Debra Darvick

Archives: 2008-2020

His Lens/My Pen — Walking on Water

Martin came back from the Everglades mightily inspired.  I wasn't with him, and so it wasn't until I saw his photos that I was able to enjoy the birds he had told me so much about . One of his shots, of an anhinga in flight, inspired our card about mindfulness. Martin...

Lighten Up With His Lens My Pen

Who doesn't feel like this every now and then? Maybe the other monkeys aren't playing fair, or refuse to play with you at all. Maybe you woke up on the wrong side of the branch or a tourist in your corner of Costa Rica won't stop taking pictures of you. Or maybe you...

A Year of Kaddish Draws to a Close

Today is the last day of my year of saying Kaddish for my mother. In Jewish tradition, Kaddish, a prayer whose Aramaic text mentions nothing of death but instead offers words of praise to God, is recited for eleven months by the adult child who has lost a parent or...

Time for some snow fun!

Although the custom has been to post a His Lens/My Pen the last Monday of the month, I figure this image is pertinent now. Who knows? We might have a spring thaw next week rendering this image irrelevant.  Yeah, right. The phrase a snowball's chance in hell comes to...

The Year in Review

Dear Friends, Some of you have written wondering where I have been, why the silence and lack of posts. As many of you know it's been an overwhelming year. My mother died in March, sealing a relationship of many complex, loving, and fractious decades. There is much to...

One Happy Bird

Going for a bit of avian humor with this month's His Lens/My Pen offering. Martin was out and about in the neighborhood when he snapped this shot of a swan paddling in nearby Quarton Lake. I got to thinking about why no one ever mentions eating swan; I've never seen...

Allow the beauty you see today …

When my husband Martin and I began our His Lens/My Pen venture, the idea was simply to create meditations to accompany his images. (If you are just discovering our series, click on the photo and you can enjoy it in a much larger format.) As these are beginning to be...

Hugging to the Background

Martin took this when we were hiking in South Lake Tahoe, visiting our new daughter-in-law's dad and step-mom. In Yiddish, the word for your child's in-laws is machatunim.  Nothing to do with the photo but it's a useful word, nevertheless. I've felt a bit like this...

Take the Plunge!

During a rare break in the frigid Coldzilla winter this year, Martin and I walked to nearby Quarton Lake. We watched as one brave duck left his compatriots huddling on a shelf of ice and dove into the freezing water. Until he shared the photo with me, I'd forgotten...

Like Water from the Rock

From time to time I have been invited to give the weekly Shabbat sermon at synagogue. Each Shabbat has  name, which is drawn from the weekly Torah portion that is read at services, in part on Monday and Thursday mornings and more fully on Saturday morning. This week's...