Hello Steemit! The Unexpected Journey of a Pro Photographer

Hello Steemit world!
I am so excited to join you. I will frequently be blogging original content, but before I explain what about, allow me to introduce myself.

I am somewhat of an anomaly. I have been described as vegan-Christian-anarchist-hippie. Please let me share the unexpected journey that made me such an odd combination of unpopular archetypes.

Career

After giving up on my music career and Bible school, I started a two day a week photography internship and spent the rest of my time rock climbing all whilst living off a credit card. Then I became a professional photographer in 2007 which led to endless hours of mind-numbing photo editing. To pass the time I began listing to lectures on Austrian Economics and Libertarianism and became a nominal Anarcho-Capitalist.

Here is an obligatory photo of myself.

Here is my hometown, Grand Rapids, Michigan. This shot is ultra high resolution. It is a composite of 27 30-second exposures. I printed a 9 foot copy of this, I wish you could see that in person!

Cancer

In 2012, I was diagnosed with cancer and didn't have insurance (or money). I went vegan immediately and started researching alternative health. Within months I was a full-on hippie growing my own food and reeking of essential oils. I learned a lot but discovered that curing one's self with fruits and vegetables takes more time and dedication than I had. In 2014, I was rushed to the ER and had two surgeries which removed in excess of two liters of fluid from around my heart. The surgeon was amazed that my heart hadn't given out under the pressure. The good news was that I survived the week. The bad news was that the cancer had progressed stage four. My PET scan lit up like a Christmas tree. Fortunately, ObamaCare was in effect and I now had a super terrible insurance plan with a $20k max out of pocket, which I maxed out immediately. After 3 years of every possible drug protocol, I am still going through bi-weekly treatments with no end in sight. Rumours of water fasting to cure have peaked my interest, so I am currently on day 5 of a fast. I will let you all know if it amounts to anything.

This is a shot of me with some hair growing back in after quitting chemo. My dog pixel swam as I paddle boarded out to an island in Ludington State Park.

God

It seems that God takes those desperate death-bed bargaining prayers seriously because during and after my hospital stay I began experiencing him in profound ways. Without my asking, he made me acutely aware of what it was he wanted me to do. I guess when you promise God you'll do whatever, he doesn't just let you off the hook by not responding. The first thing he asked me to do was start a weekly half-hour prayer meeting. The only problem was that I felt horribly uncomfortable in prayer meetings, always being terrified of being put on the spot to pray out loud. As it turns out, God wasn't wrong about what gifts he had buried in me. I took to leading prayer meetings like a fish to water. Working through the anxiety was painful and awkward, but soon prayer became the best part of my life and as natural as breathing. Although, the moment I was comfortable, he started giving me opportunities to preach, which again, was terrifying. Maybe I wasn't hugged enough as a child, or maybe too much, either way, public speaking pushed my nerves to the edge. But I could not deny that God had given me something to say, and every time I spoke it was more rewarding than it was painful. Following God's direction has turned out to be pretty awesome. Understanding Jesus and the Bible has become my new mandate and obsession.

The Blog

I want to share some of what I have learned with you, but I have found that having an open dialogue about God and theology is a wonderful way to learn. If you are on your own journey of getting to know God then let's be friends and talk about what we are learning and our questions. After what I went through, I had a lot of questions, like the sort of questions that Job had for God after his business failed and his health went down the tubes. On this blog I want to invite you to wrestle with all of the most difficult questions about God and the Bible. Let's explore questions like:

Can a God who is love be wrathful?

Does God punish sin or does sin punish us all by itself?

Why did God bother making earth if he always intended for us to live in heaven?

Did God really forsake Jesus on the cross?

Do those who have never heard the gospel go straight to hell?

Does the Bible empower or oppress women?

Does man choose God or does God choose man?

Is there really an unforgivable sin?

If God is loving and all powerful why is the world full of pain?

I would bet all of you have wondered about at least half of those questions. Have you ever heard a truly satisfactory answer to any of these questions!?
The answers I had been given were so disappointing that it made me regret asking.
Maybe I have a holy disdain for holding conflicting thoughts about God, or maybe I am just obsessively curious, but I refuse to settle for weak answers to this never-ending list of questions. As I look to the Bible for answers I am continually amazed at the brilliance of God. I can now see his master plan woven through the seemingly disjointed and contradictory books of the Bible. He has written a consistent message of love and redemption into every page. Now, I am no longer afraid to ask God the difficult questions because every time I challenge him on something I find out that he is even better than I imagined.

Every time I find an answer that is closer to the truth, it raises 5 more questions, so I should have plenty of material to blog about for the next decade or so! I do not claim to be a prophet or to have a special revelation from God on the true meaning of the Bible, but I love questioning, discussing and learning together. By not having a dogma to defend I find discussing God with an open mind to be exhilarating. If I am wrong about something, I want to know. I am not content to be mostly right. If I were pushing a multi-level marketing plan I would be afraid of questions that might undermine the validity of the scheme I was investing so much time into, but it isn't like that with Christianity. The more scrutiny I put the Bible through, the more and more satisfied I am that there is real substance to it. It is not like pumping an ICO while hoping no one actually reads the white paper or checks to see if there is even an active development team!

This blog is for anyone who sincerely wants to get to know God more deeply. If you think that you have already arrived and have perfect theology then please don't comment or be a troll. I'm not interested in debate, only discussion. Jesus was perfect theology in the flesh and as we get to know him together we will progressively understand the Bible and God's redeeming work more clearly. I already have a few posts lined up and I am so excited to share them. Please check back soon to dig in to the real substance of this blog.

Now More About Me!

Let me give you a brief introduction to my photography. I shoot...

Fashion

Fitness

Fine Art

Cityscapes

Landscapes

Recording Artists

Now meet my family. These are all gopro photos so don't judge my photography skills based on this!
This is my wife Katie with my dog widget. Widget hates the water and once tried to jump out of the kayak onto lilly pads because he thought it was solid ground! Katie works full time at our church planning events and overseeing community life. She loves to travel even more than I do. Half of the trips we have gone on were her idea.

This is my niece holding Zooey. I literally found this dog in the street. It was obvious that she had been living on the streets for a while. She had open sores, was mean, bloated, and needed to have 11 teeth pulled. Now she is the sweetest thing ever and is currently sitting on my lap as I type. I never intended to get a third dog. She is lucky she is cute.

This is Pixel. Katie and I adopted him two weeks after getting married. We had no idea what we were doing. We drove to Indiana to the shadiest dog shelter ever. Pixel had scabies, ticks, flees, and was horribly sick. We took him home anyway and after a long night of cleaning up bloody vomit, we took him to the vet. The vet told us to put him down, and to this day she says Pixel is the only dog she ever recommended be put down that pulled through in the end. He is our little (big fat) miracle dog.

My Hobbies

Although photography is my job, it's also a hobby, especially when I travel. I have been to France, Spain, Germany, Austria, England, Ireland, Hawaii, Mexico, and Puerto Rico. I may show some of those photos in later posts if any of you are interested.

I am an extremely active person. I regularly play beach and indoor volleyball, rock climb, practice yoga, and road and mountain bike. Michigan has some surprising awesome mountain bike single track. For rock climbing my go to climbing paradise is Red River Gorge in Kentucky.

This is me climbing Amarillo Sunset, a classic overhanging 5.11b sport climb in the Red.

That's all for now! Please subscribe to see more photography and to participate in mind mending theological discussions.