to tell him unless he asks, and chances are he won’t because in his mind she is perfect and what others think doesn’t matter.

Our dreams before marriage are of marital bliss: “We are going to make each other supremely happy. Other couples may argue and fight, but not us. We love each other.” Of course, we are not totally naive. We know intellectually that we will eventually have differences. But we are certain that we will discuss those differences openly, one of us will always be willing to make concessions, and we will reach agreement. It’s hard to believe anything else when you are in love.

We have been led to believe that if we are really in love, it will last forever. We will always have the wonderful feelings that we have at this moment. Nothing could ever come between us. Nothing will ever overcome our love for each other. We are enamored and caught up in the beauty and charm of the other’s personality. Our love is the most wonderful thing we have ever experienced. We observe that some married couples seem to have lost that feeling, but it will never happen to us. “Maybe they did not have the real thing,” we reason.

Unfortunately, the eternality of the “in love” experience is fiction, not fact. Dr. Dorothy Tennov, a psychologist, has done long-range studies on the in-love phenomenon. After studying scores of couples, she concluded that the average life span of a romantic obsession is two years. If it is a secretive love affair, it may last a little longer. Eventually, however, we all descend from the douds and plant our feet on earth again. Our eyes are opened, and we see the warts of the other person. We recognize that some of his/her personality traits are actually irritating. Her behavior patterns are annoying. He has the capacity for hurt and anger, perhaps even harsh words and critical judgments. Those little traits that we overlooked when we were in love now become huge mountains. We remember Mother’s words and ask ourselves, How could I have been so foolish?

Welcome to the real world of marriage, where hairs are always on the sink and little white spots cover the mirror, where arguments center on which way the tissue paper comes off and whether the lid should be up or down. It is a world where shoes do not walk to the doset and drawers do not close themselves, where coats do not like hangers and socks go AWOL during laundry. In this world, a look can hurt and a word can crush. Intimate lovers can become enemies, and marriage a battlefield.

What happened to the “in love” experience? Alas, it was but an illusion by which we were tricked into signing our names on the dotted line, for better or for worse. No wonder so many have come to curse marriage and the partner whom they once loved. After all, if we were deceived, we have a right to be angry. Did we really have the “real” thing? I think so. The problem was faulty information.

The bad information was the idea that the “in love” obsession would last forever. We should have known better. A casual observation should have taught us that if people remained obsessed, we would all be in serious trouble. The shock waves would rumble through business, industry, church, education, and the rest of society. Why? Because people who are “in love” lose interest in other pursuits. That is why we call it “obsession.” The college student who falls head over heels in love sees his grades tumbling. It is difficult to study when you are in love. Tomorrow you have a test on the War of 1812, but who cares about the War of 1812? When you’re in love, everything else seems irrelevant.

A man said to me, “Dr. Chapman, my job is disintegrating.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I met this girl, fell in love, and I can’t get a thing done. I can’t keep my mind on my job. I spend my day dreaming about her.”

The euphoria of the “in love” state gives us the illusion that we have an intimate relationship. We feel that we belong to each other. We believe we can conquer all problems. We feel altruistic toward each other. As one young man said about his fiancee, “I can’t conceive of doing anything to hurt her. My only desire is to make her happy. I would do anything to make her happy.” Such obsession gives us the false sense that our egocentric attitudes have been eradicated and we have become sort of a Mother Teresa, willing to give anything for the benefit of our lover. The reason we can do that so freely is that we sincerely believe that our lover feels the same way toward us. We believe that she is committed to meeting our needs, that he loves us as much as we love him and would never do anything to hurt US.

That thinking is always fanciful. Not that we are insincere in what we think and feel, but we are unrealistic. We fail to reckon with the reality of human nature. By nature, we are egocentric. Our world revolves around us. None of us is totally altruistic. The euphoria of the “in love” experience only gives us that illusion.

Once the experience of falling in love has run its natural course (remember, the average in-love experience lasts two years), we will return to the world of reality and begin to assert ourselves. He will express his desires, but his desires will be different from hers. He desires sex, but she is too tired. He wants to buy a new car, but she says, “That’s absurd!” She wants to visit her parents, but he says, “I don’t like spending so much time with your family.” He wants to play in the softball tournament, and she says, “You love softball more than you love me.” Little by little, the illusion of intimacy evaporates, and the individual desires, emotions, thoughts, and behavior patterns exert themselves. They are two individuals. Their minds have not melted together, and their emotions mingled only briefly in the ocean of love. Now the waves of reality begin to separate them. They fall out of love, and at that point either they withdraw, separate, divorce, and set off in search of a new in-love experience, or they begin the hard work of learning to love each other without the euphoria of the in-love obsession.

