A Place Set Apart - 2-23-11

Belmont, North Carolina

Six years ago I had the good fortune of visiting a convent near Pittsburgh on Black Friday. Stunning was the serenity and beauty to be found on a hundred acre oasis across from a frenetic and rather bleak shopping mall. A recent experience in North Carolina reminds me again of this happy memory. Quite taken with a church spire at sunset while passing on a nearby interstate, further exploration the following day revealed another oasis of import. The Belmont Abbey and College provide an aesthetically pleasing and gentle environment for contemplation, meditation, and undergraduate learning. Since the late 19th century, an order of Benedictine monks has offered a Christian undergraduate education, even monastic life to those men called to it.

A few hundred yards from an interstate off ramp, one finds an inviting campus entrance. An imposing basilica on the left gives a pleasing visual boundary, even a sense of reference and enclosure to the cozy college campus. The ornamented brick structure from the 19th century is surprisingly modern in its interior feel. This is compensated for by a fine set of traditional gothic stained glass windows filling the nave and transepts. At 9 AM the luminosity of the windows is uplifting, even inspiring.

A couple hours given to wandering the compact campus proved an excellent investment in our experience. A most gracious receptionist in the imposing terra cotta administration building told us of a newly built chapel on the other side of campus. Taking an hour to make a five-minute walk to the chapel, we found plenty of fine things worthy of photography. Beyond the province of our cameras was the gracious hospitality and friendliness we found in staff and students alike. It’s hard to conceive of the good fortune of those able to study and live in such a benevolent cozy community.

What we thought to be the chapel proved to be a student commons, interesting but certainly not sacred ecclesiastical space by any stretch. With helpful redirection, we did find the chapel behind a dormitory quad. This proved to be one of the most stunning buildings I’ve encountered in fifty countries.

Little more than twenty-five by thirty feet this cedar and glass structure is essentially perfect. Its natural materials are their own ornamentation. Its citing in deciduous forest allows bright sunlight in winter and cool shade in summer. The forest provides most of the interior decoration of the chapel. The quiet dignity of the building and its citing allow the edifice to fulfill its mission superbly, functioning as a 24/7 adoration chapel. Students and faculty are committed to offering intercessory prayers therein at all times.

I’ve seen several larger chapels of this type on university campuses, magnificent structures, yet feeling quite secular in nature, devoid of altars or Christian symbology; used primary as wedding chapels or music venues. The St Joseph Adoration Chapel nears architectural perfection in integration of design and function.

Walking in, intent on photographic its interior I was wrested from my role as a photographer to a compelling one as supplicant. The holy sensibility arrested my touristic ambitions and soon a reverent, nearly numinous affect came over me. Discretely, I did get a few interior images from the back of this wondrous space. I simply could not leave the place to the vicissitudes of memory alone. Leaving, I couldn’t but feel good about Generation X. With these young students and staff in faithful devotion to something larger and more benevolent than themselves, this generation will do just fine.

We made time to stop for a pleasing lunch in The Daily Grind. This student venue was surprisingly gentle in its energy and suffused with courtesy, even to us older tourists wandering through this intimate little world. The universe felt decidedly friendly to us today.

A Legacy of Color and Place 2-10-11

Belmont, North Carolina

A compelling aphorism of ancient times states, “Plant a shade tree under which you will never sit.” The idea is truly generous gifts are those requiring significant effort on our part but from which we will never be a direct beneficiary. Those who underwrite the development of a botanical garden are such people in spades. Often they will never get to see how their visionary gifts will bloom in the lives of people yet unborn.

Daniel Stowe is a name completely unknown to me until I saw it recently on a brown Interstate tourism sign. A botanical garden named after him is down a country road some ten miles further on. Only today did I make the effort to actually get off the Interstate and make the ten-mile trek to see what was named after a man unknown to me. Having fourteen hours before needing to be at an airport twenty miles away, I was quite unhurried and unscheduled. Expecting a country road I was a bit surprised to find myself instead passing through an admixture of prosperous suburbs, once prosperous suburbs, non-descript commercial metastases, and eventually pleasing open country.

Finding a most agreeable entrance and a surprising well-manicured road leading through ponds and native gardens, I found myself arriving at a visitor’s center that could have been on the grounds of Peterhof in Russia or a large olive estate in Italy. How could this grand structure be out here in the North Carolina countryside? Who financed this and why isn’t anyone here? Quite taken with the building, I roamed around taking a series of photographs of the exterior before the sunlight gave way to forecast rain and drear. As it was, I had about thirty minutes of bright morning sun to capture the essence of this fine visitor’s center and the surrounding gardens with their fine gates, trellises, and promenades.

