As I have many times, I took this picture on the way home from dropping the boys at school. This isn't a well planned photo, nor did I use an exceptional camera. I snapped it with a fairly new cell phone at some distance back from the road, and through my front windshield. In times past, I have gotten out of the car on the side of the road, even walked across, standing just a little bit higher
than my seated position in the car.
Today coming back, it seemed particularly beautiful, bright even after such a rain as we had last night. The weather is oppressively hot and steamy, which is why I probably stayed in the car. But I wanted to capture this picture. It's a part of a contemplative habit I have developed to revisit same places and reflect, photograph, think, stop and reset, or even prepare for the remainder of the delayed morning.
The photo did not demonstrate or reflect what I actually saw. It didn't capture the mist, the sun beaming subtly through the clouds. It highlights the street sign and misses
the natural beauty I try to see and focus on
when I make this stop.
I look at this picture and contemplate the confusion over perceptions, photo/video, angles, details, life experience, and what is really going on in this picture. Then the #currentevents bombard my brain. I stop when I come to: why is a child in a place where they might witness what Jacob Blake's son witnessed? How did Jacob Blake get to that point.
All the thoughts, but that is miles away from me, if only geographically.
This year has brought no end to chaos, even in my small unremarkable world. I have felt the feelings of hopelessness more than once, having nothing to do with a country in shutdown or a virus or cultural crisis. Unresolved goes the question, 'How did we get to this place?' Sometimes it (chaos in my life) really had nothing to do with my actions, yet, if I am unfaithful in the details of my small world, I'm not supporting and contributing to what good 'could be.' Do I say, 'I just can't.' or 'I can't even.' Have I thrown up my hands, stepping away to yet another glittery, tasty, reductionist distraction.
There are so many things I can not change with sweeping grand-gesture-like motion. But I can change and do what is right before me. The least I can do is follow through with that.
That sounds rather wholesome. Down right 'Mother Teresa.'-- Her birthday was yesterday. So inconsequential could she have been, if she had just taken a different path. But she didn't and so she is widely known for simple single acts of love. Loving the one right in front of her was her trademark. She knew, like we say 'know by heart,' that purpose is not always grandiose, and usually it only shows up on the grid and statistics chart after a long succession of small acts over a long period of time. Was her purpose far from home? I believe she didn't live (Calcutta, India) where she grew up, but she did settle down. At some point we settle down in our souls, and we learn that our purpose is where ever we are to do what is the next right thing. And it is from those faithful habits we can draw support when the times get tough. We have in our storehouse moments of beauty to support our moments of sorrow. But it comes with choosing our perspective. And looking at the circumstance with determination to control our thoughts. If I depend upon the perception of the one isolated picture of how things seem, I am missing out on how things could be, and likely the reality of the good will escape me altogether.
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| Same stretch of road, different day, same camera. |
