First day in ALASKA!!

The view from the plane...we were still two hours from Anchorage...we are small.












The Alaska Zoo! Hopefully we'll see them out in the wild tomorrow...on to Denali!






















The Snow Leopard....very, very rare. Look for them on the Planet Earth series. They waited three years before catching them on film.













Brown Bear...he had an interesting cough!








Musk Ox...and baby.

More shots with the new camera...

Of course...




Fourth of July...









(a necessity at a Philly Fourth parade...)










My sweet, pretty sister Kim...




Amish Country...



















Colonial Plantation and Longwood Gardens....

Beauty of New Jersey...

We used to call it the "Armpit of America," we changed our minds....









Oh...and just for fun, my sister's dog, "Buddy." So cute.



And the boys...I love these boys...

A prayer for today and everyday...

Lord, deliver me….

From the desire of being loved,

From the desire of being praised,

From the desire of being preferred,

From the desire of being approved,

From the desire of being popular,

From the fear of being humiliated,

From the fear of being despised,

From the fear of suffering rebukes,

From the fear of being forgotten.

-Mother Teresa

Green tea latte or just green money?

Do you ever stop and think about what it means to be "rich?"

It's funny because I live in South Charlotte, which is the banking capital of the U.S. where we now have some steep financial issues. Ironic. I have had a thought that I do think is worth processing..."Maybe it is time we redefine what matters." We don't like that because it makes us uncomfortable. We hate pain. We hate discomfort. We hate having to downsize, limit ourselves or refuse our children. We like money, ease, food, good drink, success, a solid image, the admiration of people,...in essence, we want what we want and we will often do whatever it takes to get it. So we define the highest good as a wealthy, successful life...a nice chunk of green flow. It's all around us. It takes over our lives and it wraps itself around all our hopes and dreams. And in so many ways, we stop living and instead we join the rest of the world on a thoughtless, narcissistic journey of the addiction to self. It makes me feel crazy sometimes. It forms a pit in my stomach. I find myself standing in line to get on the same damn train everyone else is getting on and then I have a moment of clarity that comes in a way least expected.

I have a friend who spent some time with me the other day...

I have known her for over 5 years and each year has been like opening another door. It's interesting to me how you can "know" someone and never really know them. It's interesting to me how you can like someone and not have a clue how much you will come to love them. This individual is a treasure. There are layers to people and very rarely do we take the time to sit long enough or take a risk and ask for permission to listen. I just keep thinking how we care more about money and "stuff" all the while missing out on what brings a true wealth to our lives. People are more worthy of our time and the investment always proves so sanctifying.

I wouldn't trade her or knowing the pages of her history for all the money in the world, sincerely. These times with her make me respect her more and remind me of the privilege of being her friend. And I hope when I am her age, which will come sooner than I think, to be like her.

I saw a homeless guy walking around a few years back when I needed a place to live...circumstances kicked me to the curb and I needed a home. When I saw him I felt for a brief moment that I could relate to him...and I feared the reality that maybe I could end up where he is. But then I had an epiphany and I realized that his issue was not a financial issue, it was a relational issue. He didn't have friends. During this time I lived in three different homes and I had another 5 offer me a place...no one would let me be on the streets. This was not about money, he had no one to care for him. He had not connected with people over the years. The truth is, if he had a solid and secure income would his life be any better because he had a roof over his head? Or would it still be lonely and aching since he had no one who sat with him and talked? So why do we seek wealth with such obsessiveness? How is it that we have missed people like my friend who has left a mark that is far more important than a paycheck? Why does money matter so much when we could have loads of it and still feel alone and worthless? We may look good, dress in reputable clothes and spark envy when we drive down the road...but would someone take us in? Would someone want to spend a few hours with us over a green tea latte at Barnes and Noble?

Her story is a gift to me on so many levels and her friendship is invaluable. Maybe in our economy...maybe in our deficit we will seek true wealth...a rich life that gives us cause to wake up in the morning and to celebrate the beauty of the people around us that we rarely stop to notice.

Sit and talk with someone, notice them, ask them questions, share pieces of you with them too...have a latte together and realize that true, successful life happens in these moments.

Well fed and fat.

I have recently started reading a book recommended to me by someone I highly respect. The title is quite scary and yet perfectly defines where our culture is headed:Christless Chistianity by Michael Horton. It opens with a thought-provoking question..."What would things look like if Satan really took control of a city?"...He takes the thought further referring to a scenario that Donald Grey Barnhouse described..."all of the bars would be closed, pornography banished, and pristine streets woudld be filled with tidy pedestrians who smiled at each other. There would be no swearing. The children would say 'yes, sir and no, ma'am,' and the churches would be full every Sunday...where Christ is never preached."

I am anxious to read the book as he addresses the modern church and how we have traded the supreme value for the holiness of God for the happiness of people. We have began to care significantly for the wrong things. We forget that freedom comes with confession of sin and we have instead become a people offended when it is mentioned too much.

We have strayed from the root of what we believe. We have fogotten what it means to follow Jesus and like Paul said in Philippians, "I want to know Christ, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His suffering..." We want comfort, ease and painless living...

Sounds like the total opposite of the life of Jesus...sounds nothing like, "I bid you come and die..."

Learn to live in the photographs.

