September 7, 2025 • 27 mins
In this inspiring episode of Bleeding Daylight, professional photographer Pasquale 'Pat' Mingarelli shares how he discovered God's presence while capturing the beauty of creation through his lens. From his early days in photojournalism and sports photography to his incredible travels with Campus Crusade for Christ, Pat reveals how a life-changing encounter with a bull moose in Montana's Glacier National Park redirected his calling toward celebrating God as Creator.
Pat challenges our culture's tendency to snap photos mindlessly, encouraging us instead to approach photography with wonder and intentionality. Through his Visual Bible Verse of the Day website and his devotional book "Drawing Near: Meeting God in His Creation," he teaches others how stepping into nature with a camera can become a powerful form of prayer and worship. Pat demonstrates how God's creation offers glimpses of divine character that Scripture fully reveals, showing us that the Creator can be found in the wilderness when we slow down enough to truly see. WEBLINKS Visual Bible Verse of the Day The Creation Speaks – YouTube The Creation Speaks – Facebook Drawing Near Nature Photography - Instagram
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.
This is Bleeding Daylight with your host, Rodney Olsen.
Welcome and thanks for listening.
You'll find many more Bleeding Daylight episodes at bleedingdaylight.net.
Please help others discover stories of hope and transformation by sharing Bleeding Daylight.
(00:34):
Has our age of instant access to cameras destroyed the art of creating images of real beauty?
Has the quick phone snap replaced the practice of capturing the magnificence of creation in images?
Can photography draw us closer to the creator?
Today's guest helps us seek some answers.
(01:03):
I'm absolutely thrilled to have our next guest join today.
Pasquale Mingarelli is a professional photographer who spent decades capturing God's creation through his lens from his early days in photojournalism and sports photography to his incredible travels around the world with Campus Crusade for Christ.
(01:23):
What really sets Pat apart is how he's transformed his love for nature photography into a powerful ministry.
He runs the Visual Bible Verse of the Day website, authored the beautiful devotional book Drawing Near, Meeting God in His Creation, and teaches others how to connect with their creator through photography.
(01:44):
Pat says that he gets easily distracted by the noise of our modern world, but he's discovered something amazing happens when he steps into nature with his camera.
He finds peace and he finds himself in conversation with God while photographing the very creation that surrounds him.
Pat, welcome to Bleeding Daylight.
Hello, and thanks.
(02:04):
Good to be here.
With our ever-advancing technology with phones and the like, almost everyone has a camera with them at every moment of the day, and unfortunately, I do see a lot of people who are just snapping away rather than being in the moment and appreciating what they're actually trying to capture.
(02:24):
How do we begin to balance what we're capturing on our small screens with a bigger sense of being present in that moment?
I tell people we need to slow down.
If we're doing nature photography, because that's primarily what I do, but you can apply it to anything, is just to come before it with wonder, because we can't really wonder in a hurry.
(02:48):
To take a look at something very carefully with an artistic eye and think about what's drawing you to whatever it is you're photographing.
What is it that you're trying to capture?
There's something about that, if it's a mountain or interesting architecture or something, whatever that may be, there's something even about that mountain or about that building, something in particular that may be drawing you to it.
(03:18):
Just take the time to wonder about it, even if it's things like flowers, because there's so much to a flower to wonder about.
I like to say to nature photographers, we need to wonder as we wander, as we wander through the woods or along a lake shore or an ocean shore or even in the desert or wherever that may happen to be, wonder and think about these things.
(03:43):
And if we're doing nature photography, think about the creator and how he's created something and begin to just ponder that and wonder about that.
I try to get people to slow down because we really do need to do that, because whether it's with a phone or with a high-end digital camera, it's so easy to just go click, click, click, click.
We're not thinking about it, we're not enjoying the moment.
(04:06):
Sometimes we're not present in that moment, we're present in the moment, oh, I'm going to post this on social media so people can see it.
We're thinking about that instead of enjoying whatever the wonder is before us.
Take me back to those early days of photography for you.
What was it that first captured your heart about taking photographs of capturing those moments?
(04:30):
It was about capturing moments way back to my childhood.
My mom was the one with the camera.
It was different back then, it wasn't like it is today.
She'd take out her camera and I'd always want to take the picture because there was something about that moment, capturing that moment and just preserving it forever.
(04:51):
And as time went on, I got drawn not to just capturing a moment, but capturing the beauty of a moment, the wonder of a moment.
As a kid, I had these wildlife books and magazines and I would look at them and be like, wow, look at that animal.
And I was captivated by the wonder of that animal in that photograph.
(05:13):
And that's something I wanted to do.
I wanted to photograph animals and kind of capture their wild essence, their wild heart in a photo.
And that's what really drew me in.
It's just that wonder of capturing that moment, capturing that essence of an animal or the beauty, the capture and hold that beauty that I saw before me in a camera.
(05:36):
Even the way we take photos these days has changed the nature of what we do when we're snapping away.
