Awed by the beauty of thy virginity
and the exceeding radiance of thy purity,
Gabriel stood amazed and cried to thee,
O Mother of God.
What worthy hymn of praise can I offer unto thee?
By what name shall I call thee?
I am lost and bewildered.
Wherefore as commanded, I cry to thee
Rejoice, O Full of Grace!
from the Theotokion at Matins
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4 comments:
Hey Jim,
It's the foyer when you first walk in, looking left behind the door. The ikon scarf is new (a gift for my wife from her brother) and the little table used to sit to the right of the front door.
If you click the picture and go to flickr.com you'll see the same scene, but from a further vantage point so that the door and front closet become partially visible.
What happened to the pic? The colors look wierd.
Wifey
Are you trying to pop my creative bubble?
B/c of low light and no flash the digital pics were a titch blurry. This gave me the artistic license to tweak them in a way that I thought made them more interesting (eg, manipulating the brightness and contrast to intensify the "glow" around the ikon).
The 35mm version should look much more clear and natural when we have them developed.
Apparently the reader feeders are having a hey day lately because everything is republishing... regardless, "Awed By the Beauty" is my absolute favorite hymn.
When I was in Tanzania and had been there for a couple of weeks there was one night when the conversation at the table didn't seem to interest me. Being at the far end of the table I laid my head down and began singing Awed by the Beauty quietly to myself. No one seemed to notice and the conversation carried on as I was lost in my own little world. As soon as I finished I heard this low voice begin singing melodically across the table from me. This time everyone stopped to listen. It was Adam, the Bishop's secretary, one of the Tanzanians, singing Awed by the Beauty in Swahili. Adam was quiet man and never said much. He looked straight at me the entire time he sang. When he finished he simply said, "That was Awed by the Beauty in Swahili." We finished the rest of our meal in silence. It was one of the most beautiful moments I had in Tanzania.
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