(DEP 12/08)

How does looking through a lens and tapping a button turn into emotion, intrigue, inspiration and the telling of story after story? I love photography for this reason. When you walk around can you spot the stories hidden behind the glances of your day? The truth is, when you start to look, you notice the details of everything, and everything has something worth holding on to. There is a certain look on the soft face of a child, there is a barn set to the backdrop of fields of grain, there is a stark white, white snow divided by a black road weaving through the middle of nowhere, there is a reflection caught in a glass window, there is a cat on a bookshelf sitting tall with dull red, blue and brown bindings lined underneath, and there are the curves in a raging sea.

(Cory Arnold photography)

A picture is to your left even now as you sit and read this. Sounds can be heard for those who know how to listen to a photograph. And even smells drift off the page if you are really connected to what you see.

I love taking pictures and I am not even sure why. I guess there is something to reach for that goes beyond just the image taken. To be honest, it is not just a re-creation of the real thing, it almost propels me past the real thing as it touches on something beyond what just sat in front of me. Life is so fast moving. We don't sit long enough to feel, taste, see or smell what is all around us. We race past it and therefore miss the beauty of the simplest sight. We don't notice detail, we ignore color, we listen to loud music and never listen to creation. We miss miracles.

Planet Earth has become a favorite pastime. I marvel at what they have been able to capture on film. The best of the best in the world of photography set out to remind us to stop and to take us back to the beauty that is all around us. Their equipment is top of the line, which makes this possible in the first place. But the truth is, passion has motivated the makers of this series. They have been obedient to discover what is hidden. They have gone to the remotest place and brought back their findings to us in our living rooms. They decided it was the waiting the made it such a prize. And the waiting for some shots took days, months and even years. But to them, it was worth it.

Photography stops us for a moment. We can actually look at something that otherwise is so fleeting that it is often missed in the movement of life. We can sit long enough in front of something still and see the colors and see the shape and see the detail. It is a true gift.

So slow down, really slow down. Look around and find something worth staring at. Be comfortable with a different sort of accomplishment. And teach your children to do the same. We are dissolving under the race we run that has no finish line.

Hold on tightly.

“The man who comes to a right belief about God is relieved of ten thousand temporal problems…”

A.W. Tozer The Knowledge of the Holy

This is my prayer...I will sadly admit that I do not trust God. I stood in front of the ocean tonight. It was dark and the moon was full. I was ready, like St. Francis, to shout from the bell tower, "Look at the moon!!" It's reflection over the water would take your breath away. The sound of the ocean and the deep waters leave you with a sense of mystery and awe. The waves are constant. The moon hangs as it should. The ocean stretches long and leaves me standing small up on the dunes...with the wind blowing against my face.

And in that moment I can see just how big God is. I can hear just how strong He is. I am reminded of the power that parts waters and the faithfulness that flows without hesitation. I am left with the Truth about Who He is.

And in that moment, and with those thoughts, I am calmed.
I, for a second, believe He is everything and all things are held together by Him.

And when I walk back to the house...I take a brief glance up and ask Him if He will help me hold on to the right view of His majesty.
It is a discipline of thought,
and a fanning of the flame....

A right view...leaves me with such peace.
I will hold it like a gift and hope that when I awake,
it will still pervade my broken and dusty thoughts.

Think about parenting....

I think about parenting all the time and I am not even a parent. Though I don’t have my own children, I do have three incredible nephews and a very unique little niece. I have access to some children who scrape away some of the ache of that maternal longing. As I consider each one of them I list out to anyone a handful of reasons why I love this one or that one. It is frankly really easy to do so. My sister and brother have done such an amazing job parenting with their spouses and it is so encouraging to me, as a counselor of high school students, to see such proactive decisions on their parts to go against the current of the rest of the free world. In many ways, it gives me hope. In many other ways, it gives me tangible and practical ways to help other parents who seem to simply react to life, never really thinking, just responding to every wave of life that comes barreling over them. In other words, the most dangerous thing I witness today are parents who stop thinking and instead are swept into the whirlpool of culture and move with the changes that soon become “the norm” of living. Walking blindly forward, they rarely stop to consider what is best, what is healthy, why they do what they do, why they don’t do what they do, and what goals they would want for their kids in the first place. Scary…really, really scary.
I guess part of the problem is that it takes time, energy, self-reflection, a willingness to admit wrong and a commitment to work hard to redirect. All of it requires humility, and a lot of prayer. In the end, most parents fail to really consider how the present day impacts the future day. In other words, the way a child lives now, is most assuredly what a child will become. Think about work ethic for example. My sister told me what a parent said the other day when talking about her son having to work…”He will have to work the rest of his life, so for now I don’t want him to have to worry about that.” There is a raw, fundamental problem here that seems to slip through the minds of so many parents. The question that must be addressed here is this: how does an adult develop a strong work ethic? The truth is, only kids who learn a strong work ethic have a strong work ethic when they are older. The skills a child learns, and then continues to strengthen in his adolescence will carry into adulthood. This is precisely why we will often witness 40 year old men who are lazy, selfish and subconsciously expect others to do everything for them. That didn’t happen one random day in his thirties. Therefore, for a parent to think that a child will grow up and “have to work the rest of his life” is a true statement. And with that being said, a parent should consider how to help her child become a young man and an adult, who has a work ethic that will carry his family and career and his relationships to a level of loyalty, commitment and depth. Very few aspects of life will thrive without a solid work ethic. That cannot be explained, it must be developed. It must be learned and practiced. It must be incorporated into the fabric of every day growing up.