Because it used to be that in the days when most people used film, it was a case of maybe we'd have 12 frames to shoot or 24 or even 36 if we could afford a 36 frame film.
(05:57):
So we'd have to make sure that everything was right, that we were going to put everything into that photo that we wanted to.
Whereas today we might take 50 photos of our lunch before going on to take something else.
And we've lost that art of being there with what's going on and making sure that we are truly capturing what's happening.
(06:19):
Yeah.
There was a time where we had to be more deliberate about what we were photographing.
Even when I was a journalist with film, I would still kind of rattle off lots of film to making sure I'm getting the story of what I'm trying to capture.
But I had to be more deliberate because today we take a picture and like, OK, I'll look at it now.
(06:41):
Oh, maybe I should make this change, you know, or we might take 10 of them and finally look at what we've taken and be like, oh, that would have been better.
If I was on an assignment for the magazine I worked with when I was with Campus Crusader for Christ, I came home a week later and then I saw my slides.
And so I had to be purposeful.
Here in the U.S. there was a famous photographer.
(07:03):
He's passed away probably almost 40 years now.
His name was Ansel Adams.
Ansel Adams took these iconic photographs of the American West and he used what was called a view camera.
Now there was different view cameras.
Some of them were four by five and some of them were eight by 10 and a few were just one step smaller than the four by five.
(07:23):
This is inches.
So you would only be able to put two of those in your camera at a time.
You photograph one and then you had a way of turning the thing around and you photograph the other one because they were in the same thing called the slide.
Ansel Adams had to be really deliberate and really focused and really plot out his photograph.
Today we don't do that as much because we don't need to.
(07:46):
Some people don't do it at all.
It's just the click as we mentioned earlier.
But if we get that way, more deliberate, we could really get to that idea of wonder I was talking about earlier and thinking about what we're photographing and it had more of a process, more of a moment to it that we can get into and give our attention to instead of where our attention goes today.
(08:09):
There are things that we enjoy doing that are really a natural part of us or a skill set that we have and we think yeah that's what I enjoy doing and yet those are the things that God will often use.
When was it that you realized that this love of photography that you had as a child is something that you could use for God's purposes?
(08:31):
When it really hit me was when I discovered this magazine that Campus Crusade for Christ had called Worldwide Challenge.
Maybe it was a little before that.
When I was in college I remember looking at a poster one of my friends had in his dorm room and it was a guy climbing a rock and I was just like that picture, that poster looks so awesome.
(08:53):
I want to do that for God, not just document that moment of the guy doing something really cool, but to really document it for God.
Then when I found out about this magazine a few years after that, that's where I wanted to take my career is to work for this magazine and capture ministry moments and show people the world where the gospel was being spread and how people were in need of the gospel, that people were being touched by ministry and lives are being changed.
(09:21):
I wanted to take that through this magazine which was called Worldwide Challenge.
After that I slowly became more into nature photography and as that nature photography, with that nature photography I wanted to more and more celebrate God as creator because I saw this wonderful world of creation and I noticed how that the creation pointed to God and I wanted to celebrate Him as creator.
(09:53):
I had a moment, I tell people with nature photography it can lead into moments with God, very special moments between you and the Lord as you photograph His creation.
We connect with the creator as we create our photographs from what He's created.
I had a moment where I was in a national park in Montana in the U.S. it's called Glacier National Park.
(10:19):
I was hiking down this trail, I just started down the trail and I saw somebody coming out he said, hey you know there's a moose in a lake about three miles up the trail.
At that point I had never had a close encounter with a moose.
I was in a car once and I saw one but that was it and I was like really and he said yeah and he says go down there and then every once in a while every five minutes I encounter another person.
(10:42):
Did you see the moose?
Some would say yes, some would say no and then finally I got where they told me to go for the moose.
Couldn't really see it from the trail but you could see where people had walked in the high grass to the lake that was off to the south side of the trail and I walked down there and there was this moose and two fishermen that were sitting there on this beach and I sat down and started photographing the moose and the fishermen left five minutes after I got there.
(11:06):
So it was just me and this bull moose and he was sticking his head in the water and pulling out vegetation and just chewing on it.
It would drip down his beard or whatever you want to call it and then he had it on he had a rack and a drip off his rack and I was just he'd look at me at a time and I was just there with God and there with this moose and God was just speaking to me through this time and I felt him calling me that I want you to photograph my creation.
(11:31):
I want to give you more and more moments like this so you could bring these moments to other people and encourage them through these moments and celebrate me as creator.
I like to say that God romanced me through a moose.
There's a writer here in the U.S. John Eldridge and he talks about how God romanced us through his creation.
(11:51):
He romances us through things like crickets and cicadas and beautiful sunsets and I like that they like he romanced me through this bull moose and just spoke to my heart and it was a powerful moment in my life and just feeling God speaking to me God calling to me.
