Thankful

I have always loved the first Question and Answer of the Heidelberg Catechism. I’m thankful for ancestors in faith who so succinctly summarized what God’s word has to say.

Today, Pastor Harry reminded me of of the next Question and Answer. I’m thankful for Pastor Harry.

Q & A 1

Q. What is your only comfort
in life and in death?

A. That I am not my own,1
but belong—

body and soul,
in life and in death—2

to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.3

He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood,4
and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil.5
He also watches over me in such a way6
that not a hair can fall from my head
without the will of my Father in heaven;7
in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.8

Because I belong to him,
Christ, by his Holy Spirit,
assures me of eternal life9
and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready
from now on to live for him.10

1 1 Cor. 6:19-20
2 Rom. 14:7-9
3 1 Cor. 3:23; Titus 2:14
4 1 Pet. 1:18-19; 1 John 1:7-9; 2:2
5 John 8:34-36; Heb. 2:14-15; 1 John 3:1-11
6 John 6:39-40; 10:27-30; 2 Thess. 3:3; 1 Pet. 1:5
7 Matt. 10:29-31; Luke 21:16-18
8 Rom. 8:28
9 Rom. 8:15-16; 2 Cor. 1:21-22; 5:5; Eph. 1:13-14
10 Rom. 8:1-17

Q & A 2

Q. What must you know to live and die in the joy of this comfort?

A. Three things:

first, how great my sin and misery are;1
second, how I am set free from all my sins and misery;2
third, how I am to thank God for such deliverance.3

1 Rom. 3:9-10; 1 John 1:10
2 John 17:3; Acts 4:12; 10:43
3 Matt. 5:16; Rom. 6:13; Eph. 5:8-10; 2 Tim. 2:15; 1 Pet. 2:9-10

Transitioning

The first Sunday that we visited Church of the Resurrection, I told Pastor Bob that we weren’t sure where God was calling us to serve Him – we just knew that he had made it clear that it was time to move on. We could hardly know then what blessings He had in mind for us as He made it clear that COR was the place he was calling us to serve.

This week God made it clear that it was time for another transition in our lives. I’ve been the entire computer support team at the Museum of Northern Arizona for almost 11 years, but the museum made the decision that IT support needed to be outsourced as a cost-saving measure. I’ll leave it to others to judge the soundness of that decision for MNA, but what is clear is that God is saying it’s time to serve in some other capacity.

This morning we went to worship through the first real snow storm of the season. I knew it would be good to be in God’s house, but I was unprepared for just how good it would be. The genuine compassion and caring of this congregation is just amazing. Even more amazing is the resources that God has put there which fit so well with our need. One member is an expert in resume preparation at the university and is reviewing my resume. A couple of other members have contacts that they have already spoken with on my behalf. How could we have known all those months ago that God was putting us into just the right place at the right time for what was coming?

Today was “Thanksgiving Sunday” and I was asked to offer the prayer of thanks during the service. God game me words that I didn’t know I had to offer thanks for his incredible goodness. After the service, He demonstrated that with the words of encouragement and offers of assistance that we received.

Do we know yet where I’m supposed to serve next? No, but we have confidence that the God who loves us so much that he sacrificed his own Son, and who knows us so well that he counts the hairs on our head, will show us the way and provide for our needs.

Dutch-American Heritage Day

Yesterday was “Dutch-American Heritage Day”. Who designates such things, you ask? Well, I was thinking it was KLM since they were running a contest, but it turns out it’s the U.S. Congress. Who knew??

Well we figured we should do something to mark the occasion, so we used some soup mix that we had obtained at the Dutch Import Store in Beaverton, and we made some great soup. It brought back lots of memories of meals in Zevenhuizen, and it was really delicious. Still, I miss Albert Heijn and the soup ingredients that we could get there. You just can’t get the same things in the U.S. and even though the soup mix is made by a Heinz company, you can’t find it in the U.S. except at import stores.

Welcome Surprises

Sometimes you discover great things when you aren't looking, or at least when the path you are on takes an unexpected turn. I've had a run of such things lately.
 
When creating the "Changing Seasons" post, I realized that I had not prepared the last image so I restarted Photomatix Essentials only to see a notification from Avast that the program was infected with a virus. Now, I love Avast for protecting my PC and highly recommend it. I've never seen a problem like this before and still can't figure out what went wrong. To make matters worse, Avast quarantined the program file and I could not figure out how to get it out of quarantine.

At this point the only solution was to download and install a new copy of Photomatix Essentials. When I started it, I discovered that interface looked different. It turns out I had upgraded from version 3.11 to 3.23. I would not have known except for the change to the list of presents.

Photomatix Essentials 3.11

Photomatix Essentials 3.23

Instead of one "Painterly" preset, now I have 5 to choose from in addition to several new options. This is very cool.

So this gets me to wondering, what else has been added in the way of new features?

I've long heard about the benefits of saving images in RAW and so I've had my camera set to save in RAW and JPG, but on Canon cameras the RAW files are CR2 and not all software supports this variation. In fact, Photomatix Essentials had always been able to import these files, but always gave me an image that looked like is was sepia-toned, except it was purple instead of sepia - totally unusable. So I decided to try CR2 files in the new version - they work just like they should! My initial experiments with RAW have born out that RAW produces much better results.

At about the same time, I saw a posting that there was a new open source alternative to Adobe Lightroom, called Lightzone. Most of the info that I found about Lightzone pointed to Lightroom and since I don't use Adobe software, I started reading and searching for info on Lightroom. This lead me to some tutorials on hdr101.com and digital-photography-school.com and I discovered some articles about HDR using one image, and a series by James Brandon on the Basics of HDR Photography. The first of the series emphasized the importance of knowing your camera well, and spending lots of time with the user guide.

I decided that James had some good advice, especially since some settings on my camera have been a bit annoying since it came back from the lens repair, so I dug out the manual and settled in for some quality time. WOW! I am blown away by the capabilities that I had missed from when I first reviewed the book when I purchased the camera.

The best camera feature that I discovered was the ability to save the current settings to "Custom Settings". I'd always found it inconvenient to open the function menu, scroll down to Auto Exposure Bracketing, activate it and then exit the menu. I'd also groused about how I wished I could add switching to AEB to the lens ring control. Well, Custom Settings may be even better than what I wished for. Now I just rotate the dial on the top of the camera to "C" and I'm in AEB mode - very cool!

So now I'm off on a new adventure - to see what I can do with RAW in Photomatix Essentials, including processing single photos instead of a group of three, and to see how Lightzone can improve my workflow and enable me to do things in HDR that I've not even dreamed of. This is fun!