A Marriage Blessing

I've been to many weddings before, including my own and I must say that the day that Rose and I got married is about the closest emotional parallel to my daughters recent wedding. Of course when your daughter gets married: emotionally, physically and financially you are bound to be heavily involved!

It started for me years ago when Kait and I (and sometimes Rose and/or April) would sit  down together and watch "Say Yes to the Dress". That's why when the time finally arrived to pick a wedding dress for Kait, I wanted to be involved. I figured I had earned it after watching dozens, or perhaps hundreds (thousands?) of wedding shows over the years.

So I was there for some, but not all of the appointments and eventually, Kait and I picked up the dress together and I was entrusted with hanging it in my "studio" and keeping it safe until the wedding. I must say that I enjoyed the process, spending time with my wife and daughters and really getting into the part of the cost conscious father of the bride.

She Said "Yes" to the dress!

Just for fun, I dived into the role. "Yes it's lovely....but how much does it cost?" 

Of course there were other aspects of the wedding to plan and when the kids announced that they were planning to have the ceremony at Nick's parents "farm" (3 acres just off of the Manning Freeway) we were excited to see it. Kait had mentioned over and over (and over) about the cute little red barn on the property that she envisioned the ceremony taking place in front of.

When we went to see it, I immediately saw that there was an even better place on the property to hold the ceremony and Rose agreed when I pointed it out to her. (Since that day, there has been some historical revision going on and now it seems everyone involved has stepped forward to take the credit for suggesting that the ceremony take place where it eventually did.)

 The truth however is that it was I who first actually said the fateful words, "let's do it over there" in the lovely spot between two rows of towering, leafy green shade trees that we later began calling, "cathedral grove."

Of course, the problem at that point was deciding how to approach Kait and Nick with our idea, (yes you guessed it, like most good things in my life, the idea was a product of a congenial collaboration between Rose and myself).

Couples planning a wedding can be notoriously difficult to influence without causing undue stress and tension so we gave the matter of how to broach the subject careful thought before spontaneously blurting out our idea at the first opportunity.

Surprisingly, it was quickly decided that "Cathedral Grove" was indeed the ideal spot and so it proved to be, absolutely gorgeous and since the wedding day turned out to be hot and sunny (+29) the shade was wonderful.

It was a beautiful day and everything went perfectly, just a few little hiccups to keep the stress level up such as being short one cable for the wireless mic for the officiant, (Nicks Aunt) but an emergency delivery by the father of one of the groomsmen quickly solved that, whew! 

The ceremony was only slightly delayed and thanks to our intrepid wedding planners Evy and Pam who did everything from setting up chairs to arranging various pretty decorations, everything else went smoothly.

No-one was brained during the smashing of the pinatas, the porta-potty didn't fall over and there was very little traffic on the road during the ceremony, all good things!

Kait, Nick and the "dog of honour" Lola

One of my responsibilities (self imposed) was to say a blessing over the marriage during the ceremony and I managed to get through it with a minimum of waterworks. It proved to be a very emotional ceremony with a lot of sniffles among the audience, and the participants. (Nick developed a curious pollen allergy that lasted the length of the ceremony) 

I enjoyed writing the blessing and speaking it over the marriage of my daughter Kait and her new husband Nick Jewell and I thought I would share it here as well for those who missed the wedding or who may have an opportunity to one day speak a similar blessing over someone they love.

Blessing Kait & Nick, July 13 2014

"Good afternoon everyone, I'm Kait's father and I asked for an opportunity to say a blessing over their marriage today. There are many ways that we can choose to bless someone, it could be as simple as "Live long and prosper." (Vulcan greeting/salute)

And that’s a good blessing, but I’m a little more ambitious than that when it comes to my daughters and when it comes to this marriage.

I could choose to bless the marriage as the father of the bride, as a couple along with my wife Rose, the mother of the bride and of course we do give our blessing to this marriage, (whew).

But you already knew that because Nick came and asked for Kait’s hand in marriage and for our blessing and we were happy to give it.

I believe it's important to speak words of blessing over people and especially over those that we love and we love our children, we love you Kait and we love you Nick as a good man and as our future, (very short time in the future) son in law.

