Do you want to be healed?

“When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, ‘Do you want to get well?’”

Courtney, do you want to get well? Answer this, honestly.

Here’s what I want healing for:

A healed mind. Where I can sleep at night and not have my mind racing about things I need to do or did that day. The ability to stop thinking about food. The ability to be fully me before my Mom and unashamed; to cry withher and talk with her and embrace her. To be real together. The ability to stop sinning. To not even have a dirty thought enter my head. To not despair. For despair to be so far from me that I can’t remember the days of darkness, of freshman year, of last semester, the sleepless nights where all I can do is groan. To not have to grasp grasp grasp for jesus each morning because I’ve already forgotten what it’s like to be in glory, to be in your presence. To not have to descend to earth’s mediocrity. To not settle. To truly KNOW, from my earlobes to my pinky toe, that I am forgiven; that freshman year’s angry outbursts are wiped away, that last week’s selfish ambition is erased, the way the shore smooths over stones,to not be so into myself when other people are talking; to want to listen to others always and DELIGHTING in this. To be so open and vulnerable, the way a naked woman is before her husband; to be open to God’s intimate leading, his exciting adventure for me. To not want control over my life, but to yield it all to Him. (it’s funny, because deep down photojournalism the Career-the Title-the Status isn’t anywhere in my deepest desires).

But this is what is:

I would like to do things without exalting those things…I would like to be able to take pictures without exalting myself and FORGETTING my status as a child of the king. I want to be able to remember the things I forgot before the fall…how to walk on water, that I am valued because God is my Father, how to sense the emotions of the angels, how to climb trees and jump into the water thousands of feet below without being smashed against the rocks, how to speak in ancient tongues, how to have faith like a little child, how to let my imagination run run run unfettered, how to create stories upon stories, how to dance before nations and tribes without self-consciousness, how to hunger after food that is not sweet or artificial, but nourishing and that tastiest food I could ever imagine, how to daydream and not feel guilty about “wasting time” because there will be everlasting time and no minutes will ever be wasted “doing nothing” because there is all the time in the world, to be able to time-travel and tesseract, to visit other planets, to read and learn forever.

I want healing from short-sightedness. I am spiritually blind; I cannot see what I once saw, before the Fall of Man. I want healing from spiritual paralysis; I cannot walk on water, I cannot dance the tango with my Lord; I cannot even touch Him without shriveling and dying of fright; I want healing for my spiritual psychosis; I have a mental disease that makes me hunger after temporary, moldy bread of this world and it makes my stomach reject Real Food, True Bread. And what I need healing from the most is that I CHOSE these afflictions. When standing at the crossroads of Everlasting Life, Extended Rest, Joyful Singing, Art and Imagination, The Best School Ever, and then the road of Destruction, Half-ness, Decay, Impermanence, Instant Gratification, I chose the lesser path. It’s my fault. “Although I knew god, I neither glorified him nor gave thanks to him, and my thinking became futile and my foolish heart was darkened” (Romans 1:21).
So while that question, “Do you want to be healed,” seemed distant and strange to me at first, when I’m honest with myself my heart and body scream YES YES YES I want healing!!!!

And Jesus’ response to the paralyzed man, and to me?

“Get up. Pick up your mat and walk.”

Pick up all those earthly lackings that shackle you: peel away your spiritual maladies, the way you could old scabs, and watch the skin regenerate before your very eyes. All those sins that so easily entangle you daily and burden you down, just cast them aside. They’re not as heavy as you think, Courtney. Your short-sightedness, your despair, your spiritual paralysis, your inability to do the things of Paradise—unpeel them, pick them up, and put them at my Feet. And then walk—with new eyes, with a renewed mind. You can do the impossible things because I say so. But without my calling, you can do none of this.

And then:

“See, you are well again. Stop sinning.”