Since that time I've had many other encounters with God while photographing his creation and just having a beautiful moment with him and he just was there present with me like I don't feel his presence anywhere else like I do sometimes in his creation.
(12:23):
I know that you've spoken about the peace that you find in those moments when all the distractions of the world are gone.
Tell me a little bit about that.
There's so many distractions today there's and you mentioned how I have ADD and I could just start on a task and then a task I haven't completed comes into my head.
(12:44):
Oh I got to just do that real quick and get back to what I got it with.
I know I'm not the only one like that but when I get out into nature and even just when we enter the outdoors we leave the man-made world and enter the God-made world.
We can use that opportunity to let everything fade away and that's what I do as I let everything fade away.
(13:09):
If I have my phone with me because sometimes I take it to take pictures too but I usually carry it with me but I put it on airplane mode and so nothing could come in or do not disturb and it's there with me to maybe take pictures if that's what I'm using that day.
Sometimes I don't like to carry all my equipment
and I'll have that or I'll just I'll have that I'll have my regular equipment but I just kind of
(13:31):
go away and begin to speak with God about what I see whether it's something as small as a flower
that's captivating me or the how the light is hitting the trees or how light is hitting the
flower or how the light is hitting a pathway through the trees and I use that just to have
a conversation with God to talk with him because I see these things and I want to get a picture of
(13:55):
that.
Lord how is it that I can get the best picture of this?
How is it that you have made this?
Lord I wonder about the light.
Why have you made the light just beautiful?
My mind could start thinking about beauty and the beauty of the object but I let those things fill my head because they don't stress me.
There's things that could stress us everywhere.
(14:18):
So many times it just leaves me
and I have these moments with God for a photographer or any artist when we are able to
clear our head of those things in life we get so much more creative and there's are actually studies
that show when we spend more time outside we get more creative and as a photographer I need that
(14:39):
whether it's just for taking pictures or coming up with ideas to write about because I blog about
connecting with God and I have a newsletter about that connecting through photography and I like to
tell my stories to people all that because of being focused in on what's in my camera what am I
seeing and having that conversation with God things fall away and oddly enough sometimes I get answers
(15:02):
to things that are stressing me out even though I'm not focusing on that because God just kind
of works through those moments.
There are some people who forego gathering together with others in a church setting saying oh well I find my church out in nature and I'm sure that's not what you're advocating but rather making sure that yes we are meeting with others but enjoying God's creation as well that we lose a lot if we don't find time to be in the creation that God has made.
(15:37):
Yes we do lose a lot and today we're so disconnected from that creation years ago that people were outside more but even when the land in the U.S. and Australia was was settled it was wilderness and it was a challenge for them too but they also saw the hand of God and regularly experienced it.
(16:00):
There's a great early American theologian named Jonathan Edwards and Jonathan Edwards he was famous in the U.S. for being one of the preachers involved with what was the Great Awakening in the 1700s in the U.S. when it was a British colony.
He was very influential in that and he saw God's hand and he wrote a lot about God and creation.
(16:25):
Part of that was he spent
time as an itinerant preacher going from place to place to place and you know it wasn't like traveling
down the highway today it was traveling through roads in the woods and just seeing what was there
and experiencing hearing the birds and feeling the wind and the rain and the cold weather and
(16:45):
the things like that but that was a way that people connected with God and if we're away from that
today we're not experiencing that we don't have that opportunity because we could spend our whole
life inside or in the city and not having that connection like how nature can tell us things about
God oh God is powerful all right that's cool God is powerful how great is that but when I sit and I
(17:11):
see that bull moose that I mentioned I look at a moose and man you don't want to mess with that
thing that's power but then when I looked at that moose he was in a lake and that lake was surrounded
by mountains look at those mountains man that's strength that's power in the mountains how much
(17:32):
more powerful is God I think it's 22 times in the psalms it calls God a rock and 18 times it's
David who writes that word what does that mean God is a rock how do you know what that means if you
never experienced a rock like a mountain or like the desert mountains that David was referring to
(17:52):
in in the southern Judean wilderness right these big massive desert rocks and David had a way to
God is my rock and he experienced like standing on a rock how solid the rock is how it let him see
everything he was hiding in the rock he hid from Saul and the rocks of the desert so he you know
God was his real rock so when you experience that you being connected with the creation
(18:17):
it gives you glimpses windows into what God is like it's only a shadow but it's like God is a
solid rock wow how much more solid is God than this rock or powerful than this moose or this mountain
yeah we can experience these things in his creation it's very evident in the way that you
speak that you connect what you see there in nature when you're out there taking photographs
(18:41):
with what is in the scripture and you're looking for those references in scripture and you can
actually see them come alive in nature how important is it for us to make sure that we're
spending time in scripture before we go out into nature and experience it so that we're actually
seeing that connection between the written word and the world that we live in everything we do
(19:06):
always needs to be filtered through the word of God that needs to be our starting point if I'm