The in-love experience does not focus on our own growth nor on the growth and development of the other person. Rather, it gives us the sense that we have arrived.

Some researchers, among them psychiatrist M. Scott Peck and psychologist Dorothy Tennov, have concluded that the in-love experience should not be called “love” at all. Dr. Tennov coined the word “limerance” for the in-love experience in order to distinguish that experience from what she considers real love.

Dr. Peck concludes that the falling in love experience is not real love for three reasons. First, falling in love is not an act of the will or a conscious choice. No matter how much we may want to fall in love, we cannot make it happen. On the other hand, we may not be seeking the experience when it overtakes us. Often, we fall in love at inopportune times and with unlikely people.

Second, falling in love is not real love because it is effortless. Whatever we do in the in-love state requires little discipline or conscious effort on our part. The long, expensive phone calls we make to each other, the money we spend traveling to see each other, the gifts we give, the work projects we do are as nothing to us. As the instinctual nature of the bird dictates the building of a nest, so the instinctual nature of the in-love experience pushes us to do outlandish and unnatural things for each other.

Third, one who is “in love” is not genuinely interested in fostering the personal growth of the other person. “If we have any purpose in mind when we fall in love it is to terminate our own loneliness and perhaps ensure this result through marriage.” The in-love experience does not focus on our own growth or on the growth and development of the other person. Rather, it gives us the sense that we have arrived and that we do not need further growth. We are at the apex of life’s happiness, and our only desire is to stay there. Certainly our beloved does not need to grow because she is perfect. We simply hope she will remain perfect.

If falling in love is not real love, what is it? Dr. Peck concludes that it “is a genetically determined instinctual component of mating behavior. In other words, the temporary collapse of ego boundaries that constitutes falling in love is a stereotypic response of human beings to a configuration of internal sexual drives and external sexual stimuli, which serves to increase the probability of sexual pairing and bonding so as to enhance the survival of the species.”

Whether or not we agree with that conclusion, those of us who have fallen in love and out of love will likely agree that the experience does catapult us into emotional orbit unlike anything else we have experienced. It tends to disengage our reasoning abilities, and we often find ourselves doing and saying things that we would never have done in more sober moments. In fact, when we come down from the emotional obsession we often wonder why we did those things. When the wave of emotions subsides and we come back to the real world where our differences are illuminated, how many of us have asked, “Why did we get married? We don’t agree on anything”? Yet, at the height of the in-loveness, we thought we agreed on everything — at least everything that was important.

Does that mean that having been tricked into marriage by the illusion of being in love, we are now faced with two options: (1) we are destined to a life of misery with our partner, or (2) we must jump ship and try again? Our generation has opted for the latter, whereas an earlier generation often chose the former. Before we automatically conclude that we have made the better choice, perhaps we should examine the data. Presently 40 percent of first marriages in this country end in divorce. Sixty percent of second marriages and 75 percent of third marriages end the same way. Apparently the prospect of a happier marriage the second and third time around is not substantial.

Research seems to indicate that there is a third and better alternative: we can recognize the in-love experience for what it was — a temporary emotional high — and now pursue “real love” with our partner. That kind of love is emotional in nature but not obsessional. It is a love that unites reason and emotion. It involves an act of the will and requires discipline, and it recognizes the need for personal growth. Our most basic emotional need is not to fall in love but to be genuinely loved by another, to know a love that grows out of reason and choice, not nstinct. I need to be loved by someone who chooses to love me, who sees in me something worth loving.

That kind of love requires effort and discipline. It is the choice to expend energy in an effort to benefit the other person, knowing that if his or her life is enriched by your effort, you too will find a sense of satisfaction–the satisfaction of having genuinely loved another. It does not require the euphoria of the “in love” experience. In fact, true love cannot begin until the “in love” experience has run its course.

We cannot take credit for the kind and generous things we do while under the influence of “the obsession.” We are pushed and carried along by an instinctual force that goes beyond our normal behavior patterns. But if, once we return to the real world of human choice, we choose to be kind and generous, THAT is real love.

The emotional need for love must be met if we are to have emotional health. Married adults long to feel affection and love from their partners. We feel secure when we are assured that our mate accepts us, wants us, and is committed to our well-being. During the in-love stage, we felt all of those emotions. It was heavenly while it lasted. Our mistake was in thinking it would last forever.

But that obsession was not meant to last forever. In the textbook of marriage, it is but the introduction. The heart of the book is rational, volitional love. That is the kind of love to which the sages have always called us. It is intentional.

That is good news to the married couple who have lost all of their “in love” feelings. If love is a choice, then they have the capacity to love after the “in love” obsession has died and they have returned to the real world. That kind of love begins with an attitude — a way of thinking. Love is the attitude that says, “I am married to you, and I choose to look out for your interests.” Then the one who chooses to love will find appropriate ways to express that decision.

