The 60-Second Sabbath

Please Visit www.PhotosByDirk.com!

Please stop by my website PhotosByDirk.com. There you'll find prints and books for purchase, as well as news on my photography. Click here for the link: www.PhotosByDirk.com.

I Step Back

I step back,
    and God steps forward.

Less of me
    means more of Mystery, of the Infinite, the Unfathomable.

A silent me
    invites the Still, Small Voice, the Whisper, the Holy Silence.

I fall back,
    and disappear into Eternal Oneness.

You and I--
    we are meant for this.

Text and image © 2025 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

Genesis 15

Abram has a vision,
    in which he hears God speak:

        "Maintain thine composure, Abram--
            just checking in with thee."

        Abram struggles to do just that,
            then asks the question top of mind:
        "Where are all those kids thou promised me?"

        "Look up at the stars:
            thou shalt have that many."

        "Yes,
            we've been over this,
        but when?"

        God sighs.
            "Okay, look...let's try this:"

        The vision continues:
            "Sacrifice unto me
        a heifer, a goat, a ram
            a turtledove, and a pigeon.
        Then watch what happens.
            This will seal the covenant
        I made with thee."

        Abram does so,
            shooing away the pesky vultures
        before falling into a vision-sleep.

        And here's where the vision 
            takes an intriguing and mysterious turn:
        "a deep and terrifying darkness
            descends upon him."

        A deep and terrifying darkness
            descends upon him.

        Abram sleeps into the Void,
           the utterly overwhelming Presence,
        unimaginable, hubris-stripping, horrifying,
            face-to-face-to-face with
        the Origin of All That Is,
            as It is.

        Deeply disturbing and absolutely necessary.

        Abram wakens from his vision-sleep--
            wide-eyed and trembling,
        "OMG!" he says,
            fully meaning it.

        The vision wraps up:
            God passes through the bloody sacrifice,
        symbolically sealing the deal.

        "Thus shalt it be, Abram."

        And all Abram can muster,
            is a weak and wobbly nod.

                            ---

God of uncomfortable revelation,
    in your mercy,
grant me an encounter
    with your deep and terrifying darkness.

Text and image © 2025 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

What I'm Worth

I will only understand
    my value
when I cease to define myself
    in terms of transient things:

    wealth,
        status,
    power,
        position,
    work,
        the opinions of others,
    nationality,
        family,
    relationships.
        religion...

From whence, then,
    comes my value?

Or is the bigger question:
    Am I worthy at all?

Text and image © 2025 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

Have you ordered your copy of Contemplative Vision: Photography as a Spiritual Practice? 
Follow this link: https://www.churchpublishing.org/contemplativevision

Another Poem from Our Father

Another of the poems we found, written by our father:

Are Heroes Made or Born?

His grandpa said, “It’s plain to see
In look and manner he’s like me.
The implication is quite clearo,
His genes have made of him a hero.”

His football coach, a martinet,
Spoke up and said, “Just don’t forget
In all the tribute that you’ve paid him
The rigid training’s what has made him.”

A wiser man said, “Let’s ask his mother.
She’d know better than any other.”
A wistful look captured her eye,
And the hint of smile was her reply.

-- Peter J. DeVries (Senior)

Text and image © 2025 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

Have you ordered your copy of Contemplative Vision: Photography as a Spiritual Practice? 
Follow this link: https://www.churchpublishing.org/contemplativevision

At the Center

The moment you choose
    to become like someone else,
you have prostituted yourself.
    --Anthony De Mello

Your essential self,
    who you are at your core,
is complete
    and divine
and perfect.

Your essential self
    is entirely unique
and utterly whole.

At that stable, eternal center,
    there is nothing to change,
nothing to fix,
    nothing to correct.

You and God are One.

Text and image © 2025 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

Have you ordered your copy of Contemplative Vision: Photography as a Spiritual Practice? 
Follow this link: https://www.churchpublishing.org/contemplativevision

Into the Void

Take my hand;
    we stand, side-by-side,
looking into the Void.
    Can you move with me
into this Unknown?
    God waits there,
but we cannot fly forward
    if weighed down
with concepts,
    formulas,
thoughts,
    meanings,
attachments.

Abandon these.

Beyond them are solitude,
    aloneness,
Silence...
    everything you've desired, needed.

But you must let go--
    even of my hand.

Text and image © 2025 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

Have you ordered your copy of Contemplative Vision: Photography as a Spiritual Practice? 
Follow this link: https://www.churchpublishing.org/contemplativevision

A Poem from My Father

On a recent trip to visit family in Michigan,
    my sister and I found this folder of "verses"
written by our father.

This is the first I have transcribed:

Wildflowers

Rainbow colors fragmented
Along dry and dusty roadsides

Amethystine loosestrife
Brown-faced Susans with
            petalled tufts of bright orange
Sweet clover heads nodding to
Chicory rosettes striped in
The distillate of summer skies
And skewered on wiry stems

Pistilled, sepalled, stamened testimonials,
Untended, unheeded, unsavored

Lord, forgive my preoccupation
            in my four-wheel prison

-- Peter J. DeVries (Senior)

Text and image © 2025 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

Have you ordered your copy of Contemplative Vision: Photography as a Spiritual Practice? 
Follow this link: https://www.churchpublishing.org/contemplativevision