out in nature and or if anybody's out in nature and we get this idea or we or we're possibly
hearing a word from the Lord that we might think or having a conversation with God or praying we
get this idea about something whatever it may be well if it's truly from God if we get something
(19:29):
revealed through nature it would never contradict what's in the word of God what's in the Bible
scripture comes first as a photographer we have our lens which we look through things well the
Bible needs to be the lens is that we study everything else because theologians call nature
general revelation God reveals himself through it and there's scripture verses that point to that
(19:52):
but it's God's special revelation his word it has to be checked through you know because nature can
tell us there's a God if we don't blind our eyes to it it's like wow where did all this come from
this is amazing so there must be an amazing God and then the scripture can tell us about that
amazing God in nature we could experience renewal there's renewal found in nature all the time
(20:18):
especially in the spring there's a renewal there's new life that comes out in the spring especially
where I live because we have a serious winter and everything's brown we get snow and but then
end of March things are coming to life things get renewed even the sunrise is a new renewal
so where's that renewal well we go to his word we find the renewals in Jesus Christ
(20:42):
and that salvation in him we find renewal our true renewal in our new life that new
light that comes in the spring well real true new life comes in Jesus so the creation kind
of has these glimpses into it but the scripture is where we really find it now your website
(21:04):
contains some of the things that God is speaking to you about and I'm sure that as well as that
being helpful for people who log on have a look at the website you're also using that to invite
people into the same sorts of things that you're doing of spending time in nature tell me a bit
more about the website the website I have is called the visual bible verse of the day if you
(21:27):
just go to creation speaks.com you would get there the visual bible verse of the day aspect of that
website is a photograph I've taken of God's creation a bible verse that goes along with
the photo in some way even if I tie it together in a devotion because then everything includes a
short devotion that's all meant to encourage and inspire people in their walk with God
(21:50):
it's short it's quick I do want to not just do it a bible verse of the day because I think there
needs to be a little bit more depth there but then I also have on there an area specifically
for photographers and a lot of things there a blog within that is called drawing near to God
through nature photography and there I discuss my experiences in the outdoors of how God is
(22:15):
connected with me out there but also how we can see God's truth that's hinted to in nature but
then we can look at God's scripture and see that hey that's really there but things that we could
see like I was recently wrote a piece about light and how important light is in photography I
actually did a couple blog pieces about that but then I pointed out that in life we need to have
(22:38):
exposed to the light of Christ just like light is crucial to getting a good photograph light
of Christ is crucial in our life to living it right knowing what God's will is and what God
wants for our life I have a devotional book that I've written that kind of goes a lot deeper in
speaking about God's word tell me a bit more about that devotional what are people going to
(23:01):
find between the pages I took some of my favorite little photos and verses that I had on the website
and I elaborated on it's a photograph I've taken of God's creation a bible verse specifically about
nature and then some devotional thoughts to help people to meet God as I talk about meeting God in
(23:22):
a secluded place to draw near to him the devotions broken down into five different sections in each
one and each one's about 330 to about 350 words long the sections within is first there's one
called in the word where I have a bible verse or two or three which talk about nature people know
about God and creation in the book of Genesis but people don't realize that the bible alludes to
(23:48):
creation throughout this page especially in the old testament I take one of those verses or passages
and then I take it in context so the first sections in the word the next sections in context we need
to know the context of God's word not just the verse we need to dig deep into that and then I
take that and the next sections in nature and I talk about how we can reflect on these things in
(24:12):
nature and the next section in each devotion is then called in us how I bring it all together in
us and then the final section is called in prayer and it's just a short prayer based on what was in
the devotional so that's people would find in there and it's the book is for anybody who wants
to get away from the busyness of this world for people who like to get outside and meet with God
(24:37):
in nature this book's for them and it's also for people who would love to do that but really
sometimes can't it's called drawing near meeting God and his creation my full name is Pasquale
Mingarelli as you mentioned earlier and it's available anywhere people want to buy books
online as well as my website thecreationspeaks.com I imagine that there have been people that have
(24:58):
either logged on and had a look at the website and gone through some of the devotionals there
or even read through the book and gone through those devotionals and have discovered more about
God because of that because you've invited them into that that must be incredibly empowering for
you to know that God is using you in that way is there a story or two of someone who has been
(25:22):
reading the devotionals either online or in the book that have really connected with God in a
deeper way?
I myself struggle with Lord how long do you want me to keep doing this can I put my
time elsewhere and I'll be kind of struggling with that and all of a sudden I'll get some message
from somebody either an email or reply on the on the website or on Facebook or social media and it's
(25:47):
just like God met somebody right where they're at in a unique way because of how God speaks to others
through me and my photography so it happens and it's it's always a blessing when it does and
it's happened quite a bit over the years.
