National Arboretum

Eden.

This is what peace looks like.

Colorful Ruth

Ruth celebrated spring with colors on her fingers and toes.

All new to me. This made her happy and cheerful, which is of course, all good.

Women's world...

Reverend Betty Fluker - crowning invocation

I had the privilege of covering the re-opening and greening of the R Street Apartments in Washington DC, for Enterprise Community Foundation. The mayor came, folks were happy. All good.

I was especially struck by the presence and powerful singing of Reverend Betty Fluker, a resident of the complex, who rang out a stirring gospel invocation.

Shattered glass

I found these shards from a shattered glass bottle on 30th Street SE, in Washington DC, just a few steps away from a shrine to a murder vicitim named "Head" ( see: http://dcshrines.blogspot.com ).

This brought forth sharp memories of the aftermath of a suicide bomb attack I documented in Jerusalem six years ago, where eleven souls were murdered in a bus in a quiet blue-collar neighborhood.

Shattered glass. Shattered lives.

And in that space and time, and in this, there emerge artifacts from the violence which have poignancy and beauties of their own.

Birkat HaChammah

Birkat HaChammah is a special and rare Jewish ceremony for blessing the gift of the sun at a particular conjunction marking its creation. The ritual's blessings date from the Babylonian Talmud.

It occurs only once every twenty-eight years.

These images were made this morning at Agudas Achim Congregation in Alexandria Virginia, where I regularly attend morning prayers.

Here Comes the Sun. And it's all right.

( thanks to Lynn Sandler, Rabbi Jack Moline and Hazzan Elisheva Dienstfrey, George Harrison, and always, always, HaShem )

APRIL FOOL 2009

Spring. Again.

aaaaaaaaah

A blessing.