Sunday, April 19, 2009

Selah - To Pause and Reflect

Everything starts from philosophy ~ this I believe ~ Selah is not the name of the Bamberger Ranch, but rather it’s a place. To me, it’s like Walden was to Thoreau – a place not just for me, but for all who come here to look around, to see and witness the natural world and to reflect on the wonder, the magic if it all; and then, to think about our individual responsibility as stewards of our portion of this planet Earth.


Quite frequently Selah Moments occur here. Colleen Gardner coined that phrase. Pictured here are some high school students quietly having a Selah moment at Madrone Lake: pausing and reflecting.



Photograph taken by Colleen Gardner.



Paragon School 5th grade students from Austin gathered in front of Hes’ Country Store. They had been here for an overnight field trip. The County Store is the final stop where the value of conserving family culture and history is brought home to them. It’s another opportunity to feel a Selah moment.



Photograph taken by a Paragon parent.



Bracken School children from San Antonio were doing a “Rain Storm” exercise April 9th to help us out of this very serious drought. While I doubt this very enthusiastic gathering caused it, on April 17 we did receive a very nice two inch rain! The point of such a Selah moment is that these very young third grade kids could see that Selah and Mother Nature desperately needed rain and made somewhat of a spiritual connection with this exercise.



Photograph taken by Justin Duke.

4 comments:

Jerry & Susan said...

Our son, Drew went to Paragon (now at Heifer International and all of 21 yrs old) he would have loved to visit Selah in middle shcool but they weren't doing that then. He did visit this January and now I feel, he and his parents, feel Selah is part of our lives. Thank you David for keeping in touch with this blog.

Unknown said...

Keep up the good work, J. David!

Unknown said...
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Sherry Schena said...

These are such great photos, J. David! I'm so glad you got some rain. Here's hoping it will be a regular thing this year...more or less.