Seeing only a couple of gardeners working, I never saw anyone else, save one woman alone who spoke minimal English and wanting only minimal conversation. I again wonder how it is I find myself alone in a world class treasure. I’m reminded of the time not so long ago when I was alone in the epic Frederiks Kirke in Copenhagen while the organist rehearsed, listening to sublime melodies under the third largest rotunda dome in the world. There’s much to be said for this kind of solitude. It is enriching beyond words.

With the sudden loss of sunlight and the absence of color in early February, it became a bit of a game to catalog the textures of the surprisingly diverse evergreens placed in a labyrinthine series of garden ‘rooms.’ Extensive ponds, fountains, and walks added interesting compositional elements to my images. After ninety minutes of ‘collecting’ this intriguing place I wandered back to the visitor’s center, figuring it would have an interesting interior. I was bowled over to find its central ceiling contains a vast dome of stained glass, reminiscent of the great stained glass once housed in the Baltic Exchange in London before terrorists blew it up in 1991. The present dome was salvaged from a large Baptist church no longer wanting it. Huh? I did not begrudge at all making a donation to this amazing garden. I did learn, after all, that Daniel Stowe gave four hundred acres and $14 million to establish these gardens a little over ten years ago. What was my $12? Employees present in the visitor’s center were hanging a photo show and invited me to bring a camera tripod inside and have a go at it.

“Inside’ proves to be an 8,000 square foot orchid house with an impossible collection of orchids and bromeliads, all in vibrant bloom. The house reminds me of the great Victorian glass houses to be found in European cities. This new orchid house is presently venue to a two-month color burst special event. The clouded-over sky provided perfect light to ‘collect’ hundreds of images of these wonders of horticulture, all finely displayed in the context of waterfalls, pools, and terraces.

I’m reminded I need to always pay attention to those brown highway signs. Some of them lead to paradise. And sometimes the staff of paradise will offer you a plate to join them for a grand luncheon in a great hall with a grand piano played nearby. I have Daniel Stowe to thank for his vision which showed me what paradise can look like, even in the middle of winter.

Riding on the East Wind
Heaven, somewhere above South Carolina


As a kid there were those moments when heady anticipation was almost overwhelming. I recall those Fridays that were the last ones of the school year- the vast infinity of summer vacation lying before us. During summer there were those magic times when we got to go to Wagner’s pool and swim all afternoon - forgetting the endemic chaos of an alcoholic family. At other times we could actually build our palaces in the sky in the large elm trees in the back corner. Of course, the anticipation of Christmas made time stand still in the days leading up to it.

As an adult, perhaps one of the most powerful moments of anticipation derives from the feeling that happens when the crew lets go of the basket and the giant gumdrop above us successfully defies gravity. One is actually able to soar into the sky and watch the world spread out below. Hot air ballooning is the only mode of transportation where the journey itself is absolutely everything. And so it was today. After spending the morning chasing thirty hot air balloons with my cameras in my old earth-bound Toyota, it occurred to me that being up in the cerulean skies of a second Indian summer made a lot more sense than chasing balloons with thousands of other people doing the exact same thing, or raking leaves in the back yard.

After making a phone call to the festival organizers and then showing up at the launch field in mid afternoon I was able to secure a place in one of the thirty balloons that would be participating in a mass ascension at sunset. For the next two hours on a warm Saturday afternoon, I played the part of a gawking tourist and wandered around the launch field with my cameras, ‘collecting’ balloons and people in various states of euphoria and delight. Secretly, I knew I was in a privileged tiny group that was going to experience this balloon festival to the max. Around 4 PM the giant gumdrops starting plucking off the surface of a gravity-controlled world and immediately caught winds to the east. The idea that I was about to get caught in these easterly winds in one of these was delicious beyond words. Hurry up!! I want to go!

Finally our turn came to assemble the basket, struts, burners, telemetry wires, lay out the envelope, attaching the shrouds, and begin the cold inflation. Something that sounds like a small aircraft engine powers a truncated wood propeller and cold air is used to inflate the 77,000 cubic foot envelope, bringing it to life. At the right time heat is applied with the propane burners and the balloon stood up. At the proper moment the pilot says, “Hop in”. He didn’t have to ask me twice.