Praise God!!! This morning I am well. And with each encounter with Jesus, he reminds me, “See, you are well again.” He has promised me complete healing, a bodily resurrection. And I anxiously await for the day where I can soar on the wings of the angel s and can actually feel their multi-colored feathers—adorned with honeysuckle and lilac and precious gems—with my fingertips.

“Oh, the depth of the riches of
the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable h
is judgments, and his paths beyond tracing
out!
Who has known the mind of
The Lord?
Or who has been his
Counselor?
Who has ever give to God,
That god should repay him?
For from him and through him
And to him are all
Things.
To him be the glory forever!
Amen!”

dear words, my old friends:

I don't understand how people who make pictures for a living can update their blogs with images, images images. all the time. don't get me wrong, I love pictures (and I love the people who have legit photo blogs--they are some of the most talented, beautiful and inspiring people I know), but I can't eat, breathe and sleep photos they way I ought* to. There's so much naked experience to be embraced, without sewing fig leaves for myself out of my digital SLR.

isn't it funny that this is photo blog, but all I want to do is write? Admittedly, I've felt trapped by photojournalism and its academic demands. I know I'm not experiencing the real thing, because I was happy as a clam this summer while adventuring in naples with my camera and new visual friends. but i just don't want to make pictures right now. I would rather make pictures with words--old friends, neglected by the courtney on the right for a time. I have not forgotten you! In fact, I need you!

what I love about writing in this instant is I don't care much about its quality. I'm not writing for personal gain, I'm not writing to prove, strive, achieve, compare, beat, smother, conquer. I'm just writing because I haven't exercised verbal muscle in quite some time, and it's delightful rediscovering this pleasure. In the worn texture of the keys beneath my fingers, in the way my mind is simultaneously soothed and stimulated. It's like revisiting the backyard of my childhood home, with the three oak trees and tire swing. I haven't pumped, back and forth, back and forth, beneath those autumny branches in some time.

not that I don't love photography. I just need a sabbatical from images for a bit; enough of media commodities and mechanical reproducibility. Expression's playground is really the Amazon, and photography is just one Pourouma. I want to frolic and be a spirit-child for a bit.

spring break is coming. shall I travel to montreal?

*I am trying to recognize negative thought patterns (see earlier blog post on Wendell Berry and expectation) in myself. I impose ridiculous requirements on myself; I must go through forty "oughts" and "shoulds" and "ought nots" and "should nots" a day! Who says I ought to have a photo blog with images? Pat? Future employers? God? No one. I think this is a still a photo blog. or expression blog or venting blog or seeking inspiration or respite blog or something. whatev.old

to be a Real Photographer and other insights into mystery

this semester has been bleak and mechanic, as I have been trapped in my preconceptions and expectations. I live in a circle of selfishness, making (not-so) calculated moves based on my desires, dreams, fears and self-affirming ambitions. But what of the world outside of that enclosure, over my white picket Fences? What of a mystery and grandeur so powerful that I am dwarfed and put in my proper place? I say I believe in the Puritan tenet that "the way down is up,"--that suffering means glorification, but I don't actually live with this conviction. I want to look beyond my idea of who God is, of what the world is, of who i am, of goodness and badness, of truth and beauty. The idea is not the reality, yet I live as if I know the answers. I want to look beyond my mind's enclosure and allow myself to be changed by what I see.

I guess the first step to doing this is being honest about the ways I have not done this. I used to pride myself on my honesty, but I learned last semester that I am not honest; the hardest thing for me to do is paint how I really feel about my family or my body. I cannot for the life of me come up with photo story ideas; I do not know what inspires me, what tickles my soul, what brings me to my knees in praise. For the past six months I have approached work with an increasingly fearful mindset, unable to avoid anxiety attacks outside of the J-school or streams of tears when alone in my apartment--the pressure of tedious deadlines and self-imposed expectations on my shoulders. And let's not even talk about job applications--I haven't approached this optimistically, realistically, or with any semblance of discipline. If I can't land the perfect photo job after school, then why try at all?

