When I write the sort of post I am today, one of the understandable mistakes that personal friends sometimes make, is that they think I am referring to them. When I write about “people” other than myself, it is almost always a composite of from two people to a thousand. Those  that I see in the world around me. That includes the internet, TV etc. When I refer to a specific individual, I will say this old friend or this person in the news, or even name them. When I write about what I am feeling or what my experiences are, it is about me and my personal feelings. My objective with Earth Images, has always been to “make it personal”.

Much of today’s post will seem selfish on my part or at least self-involved. Things are not always what they seem.

I am somebody who has to discover what I believe in, and keep to those beliefs until those people and things that are a part of what I believe change for the worse, or life shows me I was wrong. I have pretty strong beliefs about politics, social order, sports, God and on and on. It’s hard to find a subject that I don’t know at least something about, and if I do, you can bet I have an opinion about it. I do not come to those opinions easily and I don’t abandon them easily either. I can usually defend my beliefs, although I have failed to do that a few times.

For better or for worse, I know who I am, and I do the best I can to live with what I’ve got. By many or most standards, what I’ve got is not very much, but I can handle it with God’s help.

People have been coming and going in my life for eons of time, although most would say it is I who does the going. Contrary to what those who know me might think, I have never picked the people in my life in accordance to whether they agree with me or not, but instead by how interesting I find them. I have had some interesting people in my life. If you are my friend, and you don’t believe in the things I do, that’s okay, but I will try to change your opinions, sometimes subtly, and sometimes obviously. It is possible if I hear the “same old song” from you that I hear everywhere, I might eventually go where the “song does not remain the same”.

Most people who know me, will eventually be happy when and if I leave, because they will feel they have had no effect or impact on me. The truth is, that other people (since Adam and Eve) have had an effect on all of us. My love of horses, art, and many other personal passions, all came to me through people I was close to. I will listen and learn, but mostly my revelations come from deep down inside. Photography came from within. On my best days, the beliefs that really matter, hopefully come from God. Ask and you will receive.

It took me much of my life to realize exactly who I am. The good and the bad. I make (somewhat) fewer mistakes today because I can predict what I will do one month or one year from now. That’s because I learned through trial and error, to study myself and to take it seriously.

I would love to be a better person.  I would not think very highly of myself if I did not. That would be ego. Conscience, or what I believe to be the Conviction of The Holy Spirit of God, is what makes us sane and moral. It is what separates us from sociopaths and serial criminals. It is just as important after you give yourself to Christ, as it was before. Don’t be fooled by false teachers.  There I go, preaching again.

I am a suspicious person and that has kept me ahead of con artists and people who feel the need to gain, by the misfortune of others. The secret is to know when to have faith. Having one without the other always brings pain.

My biggest goal in this life is to seek and secure wisdom. I have lived long enough to gain some, but none of us are here long enough to possess a lot. Live and learn is a hard road, but the one we all must travel.

John the Revelator, the author (from God) of the Biblical Book of Revelations, died at around 90 in a bleak and primitive prison cell. He was blind and at one time survived being boiled in oil for his Christian beliefs. He was allowed to write God’s Word and I am quite sure, was the happiest human on earth at the time despite his health and his surroundings. He was given the full message of the end times, and that message was allowed to get out to the world.

Sometimes I guess it’s all about who you work for and why you are doing it. I am sure it was the greatest of privileges for John. For the rest of us, we just need to live out our own purpose whatever that may be, and hope to grow in our wisdom each and every day.

So by and large, that’s who I am. Who are you?

I have been a maker of images for a long time and these are from Black Canyon of The Gunnison in Colorado. I chose these images today because while Black Canyon is a national park, it is ignored by serious landscape photographers. I was there with cameras in 1986, and I had no idea what to photograph. I returned in 2007 and I had grown, and I could “see” the canyon in ways I had missed before.

Shoot straight, life is a moving target,                                                                                              Wayne