The digital camera is ubiquitous. Soldiers have them, with the result that governments no longer have the same kind of control over information disseminated during wars. (Note the pictures revealing the brutality at Abu Graib.) Guests at social events have them. I have one, and it has both freed me from the restraints of film and made me more sensitive to visual patterns and the play of light on everyday objects.
However, enjoying photography as much as I do makes me wonder if I am sometimes experiencing reality through the camera lens rather than directly. Or worse, if I’m experiencing, not reality at all, just the photograph.
I attended a baptism not long ago where it appeared as if nearly everyone on both sides of the family had brought cameras. One man videoed the whole mass – usually a no-no in church. There were moments during the baptismal ritual when all the photographers were huddled around the group at the font, and I would not have been surprised to see one of them ask the priest to move aside so he could get a better picture.
The baby was oblivious to the huddles and the flashes, and he yelled appropriately when dipped in the water. The parents, too, seemed immersed in the sacred event. But what about the others? Were they aware of participating in a holy moment, or were they just taking advantage of a photo-op?
There are many ways to avoid a direct encounter with life. Now and then, for example, I have to remind myself, when I am reading about prayer, that the time has come to stop reading and actually pray. Spiritual reading is essential to the Christian life and can lead us to prayer, but it is not a substitute for prayer. Eventually, reading about the experience of others must give way to a trusting and unmediated presence to God.
Even the prayer with scripture known as lectio divina is intended to draw us beyond the inspired words to the God who inspired them. The movement is expressed as reading, meditation, prayer, and contemplation. Here is a very simple (and definitely over-simplified) description of this four-fold cycle:
- Reading, listening to the word of scripture
- Meditation, reflecting on what is heard
- Prayer, in response to what is heard and experienced
- Contemplation, resting in God who is present to us in the reading, the meditation, and the prayer
The following are some links about lectio divina:
Simplest and most practical:
How to Practice Lectio Divina
by Fr. Luke Dysinger, OSB.
More detailed:
Accepting the Embrace of God: The Ancient Art of Lectio Divina
also by Fr. Dysinger
When we offer ourselves to God in prayer, it doesn’t mean that we will see the skies open, any more than the family of the baby being baptized would have seen the Holy Spirit descend in the form of a dove. However, God is no less present, working to transform us, when we sit quietly, simply longing for the God who longs for us.
O LORD, my heart is not lifted up,
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things too great
and too marvelous for me.
But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother;
my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.
O Israel, hope in the LORD
from this time on and forevermore.
(Psalm 131)