Tugging at the ropes tying us to the planet, the rainbow cloud above me wanted to get off this world as much as I did. The crew turned us loose, and instantly we were caught in those easterly winds. Suddenly we were in total stillness and we experienced heavenly peace in stunning fashion. This was so much better than catching the perfect wave or even getting the perfect reach in a sail boat. The launch field spread out below and soon people looked like ants scurrying about looking for candy. Shortly the horizon opened up and the city lay before us. It’s utterly entrancing to waft across town, hanging from the bottom side of a huge gumdrop, having everyone stopping their activities on earth to wave at us and smile. Something about hot air balloons provokes this happy involuntary reflex of waving and grinning with great energy.

At certain times of day on certain select days, light allows us wanna-be photographers to look like true professionals. The aureate cast to the slanting late-afternoon sun around us brings the fall colors below to vibrant life and these clouds of balloons are glorious in their brilliant sun-drenched finery. I have now taken several hundred images of this magical world up here. I could stay up here forever. I find myself scurrying around the different sides of the basket to capture every aspect of this cerulean world. Wisps of high cirrus clouds give a fine grain texture to the heavenly realm yet further up from us. There is a magnificent transcendent sensibility to be in a high place, not unlike that which draws mountain climbers to make long dangerous ascents to the summits of great peaks.

Up here I see how splendid our world really is, the grand clouds of tree canopies, now a grand admixture of cadmium orange, gold, alizarin red, yellow, burnt sienna, burn umber, crimson, and scarlet spread out below, creating a sense of softness and security. How different those millions of leaves look from up here than when I am raking them into great piles.

The necklace of large lakes here known as ‘the freshwater coast’, glint below and create a sense of being in a pristine land of a thousand lakes. The world seems fresh and well delivered from the drought that lasted here for so many years. Many are enjoying their powerboats on water that was but weedy fields not so long ago, leaving contrails of white foam in their wake. Sailors, like us, use the wind, to experience the joy of the journey.

I’m not sure I want to descend; the ride on the eastern wind is way cooler than summer vacation, even better than getting the perfect wave on a board at Newport Beach. Up here all really seems well with the world. Perhaps it really is, if we but pay attention. If Earth is this good, what is Heaven going to be like?

“Eyes have not seen, ears have not heard, the hearts of men have not even imagined the things I have prepared for you.”

A Pause That Refreshes

Anderson, South Carolina

Most of the people in my world never ever think about water. They never think about it being scarce, expensive, or potentially laden with life-threatening contaminants. To them it is none of these things. To nearly three billion people on earth it is all of these things. It takes me about fifteen minutes to earn enough money to buy and dispose of all the clean safe water I want to make use of for an entire month. For a small bit more I can heat it up for showers, cooking or any other purpose I choose.

Hundreds of millions of people spend much of their waking time thinking about water. Many spend hours in physical labor each day acquiring it. Many children throughout the world have sacrificed their childhoods to be beasts of burden hauling water from distant polluted sources to satisfy the barest needs for cooking and hydration. None is available for showers, shampoo, hot tubs, or the other delights we take for granted.

Monday night 230 people who never think about water paid $100 to gather in a bucolic farm setting to pause and think about water for those who have to think about it all the time. We gathered to raise money to rebuild a dam, pump station, four reservoirs, and a system of high pressure pipe that supplies water to 12,000 Haitians living on the edge of the economic and nutritional abyss that is their world. People who don’t have to think about water have chosen to do so and pay the water bill for those that have no capacity to do so. Because open-hearted people have chosen to help others, some that were forced to think about water all the time are no longer required to do so.

A grand venue with a fine hall was donated as were hundreds of chairs, tables, and a tent big enough for a small circus. Caterers provided all the cooking, preparation, and presentation. Other vendors donated wine and beer. Others volunteered to be an attentive wait staff. Other offered to bus and clean up. My role was to scurry around and connect wires and hook up sound systems, projection systems, and computers so that our guests could see and hear what a Haitian world looks like that is forced to think about water too much. They could also see that the dam has now been built and that people are going to be able to start thinking more about things like education and better lives.

The bill to make sure these Haitians have safe water is about $1 million. We made $25,000 for offering a fine catered dinner at sunset. Unlike the miracle at the marriage supper in Cana where water was turned into vintage wine, we saw our offerings of wine and food turned into safe water for those are just beginning to believe in the possibility of miracles.

Melodies in the Night

Anderson, South Carolina

One does not have to spend six hours listening to the whine of jet turbines in order to hear the great melodies of life. Sometimes a two-minute drive in an eighteen year old Toyota will suffice - at least for me this was recently the case. Two of my favorite things to do in the world are taking pictures of people doing the things they love the most and listening to those blessed people who know how to make music in a twenty-three piece big band. For the first time ever I was able to do both of these things at the same time. I was asked if I would be interested in taking a couple of photographs at a big band concert in the nearby university auditorium. Part of the deal was free tickets to the event. The band was wanting some pictures for publicity purposes. I thought about this for at least a nanosecond and said I would be happy to do so.

