The restrictions of the past year have been a downward drag on much that we often enjoy. Meetings with friends wherever and whenever; not allowed except under strict conditions. Going shopping without a care about who is near us, what we touch or what we wear; now it's face mask, distancing and hand sanitiser.
We all find our ways to cope. For me it has been walking with a camera. The aim is not to be fussy, or pretend professional, and not to overthink it. Just click, and see what happens. The results are always mixed. I delete more than I keep.
But occasionally an image announces itself. I mean that. When you're not looking around for what to photograph, suddenly you notice, your attention is apprehended, what you hadn't realised was there suddenly speaks.
The other day walking on a now familiar path, scarred deeply by huge machinery tracks which had filled with rain water, I looked down and saw my own reflection. Then I stepped back far enough to remove my face and looked at the trees and sky reflected with astonishing clarity. The resulting photo is joyfully ambiguous. Is it trees on a steep hillside, or a blue sky reflection of trees in peat dark water? Use your imagination. It's either, or both.
One of the most difficult to process parts of this past year's experience has been relentless sameness. It's the tethered goat syndrome; unless the rope attached to the pole has a loop, the goat eats its way round and the rope gets shorter and shorter. Sometimes it has felt like that, walking the same paths and pavements, unable to travel beyond whatever 'local' is, no shared hospitality in our homes, and we can each add to this list of limited horizons and confined perspectives.
And then a photo reminds me that how we see life might change what we see. Different perspectives - pines on a steep mountainside as a gift from a puddle. A gift from whom? I choose to believe that this wonderful world we walk through is itself a gift, the outflowing love of the Creator God. And every now and again I have been apprehended, arrested in a non-threatening way, by unexpected insight, a glimpse of alternative ways of seeing, a helpfully unsettling nudge that awakens us from boredom and sameness.
Augustine's words are true enough, as far as they go. "You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee." But there is that in the ways of God that disturbs a too easy rest, and triggers a healthy discontent with sameness. Sometimes restlessness is the stirring of something new, a gift of urgency to look again and see new possibility. The photo of the pines in the puddle is infinitely more significant for the absence of my face! Looking at myself looking back at me from a puddle is itself a powerful image of self-absorption, and of that niggling thought we all entertain that the world should dance to our tune, serve our personal agenda, and make allowances for my hopes.
Instead, step back, and look again at the world. Those pine trees on a mountainside, that blue sky looking back up at you instead of you looking up at it! In those moments of discovery - can we call them revelation? - I sense the quiet movement of the Spirit of God creating newness, opening eyes, changing perceptions, replenishing hope. "...and hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit." Aye, that!
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