Pat I've got the links to both the website
(26:08):
and to the devotional book in the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net I'm sure that people are going
to get on board with that as you say it's easy reading but it also takes us deeper taking some
of the imagery that you've captured and really applying that to our daily lives so I want to
you for what you're doing in that space but also a huge thank you for spending some time with us
(26:32):
today on Bleeding Daylight.
Well thanks I appreciate the opportunity to be with you and you giving me your time to interview me and just thanks I appreciate it it's been I enjoyed being here.
Thank you for listening to Bleeding Daylight.
Please help us to shine more light into the darkness by sharing this episode with others.
(26:53):
For further details and more episodes please visit bleedingdaylight.net
Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.
This is Bleeding Daylight with your host, Rodney Olsen.
Welcome and thanks for listening.
You'll find many more Bleeding Daylight episodes at bleedingdaylight.net.
Please help others discover stories of hope and transformation by sharing Bleeding Daylight.
(00:34):
Has our age of instant access to cameras destroyed the art of creating images of real beauty?
Has the quick phone snap replaced the practice of capturing the magnificence of creation in images?
Can photography draw us closer to the creator?
Today's guest helps us seek some answers.
(01:03):
I'm absolutely thrilled to have our next guest join today.
Pasquale Mingarelli is a professional photographer who spent decades capturing God's creation through his lens from his early days in photojournalism and sports photography to his incredible travels around the world with Campus Crusade for Christ.
(01:23):
What really sets Pat apart is how he's transformed his love for nature photography into a powerful ministry.
He runs the Visual Bible Verse of the Day website, authored the beautiful devotional book Drawing Near, Meeting God in His Creation, and teaches others how to connect with their creator through photography.
(01:44):
Pat says that he gets easily distracted by the noise of our modern world, but he's discovered something amazing happens when he steps into nature with his camera.
He finds peace and he finds himself in conversation with God while photographing the very creation that surrounds him.
Pat, welcome to Bleeding Daylight.
Hello, and thanks.
(02:04):
Good to be here.
With our ever-advancing technology with phones and the like, almost everyone has a camera with them at every moment of the day, and unfortunately, I do see a lot of people who are just snapping away rather than being in the moment and appreciating what they're actually trying to capture.
(02:24):
How do we begin to balance what we're capturing on our small screens with a bigger sense of being present in that moment?
I tell people we need to slow down.
If we're doing nature photography, because that's primarily what I do, but you can apply it to anything, is just to come before it with wonder, because we can't really wonder in a hurry.
(02:48):
To take a look at something very carefully with an artistic eye and think about what's drawing you to whatever it is you're photographing.
What is it that you're trying to capture?
There's something about that, if it's a mountain or interesting architecture or something, whatever that may be, there's something even about that mountain or about that building, something in particular that may be drawing you to it.
(03:18):
Just take the time to wonder about it, even if it's things like flowers, because there's so much to a flower to wonder about.
I like to say to nature photographers, we need to wonder as we wander, as we wander through the woods or along a lake shore or an ocean shore or even in the desert or wherever that may happen to be, wonder and think about these things.
(03:43):
And if we're doing nature photography, think about the creator and how he's created something and begin to just ponder that and wonder about that.
I try to get people to slow down because we really do need to do that, because whether it's with a phone or with a high-end digital camera, it's so easy to just go click, click, click, click.
We're not thinking about it, we're not enjoying the moment.
(04:06):
Sometimes we're not present in that moment, we're present in the moment, oh, I'm going to post this on social media so people can see it.
We're thinking about that instead of enjoying whatever the wonder is before us.
Take me back to those early days of photography for you.
What was it that first captured your heart about taking photographs of capturing those moments?
(04:30):
It was about capturing moments way back to my childhood.
My mom was the one with the camera.
It was different back then, it wasn't like it is today.
She'd take out her camera and I'd always want to take the picture because there was something about that moment, capturing that moment and just preserving it forever.
(04:51):
And as time went on, I got drawn not to just capturing a moment, but capturing the beauty of a moment, the wonder of a moment.
As a kid, I had these wildlife books and magazines and I would look at them and be like, wow, look at that animal.
And I was captivated by the wonder of that animal in that photograph.
(05:13):
And that's something I wanted to do.
I wanted to photograph animals and kind of capture their wild essence, their wild heart in a photo.
And that's what really drew me in.
It's just that wonder of capturing that moment, capturing that essence of an animal or the beauty, the capture and hold that beauty that I saw before me in a camera.
(05:36):
Even the way we take photos these days has changed the nature of what we do when we're snapping away.
Because it used to be that in the days when most people used film, it was a case of maybe we'd have 12 frames to shoot or 24 or even 36 if we could afford a 36 frame film.
(05:57):
So we'd have to make sure that everything was right, that we were going to put everything into that photo that we wanted to.
Whereas today we might take 50 photos of our lunch before going on to take something else.
And we've lost that art of being there with what's going on and making sure that we are truly capturing what's happening.
(06:19):
Yeah.
There was a time where we had to be more deliberate about what we were photographing.
