sunlight

I’ve spent a few hours staring into the sun.

That didn’t come out quite right. Let me try again.

I’ve spent long periods of time looking at someone standing right in front of the sun—which has kind of the same effect. I just didn’t want you to think I had ignored my mother’s instruction about not looking at the sun.

But, in fact, it was at my mother’s instructions I looked at the person standing in front of the sun. That person was my father—taking a photograph of the family.

To a young child, there was no greater torture. Don’t blink, they said and then made you stare at the brightest light imaginable while the exact setting was selected on the old Kodak Hawkeye box camera and children were shuffled around to achieve the ideal composition.

The pictures weren’t very good anyway. For all the torture we endured, we still squinted, blinked, and put our hands over our eyes at just the wrong moment, and were captured on film for all eternity.

Everybody smile, they said.

We tried.

I brought the little camera home a little while back. No, not the Kodak. That was my parents’ camera. This was a little cheap plastic box camera, purchased through the Sears & Roebuck catalog. It was mine fifty years ago. Still is. It has my name written on the side of it, in my best nine-year-old printing.

I’ll never take another photograph with it, but the memory of the power that was endowed by the little plastic box will stay with me forever.

With it, I could stop time! Precious moments could be saved and relived whenever I wanted. Pets, friends, even creations from my own hands would never be lost.

Power!

We don’t think of photographs quite the same way anymore. Every person who carries a phone has a camera—much better than any which were available in my childhood. Taking a photo isn’t even an event today.

But, I remember the day when the sight of a camera would make my siblings scurry for cover. I recall when the arrival of that package of black and white photos in the mail was a grand event—when all of those siblings wanted to make sure they hadn’t been caught doing embarrassing things.

It was a distinct possibility.

Years ago, I read that in some cultures photographs are rare because the people believe the camera would steal your soul. While not all cultures this belief has been attributed to actually hold to it, there is adequate proof some did—and many still do.

Photographs steal your soul.

I’m skeptical. That said, I do understand how someone might think this. Your exact image has been captured on paper. How can that not take something away from you?

We laugh. Still, today, many no longer can live in the moment, enjoying events as they unfold, because they are intent on snapping photographs to view later and to show to their friends. Selfies, we call them. One must be sure they are in their own picture! It will be proof one day that they actually were there.

Never mind that your back was turned to the event itself. You’ll always have the photograph.

Perhaps a part of our soul is stolen as the camera snaps. I don’t know.

My mind is again back in the sixties. Looking into the sun. Shadows must be avoided at all cost.

Standing in the bright light of day.

But, I remember some events I would have been embarrassed to have recorded on camera. Those happened in the shadows, perhaps even in complete darkness.

Mom wasn’t around to remind me to look toward the light. Dad wasn’t recording the action for posterity.

Come to think about it, there are still some activities I don’t want saved for people to see. The dark works better for them. I might be embarrassed to see the photographs those would yield.

The Teacher spoke of folks like me—at least, like me at those embarrassing times. He declared that men loved darkness rather than light for one reason—they wish to hide their evil deeds. (John 3:19)

I wonder if it’s time to come out into the light of day again.

The Son may make us squint a bit.

The shadows will all disappear.

Perhaps, it’s time again to make some memories worth viewing later. Memories which will last forever. Literally.

Everybody smile!

This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.
(1 John 1:5-7 ~ NASB)

Which of my photographs is my favorite? The one I’m going to take tomorrow.
(Imogene Cunningham ~ American photographer ~ 1883-1976)

I woke up this morning and, looking out the window, wondered about the fog.

Didn’t the weather man say it would be sunny this morning?

Mere seconds later, the fog cleared. No, not the fog I was seeing through the window. The fog in my brain.

Looking at the window again, I remembered that the exterior storm windows, set at a distance of a few inches from the original single-pane glass, hold in the moisture of the night. On cold mornings, the view through the windows is dim and foggy, regardless of the weather outside.

Sunny. There was no fog—no mist.

A beautiful morning.

It would not be many more hours before the fog was back. The fog in my head, I mean.

I read the words once. “Saying goodbye to my father…”

I read them again, this time through tears. His father is a friend, an encourager, a tease. One of my favorite people.

It’s not true. He can’t be dead.

I don’t know what happened to the sun. Perhaps the tears that came unbidden fogged up the view, but it was dim even after I wiped them away.

The rest of my day was viewed through a dark lens. Tears, sarcasm, anger—all of them were close to the surface and likely to be unleashed without provocation.

I argued with two young men on separate occasions this afternoon. They needed to know how dark the world is.

I took care of that task.

One of them, a man in his late twenties, now clearly understands that his days of carefree happiness are numbered. The reality of death, which will close in to take scores of his friends as he ages, has been explained thoroughly to him.

The second, a slightly older father of two, now grasps fully the ugliness of sin hidden inside every person he respects and loves. I did my best to explain to him that it would be every person who would disappoint. Every person.

The red-headed lady who raised me would have suggested at this juncture that misery loves company.

I wasn’t done yet.

Late this afternoon a longtime friend about my own age related his enjoyment at watching a documentary of a famous singer who, though struggling with Alzheimer’s, still finished his farewell concert tour. It seemed, to my friend, a triumph in the face of overwhelming odds.

Astounded that anyone should see even one ray of sunshine on such an obviously dark day, I set him straight, citing my mother’s experience with the horrible disease before her death last summer. I wasn’t gentle, helping him to understand with graphic descriptions of the horror.

I have apologies to make.

More than that, I need to learn to trust a loving God, who sees the beginning and the end. When events overwhelm, He sends messengers to offer words of comfort, but I, drowning in the dark waves, attempt to pull them down as well.

I will make my apologies.

Learning to trust will take longer—perhaps a lifetime.

Tonight, I’m in agreement with the Psalmist, who suggested that he had some complaints to make and asked that they be heard. (Psalm 64:1)

Funny thing. He got to the end of his complaining and found there was light at the end of the darkness. (Psalm 64:10)

Light. And hope.

It is not so dark here as I thought.

I’m hearing from lots of my friends who believe the entire world is dark and without hope. Events and fears have colored the glass through which they view all of God’s creation.

This morning, as I walked out of my house, the sunshine was brilliant beyond description. The storm windows, designed to protect, had given an illusion of a world covered in cloud.

Beyond the illusion, the sun is still shining.

The light has shined into darkness and has not been overcome by it.

It is not so dark out here.

Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World.
(Christopher Columbus ~ Italian explorer ~ ca. 1451-1506)

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall make smooth your paths.
(Proverbs 3:5-6 ~ NKJV)

He's Taken Leave

Random wanderings with Paul Phillips

Into the Sun

Frosted Glass