What a destructive way of thinking! In trying to escape work (for fear of it), I have robbed myself of the capacity to enjoy work and leisure. In looking for the future-placed product to fulfill me (the completed photo story, the secured post-graduation job, the changed circumstances), I have lost sight of Character and Grace. To complete the photo story, I need inspiration and discipline. In securing the post-graduation job, I need patience and courage. Instead of begging God to change my circumstances and remove the hardships, the struggles, the temptations, why don't I pray for Character? Why don't I ask for transformation that transcends my limited human abilities? I think this is a bit of what it means to share in Christ's sufferings; my dependent Savior knew only what God showed Him.

I hate how I'm using photojournalism. I hate the contests. I hate getting caught up in MY progress, MY portfolio, MY story, MY career. I am building an identity out of this work, this art, which should really be a vehicle for mercy. I have cherished my subjects or the world while using it; I have not even really done much of it because I am spending so much of my energy trying to figure out how I can use it to get what I want (i.e. a trip to the Galapagos Islands, a job that will pay me enough money to pay off loans, adventure, excitement, pleasure, security, comfort, status, importance). And I have not been happy (for good reason). In all my selfish twistings of the Gift, I have lost my capacity to feel and love others and the world. I want to do what I do, not because I am duty-bound, but because I love the world and love my family. I want my work to serve the earth I live on and from and with, meaningfully, unendingly. I want to taste the daily and seasonal rewards that come from hard work. I want spiritual and tangible connection.

But all is not lost! This blog entry would end here, in utter hopelessness, if I didn't have a Saviour. Look up, Courtney! Lift your darkened and clouded eyes to the heavens! Even though your sight if flawed, you can feel the warmth of the Sun on your face! Repent and believe! You are far more selfish than you could ever know, but this does not stop me from loving you! You will never use my gifts in the way you ought, but I will still love you. I died for thieves and swindlers; I died for people like you, who abuse people in the name of "art," who misappropriate power, who spend money unwisely on your own pleasures, who run away from responsibilities. I give life to people who have absolutely NOTHING good to account for in their own lives. Your ONLY work on earth is to believe! And since this is too big of a task for you to handle, I will give you all the grace you need to help you believe. So stop trying to fix your problems, which are really anthills--not temples--and let me infuse your life with Love and Inspiration and Awe and Meaning and Romance and Wonder and Paradox and Humility and Value. I will do it! I will lead in you the good works I have set out for you!

I want to end with this passage from Wendell Berry's "The Once Inch Journey," which I find incomprehensibly beautiful and mysterious. It fills me with a sense of hope and gratitude; God is working out the ends to which I aspire. To be a real Photographer. This work that He is doing is simple: He is clarifying my Sight.

"I turn to the figure of the photographic artist--not the tourist-photographer who goes to a place, bound by his intentions and preconceptions, to record what has already been recorded and what he therefore expects to find, but the photographer who goes into a place in search of the real news (the Good News) of it.

His search is a pilgrimage, for he goes along ways he does not fully understand, in search of what he does not expect and cannot anticipate. His work involves a profound humility, for he has effaced himself; he has done away with his expectations; he has ceased to make demands upon the place. He keeps only the discipline of his art that informs and sharpens his vision--he keeps, that is, the practice of observation--for before a man can be a seer he must be a looker. His camera is a dark room, and he has made a dark place in his mind, exultant and fearful, by which he accepts that he does not know what he is going to see, he does not know the next picture. He has entered into the darkness--in order to see! But for the moment the dark lens holds only a vague potency, like a seed, still one with the mystery of what will come next, which is one with the mystery of the wilderness and of creation.

