Digital Love

Friday night I bit the bullet and purchased the Canon EOS Rebel XTi DSLR. I love the hefty feel of this camera. Although I am slightly intimidated by it, I have an intense desire to master it. After only one outing, I am already lusting over lenses, filters, software, and other extras I will need to fully realize the beauty of photography.

Armed with my new camera and very little knowledge, I went to the Dallas Arboretum with my daughter and her friend yesterday. Out of almost 300 pictures I kept half, and these are the only ones I truly love:

Inspiration

These are the kind of pictures I want to take after I ace my photography class!

Sweeet Home and Garden Chicago

The Daily Coyote

Returning To My Roots?

Last Sunday, Double D and I visited St. Matthais' Anglican Church on the recommendation of an acquaintance. Double D said it was described to him as a combination of Catholic and Protestant. How timely, since I had strangely but privately been thinking of returning to Catholicism. *gasp*

Originally, St. Matthias was Episcopalian when it started in 1960. Early last year they declared themselves part of the Anglican Communion, separating permanently from the Episcopal Diocese. From Wikipedia: The Anglican Communion considers itself to be part of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church and as being both Catholic and Reformed. For some adherents it represents a non-papal Catholicism, for others a form of Protestantism though without a dominant guiding figure such as Luther, Knox, Calvin, Zwingli or Wesley. For others, their self-identity represents some combination of the two. The communion encompasses a wide spectrum of belief and practice including evangelical, liberal, and catholic.


The High Mass I attended at St. Matthias seemed more Catholic than the Catholic masses from my childhood, complete with incense, candles, and a healthy spattering of holy water. The service was stunningly beautiful and worshipful, which is something I have missed, and lately has become a real sticking point with me. Attending numerous Baptist and Presbyterian churches in our area, there seemed to be no genuine attitude of reverence. It always felt like I was attending a weekly social, with singing for entertainment, followed immediately by a 20-30 minute sermon, and a collection of dues. Who can possibly focus mind and energy on God when one is busy socializing, singing, and being preached to? I know many feel the worship comes from singing, but that alone doesn’t do it for me. Suddenly, the rituals and the quietness are necessary for me to completely focus and they are surprisingly comforting. Who knew I would ever want that again? I have to wonder what has caused this change in me, and just as I’m having these pangs of missing the Catholic Church, someone would tell us about St. Matthias. Hmmmm…

Over the last 30 years, I rejected Catholicism based on certain doctrines I believed to be incorrect, or at least lacked strong support from the scriptures, such as the excessive worship of Mary, praying to the dead, and repetition of prayers. If St. Matthias does not hold these doctrines as truths, there might be hope for me yet. Certainly, as I research and reacquaint myself with their practice of the ancient rituals, I now see the beauty in it. No church is perfect and there will always be things I disagree with. I just have to determine which aspects, if any, might be detrimental to my spiritual welfare. I have a lot of questions for the priest at St. Matthias and I hope he can answer them adequately, because I am exceedingly weary of bouncing from church to church. In fact, I had given up altogether of finding a church to touch my heart and soul, which was quickly becoming disillusioned with organized religion as a whole. Amazingly, Double D is open to the idea. I love that he is willing to put his staunch Baptist upbringing aside so that we can explore this new way of worship.

Just Chillin'

Sparky finds the most unconventional places to get some shuteye. Here he is on the first step of the stairs with his head resting on my tennis shoes. Even stranger is that he let me walk to another room and return with the camera to snap the picture, without budging an inch.

FNL Update

Last month I joined one of those “Save Friday Night Lights” campaigns, mailing a miniature football to Ben Silverman at NBC. One week later it was punted back to me with the word “REFUSED” written on the box. At that point, I lost all hope. The word REFUSED said more to me than “Take your stupid box and shove it.” It was saying “We don’t believe in the stupid show, so take your foolish efforts and shove it. If you refuse to submit to watching 30 Rock as we suggested, then we have no use for you and your laughable taste.” Yeah, they might as well have said all that on the box.

I miss this show in the worst way, so I went googling and found a blog by Nikki Finke which addressed the precariousness of FNL, season 3. She writes a Hollywood and media business column for LA Weekly and owns, edits, and publishes a blog called Deadline Hollywood Daily. The following sentence made me jump for joy: I CAN REPORT THAT THE THIRD SEASON IS SAVED. The post in its entirety may be found here.

Hallelujah! Apparently, it took a partnership with DirecTV to rescue it: The answer came in a deal with DirecTV, now owned by John Malone's Liberty Media. Clearly Malone is looking to distinguish DirecTV from its rivals on a content as well as price basis. "It's an innovative deal where NBC found a partner who will share costs and exhibition windows," an insider explained to me. So both NBC and DirecTV will be airing Friday Night Lights across multipurpose platforms.

I don’t really understand what multipurpose platforms or exhibition windows signify, nor do I care what depths they had to go to. It’s SAVED! All is well in my TV watching world again.