Hello,
Anybody who knows me will know about my love of photography. I always have a camera with me, and it drives Liz nuts; “We are just going to the shops! Why do you need that thing?” or “Why can’t you just use your phone?”
My photography, which is usually of random people, is really about light. I love landscape and the unpredictability of the mountains, and some of my favourite places are the mountains of Snowdonia or the Peak District, but they are expensive places to get to. I find them immensely spiritual places to be. Even the cold air or the wind, the way that clouds move between tall rocks, mixing with the changing light, like a cake mixture with a whirlpool of strawberry blending and interweaving. With my camera fixed on a tripod, I gather the fragments of light in my camera and construct an image.
To my sorrow, the mountains are too far away and too expensive to reach for most of the year, so here I capture images of random people like butterflies. Usually I ask, hopefully in a way that does not freak them out, but often I get their stories as well, who they are and the light that fills and inspires them. Lately, I have been asked to capture performance art and dance companies. Liz does tell me that perhaps I should start charging for this.
Liz and I were in the Guggenheim gallery in Venice while on holiday (walking on mountains is not that straight forward for her) and, for us, it was so important just not being bombarded for a few days and experiencing the texture and light of that beautiful city; lots of lovely pictures of our journey together.
The camera I use is very small but state of the art, and it was given to me by Fujifilm. It feeds on light and, if I leave it for too long, it gets hungry, so I need to take it somewhere to make sure it is properly fed. Like Meg, our Labrador, it has a good nose, and it manages to sniff out light in some of the darkest of places.
I guess everybody needs to express themselves in some way, to find a voice. It is why I love people who are artists, who make things, paint things, create things, poets (I am a rubbish poet but, yes, I am one of those as well). “Why can’t you do something useful when you are not doing your job?” my wife will sometimes say. “Stop writing or messing with images, and empty the washing machine.” She is right, of course, and she too deserves time to create.
There is a lovely story in Luke’s Gospel (Luke 10:38 – 42) and I would so love this to be an excuse for not doing housework but, unfortunately, contemplation and creative indulgence is not an excuse for failing to share the burden of life, ‘As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”
“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed – or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”’ I had had a difficult week. Lots of funerals at the moment, and always you carry some of the grief that pours out of people. Too much and it will break you, but you have to find a source of life. Also, in ministry, one encounters quite a lot of toxicity that is hard to deal with without support. Then one finds that when you look at the world within yourself, light is difficult to find. Like my camera, I find myself hungry and, if I am hungry for light, I have no light to give.
Last week, the service at Church was conducted by Jason, one of our lay leaders of worship. He has a very gentle and calming voice. I felt a little like a spare part, until I sat down amongst the people and listened. The Bible reading was awesome, 2 Timothy 4:1-5 (read it). Endure hardships, it says, but carry out the work for which God has appointed you. I listened to Jason give a brief message, closed my eyes and feasted on light.
Spend time not doing, but being! Create, make (build bridges and not walls), be still and wait, give yourself space to drink the light, and then you are equipped to give to others. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, the light.”
God bless.
Eric