And then there comes a breaking of the light--and there is another shore to step out of the dark upon, lighted by a blooming flower like a candelabra. We are invited on! We are led on as by the promise of a feast spread for us that we do not yet know. In the shadows a little stream steps down over a ledge of rock into the light. Beyond are the trees, and the darkness again...The camera is a point of reference, a bit like a compass though not nearly so predictable. It is the discipline and the opportunity of vision. In relation to the enclosure we call civilization, these pictures are not ornaments or relics, but windows and doors, enlargements of our living space, entrances into the mysterious world outside the walls, lessons in what to look for and how to see. They limit our comfort; they drain away the subtle corruption of being smug; they make us a little afraid, for they suggest always the presence of the unknown, what lies outside the picture and beyond eyesight; they suggest the possibility of the sudden accesses of delight, vision, beauty, joy that entice us to keep alive and reward us for living; they can serve as spiritual landmarks in the pilgrimage to the earth that each on of us must undertake alone.

Always in the big woods when you leave familiar ground and step off alone into a new place there will be, along with the feelings of curiosity and excitement, a little nagging of dread. It is the ancient fear of the unknown, and it is your first bond with the wilderness you are going into. You are undertaking the first experience, not of the place, but of yourself in the place. It is an experience of our essential loneliness, for nobody can discover the world for anybody else. It is only after we have discovered it for ourselves that it becomes a common ground and a common bond, and we cease to be alone."

It's a spiritually journey of learning how to see, learning how to be at home. Each inch humbling and joyful.

acrylic trees, yellow.

So I just painted a giant yellow tree on my bedroom wall/ceiling and created polaroid-foliage of sorts. Then I proceeded to take out old photos from frames (by old...i mean stuff from when I was 17. I always have tons of new pictures I want to print but then I get distracted with taking photos and forget to ever print the ones I liked. Then I just get complacent. But there are too many photos to take and too many things to do with my time and money, like make pizza from scratch and go to a steampunk dance party or tithe or something. but i do wish I made prints more often.)

it's crazy how fast new photos you like become old and boring. I just filled my frames with photos from naples- the pier, the sarasota and cambier drum circles, other things/people that inspired me this summer/december. But I feel as though that season of my life has come to a close, and soon I'll be wanting new inspiration up on my walls.

I regret not having tangible evidence of the last four years. I've taken thousands upon thousands of photos, but I've only printed about a hundred of those photos...and not even the good ones. When I die, and when my back-up CD's and external hard drives become useless, there will be no evidence that a woman named courtney ann potter walked on this earth and breathed inspiration and made pretty pictures. maybe that's why the Teacher declares "everything under the sun is vanity!" Oh, but I do hope my pictures are in heaven! I do hope I can take pictures in heaven!

I'm having one of those rare days where I feel like there is SO much I want to create and i just don't have enough time to do it. I actually have LOADS of time right now, since classes haven't started yet, but that loads feels like nothing. which is why i'm blogging at 2:30 in the morning. creativejuiceswontstopgushingoutofmybrain

i just rearranged my room, prior to painting a giant yellow tree on the wall. it's not square at all. i put my bed in my closet and a mirror in the corner my chair in the off-center and it's lovely and wonderful. if i was all about math or econ, rearranging my room would be a waste of energy, but i'm not all about math or econ, am I? "and it was good."

don't know if i'm ever gonna be able to put photos on this blog. i know how to do it, but i'd much rather rearrange my room. although there are some wonderful steampunk photos that i would love to make public.

seasons (turn, turn, turn)

Man I suck at updating these things. I guess I blog when I have down time...so chances are, the happier/more fulfilled I am in my daily work, the less I am going to blog. Which implies that I'm in one of those "down seasons" with photography (and life).

I'm learning to embrace the ups and downs. This summer was a fantastic three-month period of constant shooting/creation/artistic and journalistic growth while I worked for the Naples Daily News. I entered this semester thinking that that season would just carry over, but life got in the way. I'm not shooting the way I was, but I'm not beating myself up over it. God wants me to use this time for other things...it's good to have the freedom to just go on a long bike ride or go pray in the woods. Truth and beauty is the fuel for good art...there are seasons where you need to get refueled.

