~ Welcome to Unshod Feet! ~
I am five and ten years of age and five foot four inches. I delight in worshiping my Savior, Jesus Christ, and living in response to his Word. I desire to walk through my life opening my heart to
his transformational presence. Though I am living in the 21st century, occasionally I choose to forget it,
that is, when it comes to clothing. I am never awakened by a storm in the middle of the night and I prefer to end the day at half past eight in the evening and arise no later than half past six in the morning.
I delight in spending my time outside, which could mean reading on the hammock under our apple tree or going on hiking expeditions. I enjoy creating beautiful things through fabric and almond flour. I love picnics in a basket. If I had a whole day to spend on a project, I would be contented with a messy room that begs organization. I adore playing classical piano music and dreaming of a baby grand piano. I write in cursive. I don’t twist the toothpaste tube. Cleaning out the fridge makes my day. I love biking in a skirt. I revel in the company of my five siblings, and ask my parents just one more question before bed.
I am beginning this blog as another medium through which to glorify my Lord, and as a way for me to enjoy more thoroughly the things of life with which I am in love. I hope this blog may be a blessing to you at whatever stage of life you are in currently.
The origin of the title:
This past school year, I, along with my siblings, memorized the poem God's Grandeur by Gerard Manley Hopkins. In this poem, Hopkins mourns the lost connection to nature and the disconnected way in which we interact with the world: shod. Elizabeth Barrett Browning also writes in Aurora Leigh about God's presence in the earth but how only a few, sensing the Lord, take off their shoes. This of course references the times in Scripture that God instructs one who is in his presence to take off his shoes because the ground is holy. So it is that being shod is not being aware of the presence of the Lord in our everyday lives, because every moment is filled with his glory; we have only to acknowledge it.
In this way, I hope to take off my shoes and delight in our gorgeous earth and the rich life I'm living right now.
Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries,
And daub their natural faces unaware.
~A selection from Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning~
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings
~A selection from God's Grandeur by Gerard Manley Hopkins~
Photography Note:
All the photos on my blog are taken by me, with the exception of pictures of me, unless otherwise noted. All photos are taken with my Mama's Canon EOS T2i.