It was as if I had my own private concert. I was told to feel free to move about the auditorium, the stage, and the green room spaces. For two hours I basked in the rich sounds of twenty-three musicians who really know how to bring to life nineteen of the classic big band standards of greats like George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Richard Rodgers, and Lerner and Loewe. For what seemed like but a few seconds I scampered about this melodic oasis and took hundreds of pictures of twenty three musicians and a dozen fine vocalists in complete flow with each other. How grand it is to document people doing something really well - giving pure pleasure to the several hundred aficionados in the audience who have really good taste. I was granted a close-up perspective not usually granted to concert goers. It is amazing the different ‘regions’ that exist within a large big band. It was a delight for me to photograph the band from front, back, and sideways.

I can only hope that these musicians want me to digitize them again the next time they blow magic into our lives.

Swimming in the Stream of Life

Atlanta, Georgia

One of the great destinations in the Southeast has come to be the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta. This epic facility draws as many as twenty thousand visitors in a day. For hours people wait to gain admission to this marine wonderland, to experience the beauty of a world often unrealized by those of us consigned to living on land. Even though constrained to live on land, we are free to swim, ride in boats, descend in submarines, and otherwise experience the delights of our water world. If we so choose we can swim with the dolphins.

Alas, there are many of us unable to experience the joys of recreation and social connections because of medical or genetic misfortunes. Many thousands of children around the world have been burdened with congenital genetic nightmares or have been subject to disfiguring and disabling accidents. In many countries, disfigured or deformed children are consigned to a life of hopeless neglect and despair. Childspring International has as its mission the redemption of the lives of as many of these children as possible. Last year nearly 200 of these children were brought to the United States to have life saving and life changing surgery. The value of the cost of treatment for these children was in the tens of millions. To each of the children the value was beyond price.

This week four hundred and sixty of us privileged individuals made a pilgrimage to the Georgia Aquarium for a chance to watch the beluga whales and the whale sharks glide through the turquoise waters of seven million gallon tanks. For the evening the place was ours. Suited up in our black velvet and diamonds, silk cummerbunds and tails, we showed up to celebrate the visionary lives of those who seek to include these special needs children into their lives. We saw the vast difference that a single individual can make in the lives of many. As awe-inspiring as it is to see these great denizens of the deep glide soundlessly through the waters, far more compelling was to experience the vision of those who see beyond themselves.

We enjoyed our well-presented dining experience, made new friends, danced to the sounds of a grand twenty piece dance orchestra, and relished the prospect of telling others about this modern gospel of healing. I don’t think I will see fish quite the same again.

I arrived home at 1:40 AM, having been reminded of my privileged station in life and my responsibility to bring as many other souls along with me to a better place as possible.

Spectral Images of Spring

Augusta, Georgia

Opening the front door can be a really pleasant experience. Today I opened up about 6:45 AM and found a sapphire blue heaven lacerated with amazing streaks of crimson, pink, and red, punctuated by rays of bright orange ascending from the horizon as the solar event horizon raced across the sky. These images are always the better when seen on travel days. I wasn’t hopping on planes today but was anticipating about four hours of enjoyable country driving at the peak of spring color here in the south.

So it was that I picked up a friend to drive to Augusta for her annual visit to the Medical College of Georgia. The morning drive through rolling South Carolina farmland in late March is beautiful. Dogwood trees in full bloom accent the banks of lavender, purple, red, and white azaleas. Several species of late blooming daffodils provide their yellow punctuation on emerald sweeps of fresh lawns. Many fence rows are illuminated by Yoshino cherry trees and the nearly ubiquitous Bradford pear trees are just finishing their blooming cycles and putting on canopies of newly emergent green.

Perhaps one of the most visual of all sporting events is the Master’s golf tournament in Augusta. I am willing to bet a lot of people vie for tickets to the Masters just for an opportunity to wander around in one of the most perfectly manicured landscapes in the world for four days as much as they do to watch people launch little white balls into the cerulean skies of Augusta. Today everyone in Augusta is preparing the town for its mass influx of Truflite pilgrims in a couple of weeks.

68 degrees at the end of March with a china blue sky and everything in full bloom certainly does give a colorful reminder of how grand life really can be even if it includes visits to the neurosciences center of a university medical campus. Every day that one is above ground and able to smell the flowers is a good one. In all things, give thanks, especially for springtime in the South.