And I believe that there is a blessing that comes from being married and today before God and all of us as witnesses, Kait and Nick will be married. And of course we're not in a church, but God doesn't live in churches, He lives right here (inside us), and right here (all around us).

So the blessing that comes from being married is a good thing, it is, but.....it's incomplete. The full blessing available to us in our marriages is not an automatic part of being married, but instead it comes as a result of inviting God into our marriages and into our lives on a daily basis.

So Kait, as your father and Nick, as your father-in law, that is my hope and my prayer for your marriage and for your lives together. 

So now I'm going to pray and I invite you all to join with me as I invite God's blessing over this marriage.

"Love, Respect, Joy, Won't take each other for granted, Home, Children, Prosperity, Health, Unity."

Rose and I are fortunate to have two wonderful daughters and we now have a great son-in -law added to the mix. For now the immediate family consists of:
Five adults, one dog, two cats and a bunny named Basil.

It was an eventful summer, but it sure flew by fast and now the wedding pictures are in so we can enjoy re-living the adventure as we retreat indoors for the lovely Alberta winter.

Hamming it up at the shower

Barb and Rose doing the reception flowers

Making the center pieces for the reception

A Saturday in the City

It's Family Day weekend in Edmonton, the dead of winter, the weather is a little perkier but spring still seems a ways off, oh what to do? Well if you are like me and you have an expired groupon for the Art Gallery of Alberta that you want to use, the farmers market is running at City Hall and you have a new fish eye lens for your camera and your daughter calls and asks what you're doing Saturday, you say, "I'm going downtown, you should come too."

That's pretty much what happened this past Saturday and it was a lot of fun. Kait and Nick met us at City Hall and we puttered around the farmers market for a while and then Nicks dad and sister met us and the six of us spent the day together.

Rose and I love farmers markets and we always spend too much and get into a little trouble buying delicious home made goodies to take home for later. This time though, we were on our best behavior. We are trying to make healthy eating choices and are doing a lot of juicing and smoothies and that sort of thing, so baking and sugar and all of the usual unhealthy choices are out! (mostly)

So we spent most of our shopping time looking at stone milled heritage grain products and fresh vegetables, chocolate ambrosia  (how did that one sneak in there?) and chipotle rhubarb ketchup. While Rose sampled home made Indian food from two different stalls I wandered around taking pictures of our remarkable city hall. It is a very impressive building, bright and airy, with some great chromed benches and beautiful artwork and of course some impressive stairs and columns that photograph quite well.

City Hall Farmer's Market



Our plan was to go for lunch at Tres Carnales, a Mexican restaurant that I've heard quite a few good things about, but when Nick checked their web-site we found out they don't open until 4pm on Saturdays, oh well. We decided to walk over to The Blue Plate Diner and the six of us paraded through some rather grungy scenery over to 104 Street, just in time for the tail end of their brunch menu.

Lunch was quite good but for a variety of reasons, Rose and I opted to split the Elk/Bison burger and have the house salad with it. That would have worked out quite well.....except we were surrounded by plates overflowing with delicious looking fries that were calling out to us to gobble them up and thereby putting us both out of our misery.

Rose weakened I'm afraid and wanted to order some of our own, but I stood firm in the onslaught of tantalizing aromas and sounds of people all around happily munching on fries, only slipping a little bit and "borrowing" a few fries from Nick and Kait's basket of golden deliciousness.

That minefield avoided, (mostly) we headed across the street to evoolution, a delicious way to spend a Saturday afternoon, sampling premium olive oils and aged balsamic vinegars in cute, tiny little paper cups using bits of bread to soak up the mixed flavours and eventually choosing a few combinations to take home.   http://www.evoolution.ca/

                        Espresso Balsamic Vinegar & Blood Orange Infused Olive Oil

I LOVE that place, the only problem is, there is so much variety and everything is so tasty that it's hard to make a choice and exit gracefully! Eventually we did make a choice, a few choices actually and I can't wait to try them out at home, delicious.