Even when I was a journalist with film, I would still kind of rattle off lots of film to making sure I'm getting the story of what I'm trying to capture.
But I had to be more deliberate because today we take a picture and like, OK, I'll look at it now.
(06:41):
Oh, maybe I should make this change, you know, or we might take 10 of them and finally look at what we've taken and be like, oh, that would have been better.
If I was on an assignment for the magazine I worked with when I was with Campus Crusader for Christ, I came home a week later and then I saw my slides.
And so I had to be purposeful.
Here in the U.S. there was a famous photographer.
(07:03):
He's passed away probably almost 40 years now.
His name was Ansel Adams.
Ansel Adams took these iconic photographs of the American West and he used what was called a view camera.
Now there was different view cameras.
Some of them were four by five and some of them were eight by 10 and a few were just one step smaller than the four by five.
(07:23):
This is inches.
So you would only be able to put two of those in your camera at a time.
You photograph one and then you had a way of turning the thing around and you photograph the other one because they were in the same thing called the slide.
Ansel Adams had to be really deliberate and really focused and really plot out his photograph.
Today we don't do that as much because we don't need to.
(07:46):
Some people don't do it at all.
It's just the click as we mentioned earlier.
But if we get that way, more deliberate, we could really get to that idea of wonder I was talking about earlier and thinking about what we're photographing and it had more of a process, more of a moment to it that we can get into and give our attention to instead of where our attention goes today.
(08:09):
There are things that we enjoy doing that are really a natural part of us or a skill set that we have and we think yeah that's what I enjoy doing and yet those are the things that God will often use.
When was it that you realized that this love of photography that you had as a child is something that you could use for God's purposes?
(08:31):
When it really hit me was when I discovered this magazine that Campus Crusade for Christ had called Worldwide Challenge.
Maybe it was a little before that.
When I was in college I remember looking at a poster one of my friends had in his dorm room and it was a guy climbing a rock and I was just like that picture, that poster looks so awesome.
(08:53):
I want to do that for God, not just document that moment of the guy doing something really cool, but to really document it for God.
Then when I found out about this magazine a few years after that, that's where I wanted to take my career is to work for this magazine and capture ministry moments and show people the world where the gospel was being spread and how people were in need of the gospel, that people were being touched by ministry and lives are being changed.
(09:21):
I wanted to take that through this magazine which was called Worldwide Challenge.
After that I slowly became more into nature photography and as that nature photography, with that nature photography I wanted to more and more celebrate God as creator because I saw this wonderful world of creation and I noticed how that the creation pointed to God and I wanted to celebrate Him as creator.
(09:53):
I had a moment, I tell people with nature photography it can lead into moments with God, very special moments between you and the Lord as you photograph His creation.
We connect with the creator as we create our photographs from what He's created.
I had a moment where I was in a national park in Montana in the U.S. it's called Glacier National Park.
(10:19):
I was hiking down this trail, I just started down the trail and I saw somebody coming out he said, hey you know there's a moose in a lake about three miles up the trail.
At that point I had never had a close encounter with a moose.
I was in a car once and I saw one but that was it and I was like really and he said yeah and he says go down there and then every once in a while every five minutes I encounter another person.
(10:42):
Did you see the moose?
Some would say yes, some would say no and then finally I got where they told me to go for the moose.
Couldn't really see it from the trail but you could see where people had walked in the high grass to the lake that was off to the south side of the trail and I walked down there and there was this moose and two fishermen that were sitting there on this beach and I sat down and started photographing the moose and the fishermen left five minutes after I got there.
(11:06):
So it was just me and this bull moose and he was sticking his head in the water and pulling out vegetation and just chewing on it.
It would drip down his beard or whatever you want to call it and then he had it on he had a rack and a drip off his rack and I was just he'd look at me at a time and I was just there with God and there with this moose and God was just speaking to me through this time and I felt him calling me that I want you to photograph my creation.
(11:31):
I want to give you more and more moments like this so you could bring these moments to other people and encourage them through these moments and celebrate me as creator.
I like to say that God romanced me through a moose.
There's a writer here in the U.S. John Eldridge and he talks about how God romanced us through his creation.
(11:51):
He romances us through things like crickets and cicadas and beautiful sunsets and I like that they like he romanced me through this bull moose and just spoke to my heart and it was a powerful moment in my life and just feeling God speaking to me God calling to me.
Since that time I've had many other encounters with God while photographing his creation and just having a beautiful moment with him and he just was there present with me like I don't feel his presence anywhere else like I do sometimes in his creation.
(12:23):
I know that you've spoken about the peace that you find in those moments when all the distractions of the world are gone.
Tell me a little bit about that.
There's so many distractions today there's and you mentioned how I have ADD and I could just start on a task and then a task I haven't completed comes into my head.
(12:44):
Oh I got to just do that real quick and get back to what I got it with.
