Photographic Memories

This morning dawned overcast and beautiful! This picture outside my front door doesn't do it justice. As I drove to work I was overcome with the beauty of this day, the beauty of this amazing world! I believe that this world was created under the direction of a Supreme Creator, and that He has the power to mold the elements as He wills; but I also believe that God operates through scientific laws, often laws that we do not yet understand. That being said, while I often praise God for being the ultimate Artist, I also recognize that His artistry comes into play through the mere fact that He set natural laws on this planet in motion, and He lets the elements play as they will according to those laws. Today, the elements wrestled in gorgeous harmony to create shifting thunderheads, streaks of early morning sunlight peaking through on occasion, flashes of awe-inspiring lightening, bursts of rain across the horizon, and an overall panorama of dangerous beauty. For the first half of my drive to work I longed to pull over and take photo after photo of the undulating prospect. As I despaired in my lack of time to do just that, I realized how silly my thinking had become. Our society has evolved to become a media consumed, selfie-taking, photo inundated culture. I love photos! I love capturing moments, suspending them in perfect clarity for "all time." Photography is an amazing medium that allows us to more perfectly pass on memories to the following generations. I so appreciate seeing images from around the globe of varying cultures, landscapes and creations. Pictures enhance our experience and learning in this life. However, I am coming to believe that our photo-happy culture is doing us a disservice. I find that when I take a picture, I don't necessarily appreciate the moment as much. Something in the experience has been devalued by seeing it through a lens, instead of simply soaking it in through my own senses. A quote from "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" captures the thought I'm trying to express; Walter is sitting with a famous photographer, Sean O Connel, who has the "perfect" moment ready to capture on film; Walter asks when he's going to take the picture! and Sean responds, " Sometimes I don't. If I like a moment, for me, personally, I don't like to have the distraction of the camera. I just want to stay in it." Too often I think we lose the priceless moments by the distraction of trying to capture it; some things aren't meant to be caged, even by film. Some of my most beautiful photos are the ones that are only in my head. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but an experience- the feelings, emotions, the sensory data, the relationships- that's priceless. Sometimes that camera lens can get in the way of experience; so while I appreciate, love and cherish my photographed memories, I am learning that nothing can quite compare to the experiences that lead to my photographic memories. Let us not forget that, "the purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience" (Eleanor Roosevelt, emphasis added). Let's take those pictures (because they're awesome!), but let's also take time to simply live and create photographic memories.