After that it was a walk back to drop off a few parcels at the car and then on to the Art Gallery of Alberta. I confess, I am far more interested in the building than most of the art inside of it and so, as everyone else enjoyed the art, I thoroughly enjoyed the building itself. Of course I can't resist trying out some of the art filters that can sometimes jazz up pictures and give then a little bit more punch. Check out a few of the pictures below: all shot with a Sony NEX 5n and a Rokinon 8mm Fish Eye lens.

High contrast black & white filter



Colour Polarizer Filter



Partial Colour/Yellow filter.



And that was about it, just another Saturday in the city.



A Farewell to Uncle Johny

While I was growing up, I had the privilege of having some very special people in my life. I had close relatives on the farm and there was a real community of them, all clustered around a few square mile chunk of some of the most beautiful land in Alberta.

A little West of Pigeon Lake, (my mom went to school at Lakedell school near Westerose Alberta) was where my moms family homesteaded back in the twenties or thirties. The land was pretty raw back then with a lot of trees and rocks and it took  a lot of backbreaking labor to clear the land and make it productive, but they persevered and had kids (a lot of them) and spread out and married and had more kids and bought more land and cleared it and on and on.

My Grandmothers brother (one of them, anyway) was John Satre, the big man that I always knew as Uncle Johny. He was one of those wonderful, laughing, wise, hardworking, great men that it is such a privilege and blessing to know and his farm was one of the regular stops in the valley whenever we would head out in the country to visit the family.

I always liked him a lot and when he passed away at the age of 97 on December 25 I got a call from his son, Roger. He asked me to pass along the news to the rest of my family in the city and he happened to mention that they might need someone to speak at the funeral.

Well always up for a challenge, (well not always, if I'm honest) I told him that, "of course I will speak if it will help out." I was a bit nervous about it because doing a eulogy (and I've done a few) and actually officiating at a funeral are not exactly the same thing.

He assured me that they probably wouldn't need me but of course a person can't just count on that happening and so I set about preparing. My uncle wasn't exactly a church going man and so the situation called for some delicacy, (not my strong suit) and I started to think about what I knew of Uncle Johny and what I would say to his family and friends who knew him so much better.

A funeral is one of those few times in life when people who might otherwise not be willing to listen and hear about Jesus are a bit more open and receptive to the message that Christians call "The Good News." That Jesus wants to have a relationship with them, He loves them no matter who they are and what their past is and that He died for them, so that they could have the chance to choose life.

So I thought about it and I prayed about it and I got a very clear picture of a man in a field running his hands through the heads of grain and stripping them off the stalk and crumpling them in his hand, (as farmers do) and just knowing, knowing, knowing, knowing. Without church and sermons, without the bible even, and I do know how important the word of God is, but without all of the usual and very necessary trappings of Christianity, just knowing......that, THERE IS A GOD!

And I wrote it down and I read it to my wife and when the time came to call Roger, he said "don't worry about it, we have an old friend of dad's to speak." And I said, "Oh, OK."

And that was that.

Well, it would have been, if not for Rose, she of course said, and I'm paraphrasing here. "NO, God gave you a word and you need to call him back and tell him that you have something to say and you need to speak!"

(But of course she said this in a way that was loving and supportive, but firm!)

So I tucked the paper in my pocket and told her I would ask him at the funeral and that's what I did, and when he and his wife read it, they said, "yes, please read it."

And so they tacked me onto the program and when the time came and they called, "Doug Perry, has something to say." I went up, (even though my name isn't Doug Perry!
And this is what I said.
"A lot of no nonsense farmers and ranchers whose life is taken up with their families and the land and their livestock and crops and the weather and the markets and their machinery…. maybe don’t think about it much. But when they're up before dawn, out bringing the cows in and getting ready for milking, when they look out over the foggy fields and dew covered grass and trees and they see how the thousands of spider webs are covered in dew and sparkling in the light of the rising sun, even then, they might not say it aloud, but inside, in their hearts, they just know, there is a God.

They might not have time to acknowledge Him in public or pursue Him in the way that others might, but when they hear the rain drumming on the roof and smell the new-mown hay, and strip the head of grain off the stock and marvel at the miracle of those tiny grains transformed into the slices of freshly baked, golden brown bread that is their lunch, they just know, there is a God.