“But it seems so sterile,” some may contend. “Love as an attitude with appropriate behavior? Where are the shooting stars, the balloons, the deep emotions? What about the spirit of anticipation, the twinkle of the eye, the electricity of a kiss, the excitement of sex? What about the emotional security of knowing that I am number one in his/her mind?”

That is what The Five Love Languages (Dr. Gary Chapman) is all about. How do we meet each other’s deep, emotional need to feel loved? If we can learn that and choose to do it, then the love we share will be exciting beyond anything we ever felt when we were infatuated.

When your partner’s emotional love tank is full and he or she feels secure in your love, the whole world looks bright and your partner will move out to reach his highest potential in life. But when the love tank is empty and he or she feels used but not loved, the whole world looks dark and they will likely never reach their potential for good in the world. Discovering your partner’s primary love language can make your efforts at love most productive.

I went out shooting with my two favorite photographers this weekend: Bran & Krista. We wandered around in a Mexican neighborhood downtown, met some really nice people, but unfortunately not one of us can speak Spanish worth diddly squat. Tragic. So frustrating.

I decided that the downside to shooting with other people is I tend to be too distracted and don’t take enough time on my shots or pay enough attention to what I’m doing, and end up disappointed. The upside is it’s really fun to see what they got under the exact same circumstances. We just all see things so differently, and have such different styles. That’s fun.

But I managed to get more shots I liked than I thought at the time. And Brando was unusually co-operative on the modeling front, and I got some of him I love. That’s a real treat. Here are a couple of my favorites. Click on any one if you want to go see the rest in the gallery.

My all time favorite biography, Radiant Glory, is the life story of a woman named Martha Wing Robinson. She was just such an inspiration to me, for many reasons. But most importantly, it was the first biography I ever read that I could say, “Wow. This person is like me.” That was such a wonderful thing. I just kept reading it every year, cause it would just speak to me, reassure me….well on a lot of fronts.

So, the first winter I lived in KC, I was on my way to work one day in a horrible snow storm and had a wreck. I should insert here, that I’m not afraid of many things, but driving in the snow is the ONE THING that terrifies me. When I was 18, I was driving my little Capri and had a head-on collision with a Jeep that went out of control on the snow and crossed to my side – no place for me to go on the mountain road. I was trapped in my car until they could cut me out. Terrifying.

Back to KC… I found myself reliving that moment. Big car out of control, coming right at my little truck, nothing I could do. Next thing I knew, boom, I was spinning and covered in coffee. After my sweet little truck was towed away, I stood on the side of the road in the silence of the falling snow and bawled like a baby. Finally, I called a friend and asked her to pick me up. She was on her way to take groceries to an elderly couple in their 90’s she had heard about, that were shut in because of the storm. I ended up going with her and that’s how I met Bob and Nina Lyon.

Ok, this is why that is so cool. Martha Wing Robinson had no children, but her spiritual son was Hans Waldvogel. Han’s, never married, but his spiritual son was Bob. Bob and Nina had no children, but they adopted me as one of their spiritual children. Bob had lived in MWR’s Faith Home! He was connected with my hero. For the next 6 years, they mentored me, and I cared for them…cooked, cleaned, laundered, shopped, ran errands, doctor’s appointments, etc.

I would go 3 days a week and we would wait on the Lord for a few hours, I would read to them, and then we talked. I asked him anything and everything, and it was as important as the education I got at school. In some ways, maybe more so. Bob was at the end of the journey, ya know. He had seen it all come and go more than once, had been there to see the mistakes and the failures, as well as the successes. And he had spent years in prayer…he had wisdom that you can only get by living 98 years!

Bob started out, in his 20’s, with Aimee Semple McPherson. Then he lived in the Faith Homes and worked with Hans in New York. He traveled all over Europe after the War, doing evangelistic stuff. He knew all the “famous” evangelists and healers of his day: F.F. Bosworth, John G. Lake, William Branham, Jack Coe, A.A. Allen, T.L. Osbourn, etc. He had survived the craziness…the pitfalls that are inevitable with bad theology, that many of his contemporaries had succumbed to. He shared with me how Martha, and Hans, and then he himself had all dealt with those things. In the age we live in, I think that, more than anything else has been valuable in guiding me.

Anyway, I’ve just been thinking about how sometimes things happen…things we fear, or things we think are horrible. But I’ve lived long enough now to get some perspective as well. And I know that sometimes it’s out of those circumstances that the most wonderful things come to us. Actually some of God’s best gifts come from the ashes. Knowing that has changed the way I face my fears, difficult situations, disappointments, trials and afflictions. I’m not saying it makes them fun. It just changes my attitude towards them. I’ve come to not only look for, but to actually expect the silver linings.

