Elijah Stephen » Photography

Celestial and Ashton Elijah

Eli — Wed, 19 May 2010 01:55:02 +0000

Fwd: Celestial and Ashton Elijah, originally uploaded by Elijah Stephen.

Celestial and Ashton Elijah

Eli — Wed, 19 May 2010 01:54:23 +0000

Celestial and Ashton Elijah, originally uploaded by Elijah Stephen.

Celestial and Ashton Elijah

Eli — Wed, 19 May 2010 01:53:03 +0000

Celestial and Ashton Elijah, originally uploaded by Elijah Stephen.

The City Brightens

Eli — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 07:40:30 +0000

This is a pic that I shot the other day when I was in downtown Sac with my daughter. This is tenth st & J, right outside of Temple coffee. What do ya think?
The City Brightens, originally uploaded by Elijah Stephen.

Good Friday

Eli — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 14:48:01 +0000

There’s my son. It’s Good Friday, and so this morning I have been thinking about GoodFriday sort of things—the cross, Jesus, God giving up his Son, the fulfillment and end of the sacrificial system of the Old Testament that Hebrews speaks of—those things. As I continued on that line of thinking, I began to realize the craziness of the cross, and the significance hit home in a way that it never has in my whole life:

Look at my son. Do you know what I would never do? Give him up. For anything. Ever. EVER!

EVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVER EVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVER EVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVER EVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVER EVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVER EVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVER EVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVER !

Our minds can’t imagine this kind of sacrifice. As an ok father, I have enough love for my son that the loss would cause me unimaginable pain, and I could never love you enough to loose him for you. And yet God, a perfect father, did this. Could you imagine how much that must have hurt. The Brian McLarens of the world who just dismiss the majesty of this act as “cosmic child abuse” miss that. They miss, and don’t understand, the perfection of God, the Trinity, His love and Justice, the infinite ugliness of sin, and that Jesus, as God, was willingly taking on his own wrath. God felt both pains: the loss of a son and the bearing of all human sin. My Lord and my God, we can not even begin to fathom the depth and richness of your love seen in the cross.

This is the centerpiece of our faith, the centerpiece of the Bible, and the centerpiece of time and eternity—that God became nothing, so that he could give us everything, by giving us himself. The cross is offensive, foolish weakness, but to those who are being saved by it, it is life and power (1Cor. 1:18). Happy Good Friday.

Four Years of Avery

Eli — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 12:11:04 +0000

My son turned four a month ago so these are a little late. But here are some shots of him at his birthday. Better late than never.

Thursday, Theology, & Stuff

Eli — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 16:29:40 +0000

I have been pondering a question I heard about heaven all week. How does this hit you?

“If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there?”

Of course we say no. But for some reason the conviction of the question doesn’t go away with simplicity of a “no” answer. At least it doesn’t for me.

There are so many things that I might be far too content with—if I had a heaven without Christ. It’s an ever-present reminder of the constant lure of lesser things.

How does that question hit you?

Not For Sale

Eli — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 13:18:44 +0000

Well, I don’t know what to say. I’ve read this book twice this week—but, I don’t know what to say. The title, Not For Sale, is ironic because it’s an exposition of the fact that people are for sale, as unimaginable as that is 150 years post emancipation in Great Britain and the U.S.

Of course, awareness of the problem for most of us has grown over the last few years, but I had never seen the gruesome details so vividly. Sex trafficking is the sterile name for the atrocities, but lets call it what it is: people—men, women, uncles, parents—who sell children to men who will rape them.

I still don’t know what to say.

Reading the book, and watching videos of a three-day conference, I fell in love with the heroes in the fight. Kru Nam, an artist turned abolitionist, is one of the bravest, craziest women I have ever heard of. And I know some crazy women. In Chiang Mai, Thailand, she was so shocked by the stories of kids on the streets who had escaped the Karaoke bars. The kids told her about their friends who were still enslaved by the bar owners, being raped ten times a night. Kids, 3 to 17 years old. Kru Nam, like all of us, was horrified and broken for these kids. She didn’t waste a second.

That night, without a plan beyond step one, she went into the first bar she saw, and grabbed two girls and a boy, ran out, and took them into her home. She did this every night after. Her reputation growing, bar owners put out the word to kill her—but she kept going. That’s what I’m talking about. Crazy heroic. Awesome.

While David Batstone was authoring chapter one of Not For Sale, Kru Nam called him and said, “I have 27 kids and they’re living in two little grass huts—I need a house.” David said that he would try to get her a house. She called back, while he was writing chapter two, and told him that there was now 53 kids. David said, “O.K., I will see if I can get you two houses.” While he was writing chapter six, she called and said, “I couldn’t stop—I have 88 kids.” David, jokingly told her to stop rescuing kids, but then said, “We are going to have to get a movement of people for that.”

Today, in northern Thailand, there is not a house or two, but a village, ran by Kru Nam, for her 127 kids, funded by a movement that Batstone has begun—but the problem is nowhere near contained. This kind of heroic effort needs to happen 100,000 more times.

I’ll be honest, I’m not the stats guy, but the numbers totally rock me out of my V-neck. Today, there are 27 million slaves, “more slaves [that] are in bondage today than were bartered for in four centuries of trans-Atlantic slave trade.” Poverty is the problem. Girls and boys in the worst conditions in the world are tricked, and wind up in a foreign land, in lock down, bent to their master’s will every night, for the profit and pleasure of the most callous of criminals. This is the lot for many of the weakest people on our planet.

Francis Chan asks it best: what would we do—how much trouble would we go to—if the one taken was our own brother, sister, or child?

I still don’t know what to say. But I know that Jesus has saved me. He’s given me a heart that loves him more than the lures of comfort and consumerism. He said to follow him. He also explained what that means with the words, “Whatever you have done to the least of these…”

Origin Coffee is coming to Rocklin, CA. It is going to be an opportunity to be like Jesus. Kru Nam got this. I look around my town, and I see very few things that look like Jesus, but I think that’s changing. At Origin we’ve been using a phrase—“Tell them we’re coming.” We say this because Origin Coffee is going to empower the next Kru Nams, rescuing those captive. I have to go right now, but I want to tell you more about that next time. Check out this video below if you want to see the work Kru Nam is doing.

I Went Here Last Night

Eli — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 12:58:09 +0000

My brother, Josiah James Meeker, and his band rocked Club Retro last night. Usually he’s not even in town because he’s awfully rockstar like that, but fortunately enough for the Sacramento area he graced us with a presence. Good Times. Above. Foreground. My good buddy, Brian Helvick. Rockin-it. Good stuff buddy. They all make my heart warm. Do you know that feeling—Heart warmth? I hope so.

Energy Drink

Eli — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 12:46:15 +0000

I shot this on my desk last night while i was testing out some of my new camera’s ridiculously great features. But I thought it was amusing, so I kept it.

Yup, this is how I want to get my coffee refill; just plug it in and let the caffeine flow. Yeah. I have one of these. But that is not nearly instant enough: “You mean I have to walk all the way over there? To that?” Absurd.

Nuh uh! Pull the USB cable from the mac. Plug it in my coffee cup. Done. That’s what I’m talking about. We sent a man to the moon—somebody get me the digital refill cup. Ready go.

That’s the American way baby. I wish it weren’t so. What is it that makes us want more and more so much? Why is contentment so fragile?