I know I'm not the only one like that but when I get out into nature and even just when we enter the outdoors we leave the man-made world and enter the God-made world.
We can use that opportunity to let everything fade away and that's what I do as I let everything fade away.
(13:09):
If I have my phone with me because sometimes I take it to take pictures too but I usually carry it with me but I put it on airplane mode and so nothing could come in or do not disturb and it's there with me to maybe take pictures if that's what I'm using that day.
Sometimes I don't like to carry all my equipment
and I'll have that or I'll just I'll have that I'll have my regular equipment but I just kind of
(13:31):
go away and begin to speak with God about what I see whether it's something as small as a flower
that's captivating me or the how the light is hitting the trees or how light is hitting the
flower or how the light is hitting a pathway through the trees and I use that just to have
a conversation with God to talk with him because I see these things and I want to get a picture of
(13:55):
that.
Lord how is it that I can get the best picture of this?
How is it that you have made this?
Lord I wonder about the light.
Why have you made the light just beautiful?
My mind could start thinking about beauty and the beauty of the object but I let those things fill my head because they don't stress me.
There's things that could stress us everywhere.
(14:18):
So many times it just leaves me
and I have these moments with God for a photographer or any artist when we are able to
clear our head of those things in life we get so much more creative and there's are actually studies
that show when we spend more time outside we get more creative and as a photographer I need that
(14:39):
whether it's just for taking pictures or coming up with ideas to write about because I blog about
connecting with God and I have a newsletter about that connecting through photography and I like to
tell my stories to people all that because of being focused in on what's in my camera what am I
seeing and having that conversation with God things fall away and oddly enough sometimes I get answers
(15:02):
to things that are stressing me out even though I'm not focusing on that because God just kind
of works through those moments.
There are some people who forego gathering together with others in a church setting saying oh well I find my church out in nature and I'm sure that's not what you're advocating but rather making sure that yes we are meeting with others but enjoying God's creation as well that we lose a lot if we don't find time to be in the creation that God has made.
(15:37):
Yes we do lose a lot and today we're so disconnected from that creation years ago that people were outside more but even when the land in the U.S. and Australia was was settled it was wilderness and it was a challenge for them too but they also saw the hand of God and regularly experienced it.
(16:00):
There's a great early American theologian named Jonathan Edwards and Jonathan Edwards he was famous in the U.S. for being one of the preachers involved with what was the Great Awakening in the 1700s in the U.S. when it was a British colony.
He was very influential in that and he saw God's hand and he wrote a lot about God and creation.
(16:25):
Part of that was he spent
time as an itinerant preacher going from place to place to place and you know it wasn't like traveling
down the highway today it was traveling through roads in the woods and just seeing what was there
and experiencing hearing the birds and feeling the wind and the rain and the cold weather and
(16:45):
the things like that but that was a way that people connected with God and if we're away from that
today we're not experiencing that we don't have that opportunity because we could spend our whole
life inside or in the city and not having that connection like how nature can tell us things about
God oh God is powerful all right that's cool God is powerful how great is that but when I sit and I
(17:11):
see that bull moose that I mentioned I look at a moose and man you don't want to mess with that
thing that's power but then when I looked at that moose he was in a lake and that lake was surrounded
by mountains look at those mountains man that's strength that's power in the mountains how much
(17:32):
more powerful is God I think it's 22 times in the psalms it calls God a rock and 18 times it's
David who writes that word what does that mean God is a rock how do you know what that means if you
never experienced a rock like a mountain or like the desert mountains that David was referring to
(17:52):
in in the southern Judean wilderness right these big massive desert rocks and David had a way to
God is my rock and he experienced like standing on a rock how solid the rock is how it let him see
everything he was hiding in the rock he hid from Saul and the rocks of the desert so he you know
God was his real rock so when you experience that you being connected with the creation
(18:17):
it gives you glimpses windows into what God is like it's only a shadow but it's like God is a
solid rock wow how much more solid is God than this rock or powerful than this moose or this mountain
yeah we can experience these things in his creation it's very evident in the way that you
speak that you connect what you see there in nature when you're out there taking photographs
(18:41):
with what is in the scripture and you're looking for those references in scripture and you can
actually see them come alive in nature how important is it for us to make sure that we're
spending time in scripture before we go out into nature and experience it so that we're actually
seeing that connection between the written word and the world that we live in everything we do
(19:06):
always needs to be filtered through the word of God that needs to be our starting point if I'm
out in nature and or if anybody's out in nature and we get this idea or we or we're possibly
hearing a word from the Lord that we might think or having a conversation with God or praying we
get this idea about something whatever it may be well if it's truly from God if we get something
(19:29):
revealed through nature it would never contradict what's in the word of God what's in the Bible
scripture comes first as a photographer we have our lens which we look through things well the
Bible needs to be the lens is that we study everything else because theologians call nature
general revelation God reveals himself through it and there's scripture verses that point to that
(19:52):
but it's God's special revelation his word it has to be checked through you know because nature can