When they reach for a tool to get the job done that needs to get done, that has to get done, and they strain and they wrestle with that stubborn rusty bolt that just has to come out because the combine is broken down and the crop has got to come off and the harvest is only half done and time is running out... and then, with one more heave, it breaks loose, finally: they whisper, "thank you Lord" And He hears.

Some men never really get into the habit of going to church, but they know there's a God just the same. when they look into the cradle and see the newborn child that is the product of the love that they have for their wife and they see those perfect little hands and those perfect little toes and those long eyelashes and the downy covering of tiny little hairs that covers a new baby, they just know, there is a God, because only God could make such a miracle."

It is always a privilege to speak in public and a funeral is one of those occasions when there is a lot of emotion and all a person can do is be willing and to do their best when called upon. And to trust that God will do the rest.
And I do.
And He will.

Picture Perfect

My brother, sisters & I

I was thinking today about what makes a photograph art? And is there such a thing as the perfect photograph? Of course there's the subjective side of things and we may all have a different opinion on any given image. But for me, the answer might be connected to our concept of what life is. Is life just a random confluence of matter and time and events that just sort of falls out of the sky, or the brain, to splatter on the pavement in front of us to be interpreted sort of like a street Rorschach test? Or is there a lot more meaning to life, and a lot less random particle collisions with weird outcomes and more ………………….life, love, beauty, and God?

A photograph can be a lot of things, just like a human life. It can be dull, boring and flat, but useful. It can be a record of a place or time, but with no-one to care about it or be interested in it, it might seem to have no point. But if it has a connection to something or somewhere that people care about and are interested in, it has a life and a magic of its own. If it has a provenance that is somehow intertwined with our lives or something we care about it comes alive to us.

 Today I was looking at a box of old pictures that really tells a story of who my family is. After my mom’s death, it seems I was appointed as the “keeper of the past” without even realizing it, (and I didn’t even get a tee-shirt). There are hundreds of photographs and negatives and papers and keepsakes that are a living record of my family throughout the generations. As I looked at these old pictures of people, many of whom I didn’t even recognize, I was sad. Who were these people who were so obviously important to people who were important to people who were important to people I care about?

Normally, I don’t spend a lot of time taking family pictures or people pictures at all, but looking back through these old photos, I realize that they do have importance, even for those of us who are not sentimental about them. Most people are kind of funny looking and they definitely are not models so they don’t know how to pose very well and they make funny faces and have bad hair and weird clothes, wait a minute, that’s just me I’m talking about, you on the other hand, look great!

Don’t get me wrong, there is beauty in just being family to one another. All of those traditions and little rituals and trade-offs that are part of growing up Canadian in the times that we live in, have a meaning and a beauty of their own, I know that. And I know that an incredibly beautiful photograph can be absolutely empty of any other meaning if it doesn’t connect the viewer with life in some way. The best pictures connect us to something in our own lives, a memory, a moment, a fear, a shared experience, a dream, an emotion, even a nightmare. That’s the challenge of artists of all kinds, but especially the photographer. That’s what separates the record keepers, from those that can draw the viewer into the scene and capture their heart.

There are at the very least, two kinds of beauty when it comes to photographs: The kind that comes from the existing emotional attachment that we have with the subject and the kind that the photographer manages to evoke through the subject, or in spite of the subject, even without a pre-existing connection.

Life also seems to diverge into two parallel paths, do we choose door A with the easy path, the wide path that so many are taking, do we just follow along because it happens to be the easy way and everyone is doing it, or do we choose the narrow door, the one that looks hard to enter? If my record in the supermarket checkout line is any indication, I’m in trouble! But I've learned to stick with it and ride it out, even if my mind says, “go that way, fool.” 

Sorry, I don’t have a lot of answers, but when it comes to beauty, I’m convinced I have it right. To me, much of the beauty around us comes from the family who loves you and makes you happy. Beauty and perfection, in a photograph are very similar, if you love it, and it makes you happy, that's great, and if it happens to serve God in some way, even just by sharing the wonder of creation, or by recording the family that He gave you and the moments that you've shared with them, you just might be on the right track.

Mom, Terry, Chris, Doug, & Duke in 1962.