When the weather outside is frightful and the fire is so delightful it’s nice to sit down on the couch warm beverage in hand. White Cider is a good option — 4oz Jack Daniel’s Winter Jack, 1oz caramel sauce, 4oz Half & Half, microwave, and enjoy.
© 2013 Tyrel Bramwell
Delivered by the Blood of Christ
I preached this sermon at St. John Lutheran Church in Sherwood, OH. on November 24, 2013 (The Last Sunday of the Church Year).
Luke 23:26-43 and Colossians 1:13-20
With the weather getting colder and the snow beginning to fall, not to mention we’re a couple days away from America’s national day of Thanksgiving, I’m feeling a bit nostalgic for my homey’s still working in the patch day in and day out. It can be a rough life for the hands as well as for the family members back home waiting for them to be done with their hitch. Thanks for keeping us warm, keeping us mobile, and keeping this great land humming along.
Picture taken in Wyoming’s Jonah Field.
© 2013 Tyrel Bramwell
The reupholstering process provides for a unique photo op — the skeletal structure of the back seat of my old Type 3.
© 2013 Tyrel Bramwell
A pump jack near Brighton, CO. provides a nice backdrop for my 1969 Volkswagen Squareback.
© 2013 Tyrel Bramwell
Many of the minor blessings of life, which make up the real fiber of life, are taken away in times of persecution, and the Christian, simply because of the circumstances, is left alone with God and His Word.
I took two photos at the Fort Wayne (Indiana) Museum of Art. I was on a tour with a gaggle of second graders. My wife mentioned after we were home, as I was giving this image the Norman Rockwell treatment, that photographing the art was not allowed. Now, common sense says this is probably true. HOWEVER, the docent who was in the same room with me the entire time, the very lady who occasionally reminded the kids that they weren’t allowed to touch the art, never acknowledged this supposed rule. I wasn’t sneaky. I used my camera openly and she never pointed out my supposed violation of the rules.
To ease my conscience let me take this time to urge all of you to go to the above mentioned museum and take in this c. 1850s rosewood sofa crafted by an unknown artist. While you’re staring at the couch don’t forget to gaze upon the abundance of paintings that hang above it, they’re right in front of you after all.
There, I feel better. Now I’m off to pick up a copy of the Saturday Evening Post. Tschüss.
© 2013 Tyrel Bramwell
As I post this, the Fort Wayne Museum of Art has Johnny Coleman’s Flight: Requiem for Lee Howard Dobbins on display. The piece (my daughter’s favorite) is in a dimly lit room. The smell of century old (barn) wood fills the space. Rocks cover the floor while the natural sounds of crickets and the outdoors, along with faint conversations and the soothing resonance of a person humming tickle the ears. The artist writes about his work,
“I have composed this interior landscape to invoke the memory of an enslaved child, Lee Howard Dobbins as a means of acknowledging him as more than a symbolic gesture of opposition to the institution of slavery. In 1853, this child, accompanied by his adopted mother and seven of her children, fled Northern Kentucky, crossed the Ohio River, and traveled north intent on reaching Canada. However, the boy became too sick to continue the journey, and it was necessary to leave him in the care of a family in Oberlin, Ohio; with the intention of rejoining the family in Canada upon his recovery. Lee Howard Dobbins died at four years of age in Oberlin two weeks later… My intention is to speak Lee Howard Dobbins back into history; to connect him to us, to acknowledge his humanity, and to mark his continued presence in Oberlin as evidence of his flight toward the possibility of a future.”
If you’re in the Fort Wayne area sometime within the next year or so, I highly recommend experiencing this piece in person.
Thanks, Mr. Coleman for speaking to my daughter through your art.
© 2013 Tyrel Bramwell
“In all walks of life, industry struggles in an endless race to invent and perfect machines that make the chores of everyday life faster, easier, and more efficient. And what could be a greater deity of American techno-religion than the automobile? No matter what our age, gender, race, economic status, or geographic location, we are taught that this omnipotent machine, in all of its wondrous forms, is the answer to our prayers. Why wouldn’t this be true during a zombie outbreak?”
— Max Brooks, The Zombie Survival Guide.
Photograph © 2013 Tyrel Bramwell
The well known Christian martyr of WWII, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, once said,
“In my reverie I live a great deal in nature, specifically in the woodland glades… I lie then on my back in the grass, watch the clouds move in the breeze, and listen to the rustle of the forest. It is remarkable how strong impressions of childhood like this affect the whole man so that it is impossible, and seems to be contradictory to my nature, that we could have had a house in the high mountains or near the sea! The hills are for me, the hills which belong to me and has formed me.”
He spoke of the hills of central Germany, but the sentiment is true for many Christians who long to experience God’s creation, not to worship it, but to cherish the beauty of what our Lord crafted and the stunning brilliance of that which He preserves. Be it the Harz mountains, the Thuringian forest, or Tennessee’s Great Smoky mountains (pictured here) nature is an amazing thing. Praise be to God that His craftsmanship was not left to permanently suffer the consequence of mankind’s fall into sin. In the redemption that is ours through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ the world that we live in is also made anew, though like us it remains in the now-but-not-yet.
© 2013 Tyrel Bramwell