Say "Cheese"

I was looking through my oldest photo album yesterday, the one my mom actually started for me when I was just a wee lass.  (Okay, I'm not really Irish.)  Anyway, there, tucked in the back, were all the 8X10 class photos from kindergarten through sixth grade.  I've glanced through these occasionally over the years, amazed at how many kids' names I still remember, and chuckling over the GLASSES we wore. 

Anyway, my favorite is the kindergarten class picture.  For some ill-conceived reason, someone decided the picture should be taken outdoors on the playground.  Bright sunlight. And anyone who's ever taken a photograph on any camera knows that the photographer stands with his back to the sun, leaving the subjects to directly face the sun and try to smile while squinting and frying their retinas.  Add a slight breeze to ruffle the hair a bit, and you've got a recipe for photographic failure. 

Now, here's my favorite part;  when the photographer says "Say cheese", as he clearly did right before this picture was snapped, he's SUPPOSED to capture the "ee" part of the word, not the "CH" part of the word.
Guess nobody told him that.  So, here is the photo.  (You can click on it and it should come up in a separate window where you can really appreciate it.) 

And by the way, I count no less than nine missing teeth among us.

Ready?

Here we go....

Say CHeese!!!

(Okay, that's me top left.) 

- - - 

EAT PRAY LOVE YADDA YADDA YADDA

We just watched the movie "Eat Pray Love" last night (from the book by the same name).  I won't say I couldn't relate to the soul-searching, self-seeking main character Liz (the author of the original book), but I will say I haven't related to her for about 35 years.

Back in my early womanhood, if I had seen this movie, or read this book, I would have packed my bags for Italy and then booked a meditation room in an Ashram in Bali.  Well not really, because I didn't have any money.  But I would have been trying to figure out a way to do it.  Back then I was constantly trying to figure myself out.   Delving into various forms of philosophical bull poop to find meaning in life.  I had a need to figure out my place in the world.  Or something like that.  I guess I just wanted to know what to believe.  Who was right?  Whose ideas were the real deal?  What author, philosopher, guru, thinker, seeker or wise man should I believe.  Which one had the real answers?

Yuh.  Like that was the way to go.

Anyway, it was just kind of interesting to sit there watching this movie, realizing that it could have been me 35 years ago, and yet feeling none of the angst any more.  I can remember feeling it, but I'm amused by it now.

I do want to clear one thing up.  There is a moment in the movie when Liz has this epiphany about God.  In the big aha moment, she says, "I realize now that God lives within me, as me."  She repeats it for effect.  It sounds so profound, but it's not. Because it's not right.  It's not accurate.

God does live within me.  But not as me.  He lives within me as the Holy Spirit, which is entirely Him, not me.
If God lived within me as me, it would mean that I'm my own God.  That's absurd.
No, He lives within me as the Holy Spirit.  And the Holy Spirit doesn't conform to me, I conform to Him.  We become One, not because God yields to my personality, but because I willingly yield to Him.

I just wanted to straighten that out.  It was on my mind all day today since I saw the movie.

I gotta give credit to my husband, by the way,  who watched the whole estrogen-laden story with me. I never once noticed a gag response, although I'm sure they were there.  Even I had them.

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