The down seasons are always a challenge, though. I am not too good at being still. God's been teaching me (or re-teaching me, rather, since he taught me this last fall during my creative slump) that my self-worth is NOT wrapped up in what i do. Photography and journalism is very much part of who I am, but they aren't my identity. My identity is rooted in Christ; I am a child of God! Shooting more, shooting better, being constantly "inspired"...these things are all good, but they are not ends. God loves me just the same (which is a TON) when I'm not feeling productive.

Pat reminded me this week that I need to just stay on the path that God has put me on. I've been running around like a headless chicken, wondering if I'm cut out for a photojournalism career, trying to conjure up other career titles out of fear. But God has given me the passion, the talent, the opportunities, and a whole heck of a lot of amazing people. So I'm going to keep going for it...a photojournalism career...even though I don't have much photography to show for this particular season.

I'm excited to see what lessons God is teaching me this season.

where did the semester go?

so the last few months since patagonia have been a blur, and i just haven't updated this. quite frankly i haven't made many pictures since patagonia. i've been playing around with my holga (birthday present from colleen) and polaroid, but i definitely haven't gotten around to developing film and/or scanning polaroids. i will soon, i promise.

patagonia...i can't even describe the immensity of this trip, and the hard fall afterwards. whenever i taste a little bit of heaven reality puts me in to a state of shock, and this april was particularly arduous. but patagonia...patagonia was one of those trips where I found Joy, and I haven't really reached that level of God-sent cheerfulness since then, though RUF Summer Conference really renewed my spirits. I don't think I've written about Patagonia because words can't describe the poetry and bliss of my experiences there...the quiet adventures, the rugged beauty of my surroundings, the simple joy of creating again...it was one of those times where the beautiful form trapped inside of my body escaped and expanded ever outwards. It was one of those times where I got outside of self...but not in a negative, detached way. it wasn't the dreadful kind of body/mind/spirit separation that comes during in tragedy or frustration...it was the blissful kind that comes when you are so naturally absorbed in being and meaning who you were supposed to be and mean that you forget that you used to try real hard to be and mean someone. the kind where you feel like every particle in your body is the same as all of the particles outside of your body; you are connected to everything in the universe and you are connected to God. You know and feel known by God. This is the closest I've felt to the garden before adam and eve were banished. The curse has not yet ruined my relationships. The curse has not yet made work toilsome and creating difficult.

when i think of patagonia, i remember the graveyard. where i lost myself to my art and to nature.

april was hard because anything less than that was so inferior. i had mono, school sucked, my family was really struggling, adventure was no longer built into my environment. i was constantly overwhelmed, stressed, bored, or idle. I've been thirsty for Joy again. Rest. I didn't really remember that Jesus said "Come you who are weary and I will give you rest. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Or else I remembered but then denounced its truth and tried to be my own saviour. it really didn't work, either.

i'm moving on. by God's grace, I have a better conception of my total depravity and Jesus' total perfection. My sin and frustration and shame have been transfered to Jesus, and his obedience and glory have been transfered to me...and now I am a royal daughter of the King! I'm always going to sin and struggle, but the joy comes in knowing that I don't have to "figure it out" on earth and reach perfection now. Earth is just a drop of water in the vast ocean...and God has promised me a restored relationship with Him, with others, and with my photography and myself in heaven. All that is sad WILL come untrue...not now, but one day. And that happiness will be everlasting. and it's starting now...slowly. the whole 'already not yet' thing.

i'm too tired to write more, but i'll try to make things more cohesive later. i have a lot i'd like to say about creativity and my pursuit of photography and how i'm seeing it fit into the creation/fall/redemption/consummation theme. i took a covenant theology seminar at conference (and a heaven and hell seminar) and they were SO enlightening, especially applied to my work and my art. I'm really excited to see where God is taking me with this new understanding...

oh and i'll post pictures too. and i'll write more about my new job. ahhh so much to do....

lagging

notable events this week:
-we got a hamster
-i had amazing fellowship this weekend with kathy and julia and other folks that i haven't seen as frequently as would like
-i had a portfolio review and got a lot of good advice/direction
-smoked more hookah on friday/had a night out
-discovered an affinity for modeling in studio class....hahaha

unfortunately, i only had my camera with me for some of those things. enjoy...











