I've been photographing my father's garden this summer. He's been gone a year, but his energies can still be felt in the work he did here. I never intended to do this project, but here I am doing what is in front of me to do.
I've been working on other things. One of the last conversations I had with Dad. He told me that one of his friends who was dying told him love was all there really was.
I've been thinking a lot about the nature of the human being. I know that as a human we tend towards things that leads us to death. I am well aware of my own tendencies. I fear that once we as a culture lose the idea that we are all created in the image and likeness, or are children of God, we might tend towards enslaving others at a break-neck speed. Once we forget that the one next to us is like a mini visitation of the divine in our lives, we tend to treat him as our slave, and we as the king. This is just not logical. We are of the same stuff, you and I. We are all brothers and sister to each other, no matter what our genetic backgrounds. The truth is there is but one race, the human race. The fact of the matter is that we should treat our neighbor as the king, divine person, and we as the slave or servant. I think this might just keep us honest, and away from those things which leads to death. This might just be the nuts and bolts of what it means to love.