I was thinking today of something Nina said to me. I wrote it in one of the little notebooks I always carry for jotting stuff down. She said, “If anyone says it’s easy, they haven’t been there. The walk of faith…of waiting on the Lord, is never easy. But it’s good.”

Brando came for the weekend, and as always we had fun and I learned new things. I love it that these days I probably learn more from him than vice versa. And as always he told me like it was….he didn’t like my new blog layout at all. I explained that I was bored, and needed a change, but he made the argument that change just for change’s sake when the change is not as good as the original is silly. Can’t argue with logic like that. So I put everything back to the original. He’s right. It is better.

Of course his real solution was to let him just design a decent website for me again. I would like that better looks wise and all. And he could put my blog and smugmug all together which would rock. But I’d be dependent on him to make any changes. Plus, I lost my old domain name. To a hooker! I can’t find one I like now. Decisions, decisions.

So meanwhile I’ll live with this one. But when I put everything back, I realized I’d never posted the link for the New Zealand slideshow. So that’s fixed as well. All the slideshows are on that little button on the right that says Me Two…if you want to see them.

So Bran’s back in Dallas. But tonight I got an urgent call from him. He said, “Mom, I need your advice with a critical decision on a potentially life altering situation. I’m at Wal-Mart to get cooler packs for my lunch box. So tell me, if you were a hot chick and you met me in the park while I was eating my lunch…which would be more disturbing: a Hannah Montana ice pack or a Sponge Bob Square Pants one?”

Uh……..ok, this is proof that some questions do not have a correct answer. But at least he still needs me for something. Even if it’s only to share a good laugh together.

I hardly ever take sunset photos. Not sure why. I think because I mostly just want to enjoy it in the moment. But I loved seeing this one through the lace of trees.

“Hi, my name is Sylvia and I’m a stats junkie.”

“Hi Sylvia.”

It all started a few years ago when I posted a few photos on flickr and a total stranger looked at them. I thought it was a fluke at first and kinda neat. But then, everyday, the numbers grew. Pretty soon I was making Explore almost daily and the numbers made me feel pretty high. Then the day came that I posted a photo and it was viewed 95,000 times in the first hour. I was transfixed. Just sat in front of Melian, clicking every 30 seconds to watch view stats increase in 500-1,000 increments. The feeling I got knowing that many people just looked at my photo in the last 30 seconds was pretty heady. It made me feel like I must actually be a good photographer. Pathetic, I know.

And then there are all those mile markers along the way…500,000 views. One million. Fifty photos in Explore. Then 100, 200… 25 #1 photos of the day, out of the more than half a million uploaded daily. Fortunately, flickr only posts the interesting stats once a day, so I wasn’t tempted to be fixated by them. When I moved to smugmug, their stats are totally different, updated continuously, but I still need my nightly little looksee.

I didn’t realize it was an addiction until three days ago. Stats stopped working. After the second day, I checked the forums and sure enough, they are down. All they say is they are revamping them, and they’ll be back as soon as they can get the changes made. Now I want to check 20 times a day and see if they are fixed.

Really, why should I care about those meaningless, empty, yet oh so tempting numbers. No big number of views compares even slightly to when Brando says, “Good one mom.” Yeah, he’s such a charmer isn’t he? But the fact that he isn’t easily impressed, and that he reserves his praise for when he thinks it’s really merited makes it meaningful. And when he actually prints one out, frames it and hangs it on his wall, I know it’s great. A half dozen of those are worth all the stats on internets.

I’ve finally reached the point where I’m confident enough with my photo skills to say, well I’m pleased with it and that’s enough.

So who needs stats? Apparently I do. I want them back! Somebody, send me some love. Quick. Before I do something drastic I’ll regret. Like pull out the credit card and go back to flickr. Save me. Please.

If you just signed a waver stipulating that if a giant truck driven by a redneck goes out of control and harms you, blah, blah, blah…and you are hearing engines revved up to deafening decibel levels for no other reason than because they can…and you’ve heard a rebel yell and seen more than one confederate flag…you just might be at the East Texas mudbog. The relevant question is: why? Uh, cause Krista said it would be fun. She was right.

Well, truthfully once you’ve seen one good ol’ boy drive his truck into a mud pit and get stuck, pretty much might as well have seen them all. Yeah, not really sure what the excitement with that is all about. But the people watching is primo! Especially if you have a camera and love interacting with and observing other cultures.

I told Krista, “I’ll be happy if I get a dozen good shots.” I exceeded my expectations…got 21 solid ones. Here’s a couple of my favs.

Oh, yeah, trucks and mud. Almost forgot.

If you want to see more, just click on any photo and it will take you to the gallery.