tell us there's a God if we don't blind our eyes to it it's like wow where did all this come from
this is amazing so there must be an amazing God and then the scripture can tell us about that
amazing God in nature we could experience renewal there's renewal found in nature all the time
(20:18):
especially in the spring there's a renewal there's new life that comes out in the spring especially
where I live because we have a serious winter and everything's brown we get snow and but then
end of March things are coming to life things get renewed even the sunrise is a new renewal
so where's that renewal well we go to his word we find the renewals in Jesus Christ
(20:42):
and that salvation in him we find renewal our true renewal in our new life that new
light that comes in the spring well real true new life comes in Jesus so the creation kind
of has these glimpses into it but the scripture is where we really find it now your website
(21:04):
contains some of the things that God is speaking to you about and I'm sure that as well as that
being helpful for people who log on have a look at the website you're also using that to invite
people into the same sorts of things that you're doing of spending time in nature tell me a bit
more about the website the website I have is called the visual bible verse of the day if you
(21:27):
just go to creation speaks.com you would get there the visual bible verse of the day aspect of that
website is a photograph I've taken of God's creation a bible verse that goes along with
the photo in some way even if I tie it together in a devotion because then everything includes a
short devotion that's all meant to encourage and inspire people in their walk with God
(21:50):
it's short it's quick I do want to not just do it a bible verse of the day because I think there
needs to be a little bit more depth there but then I also have on there an area specifically
for photographers and a lot of things there a blog within that is called drawing near to God
through nature photography and there I discuss my experiences in the outdoors of how God is
(22:15):
connected with me out there but also how we can see God's truth that's hinted to in nature but
then we can look at God's scripture and see that hey that's really there but things that we could
see like I was recently wrote a piece about light and how important light is in photography I
actually did a couple blog pieces about that but then I pointed out that in life we need to have
(22:38):
exposed to the light of Christ just like light is crucial to getting a good photograph light
of Christ is crucial in our life to living it right knowing what God's will is and what God
wants for our life I have a devotional book that I've written that kind of goes a lot deeper in
speaking about God's word tell me a bit more about that devotional what are people going to
(23:01):
find between the pages I took some of my favorite little photos and verses that I had on the website
and I elaborated on it's a photograph I've taken of God's creation a bible verse specifically about
nature and then some devotional thoughts to help people to meet God as I talk about meeting God in
(23:22):
a secluded place to draw near to him the devotions broken down into five different sections in each
one and each one's about 330 to about 350 words long the sections within is first there's one
called in the word where I have a bible verse or two or three which talk about nature people know
about God and creation in the book of Genesis but people don't realize that the bible alludes to
(23:48):
creation throughout this page especially in the old testament I take one of those verses or passages
and then I take it in context so the first sections in the word the next sections in context we need
to know the context of God's word not just the verse we need to dig deep into that and then I
take that and the next sections in nature and I talk about how we can reflect on these things in
(24:12):
nature and the next section in each devotion is then called in us how I bring it all together in
us and then the final section is called in prayer and it's just a short prayer based on what was in
the devotional so that's people would find in there and it's the book is for anybody who wants
to get away from the busyness of this world for people who like to get outside and meet with God
(24:37):
in nature this book's for them and it's also for people who would love to do that but really
sometimes can't it's called drawing near meeting God and his creation my full name is Pasquale
Mingarelli as you mentioned earlier and it's available anywhere people want to buy books
online as well as my website thecreationspeaks.com I imagine that there have been people that have
(24:58):
either logged on and had a look at the website and gone through some of the devotionals there
or even read through the book and gone through those devotionals and have discovered more about
God because of that because you've invited them into that that must be incredibly empowering for
you to know that God is using you in that way is there a story or two of someone who has been
(25:22):
reading the devotionals either online or in the book that have really connected with God in a
deeper way?
I myself struggle with Lord how long do you want me to keep doing this can I put my
time elsewhere and I'll be kind of struggling with that and all of a sudden I'll get some message
from somebody either an email or reply on the on the website or on Facebook or social media and it's
(25:47):
just like God met somebody right where they're at in a unique way because of how God speaks to others
through me and my photography so it happens and it's it's always a blessing when it does and
it's happened quite a bit over the years.
Pat I've got the links to both the website
(26:08):
and to the devotional book in the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net I'm sure that people are going
to get on board with that as you say it's easy reading but it also takes us deeper taking some
of the imagery that you've captured and really applying that to our daily lives so I want to
you for what you're doing in that space but also a huge thank you for spending some time with us
(26:32):
today on Bleeding Daylight.
Well thanks I appreciate the opportunity to be with you and you giving me your time to interview me and just thanks I appreciate it it's been I enjoyed being here.
Thank you for listening to Bleeding Daylight.
Please help us to shine more light into the darkness by sharing this episode with others.
(26:53):
For further details and more episodes please visit bleedingdaylight.net
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