I'm a bit behind on updating this, let alone shooting. I have a couple of polaroids laying on my dresser that need to be scanned. The novelty of the semester is wearing off, admittedly, and it's seeping into my art. I'm going to actively counteract this...I'd like to simply "play" more and bring my camera with me.

I've had a lot of clarity in the past two weeks as to how I'd like to spend my last semesters here at Carolina. And what it means to be a Christian woman in photojournalism. Some pretty cool stuff...I'm excited. Expect a more detailed post later. I need to go find more pictures.

hookah snow day

i was in an artsy fartsy mood all weekend, as seth would say. the unexpected snow day certainly helped foster that mood. and hookah...which, by the way, is not better for your lungs than smoking other things. but it's certainly more enjoyable. and social. anyways, i felt like playing around with funky shutter speeds and bluriness. don't think these photos are worthy of photojournalism, but i had fun and that's something.

seeds

kirk told me that I need to put my energy into my art. I waste a lot of mental and creative energy just...thinking.

i agree, but then i look at other posts and i disagree. the thinking can help. and the thinking can be important. but i need to just DO.

on another note, I love holgas, polaroids, lensbabies, and southeastern camera in carrboro.

deep thinking

"We're in such a hurry most of the time we never get much chance to talk. The result is a kind of endless day-to-day shallowness, a monotony that leaves a person wondering years later where all the time went and sorry that it's all gone...Instead you spend your time being aware of things and meditating on them. On sights and sounds, on the mood of the weather and things remembered, on the machine and the countryside you're in, thinking about things at great leisure and length without being hurried and without feeling you're losing time." --Pirsig, from zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance."

I've been thinking a lot about photography lately. Sometimes my over-analytical mind can get the most of me, but recently I've been contemplating the merits of, well, thinking. While making pictures is an important part of the art, it's probably only 10% of the work. If I didn't read books, have conversations with other artists, journal, and pray I don't think my photography would be where it is now. I feel like so many photographers these days can be "snap-shot" photographers...shutter happy and relying too much on the post-production. What about the pre-production? What about using your mind? What about using your heart and letting that shape what you see?

It's a very circular, organic process. You find something beautiful- a dilapidated barn, a morning frost, a laughing roommate, an interesting reflection, a moment- and isolate it in time. You make a photograph. You make many photographs. Then you put the camera down for awhile and carry on life...broadening your horizons in the nitty-gritty realities...having good conversations, reading under a tree, eating with the family. You bring all these things to your photography and bring your photography to these things. Then you go back an edit your pictures later. It's a brutal process, like being naked in a room...you see all your flaws in your art and get frustrated that your vision didn't translate as beautifully, as transparently in your film. You think some more. You read some more, underlining texts and letting new thoughts enter. Letting them steep. Then you let inspiration guide you and you make more photograph. It's a circle. There aren't twelve easy steps, but many overlapping parts. That's why I say I'm a photographer even when I put my camera down.

Then again, I think there is a lot of fear in there...because maybe I don't pick up my camera enough. I'm not that girl who always totes her camera. I tried it for awhile...I can be that in spurts. But I get tired of it...because I need to go think. Maybe I'm too comfortable doing that.

about time for a photo blog

As I've delved deeper into my relationship with photography I've been surprised to find it's like any relationship: full of peaks and troughs. This past semester photography and I weren't doing so well...we were far from "breaking up," but I had a lot of qualms with him and experienced a long dry spell. I'm coming out of it a stronger person, but I feel the need to proactively rekindle my love of this art. I hope to attain a certain level of accountability by this blog. And I hope to bare my soul to you as I relate to the world around me, and as I relate to photography.