A Stillness That Consumes
I’m beginning to feel more comfortable with a camera around my neck. One of the larger investments I’ve made in preparing for The Jerusalem Experiment has been a (used) Nikon D40x: a basic, semi-professional camera. I purchased the camera just before leading a group of high school students to Mexico City for a summer mission trip and have since found the art of photography a spiritual discipline that, while in Turkey, took on a sacramental sort of function, drawing me into the intricate movements of the Holy Spirit and allowing me to capture them so that they might be treasured forever (if only by myself).
What I love most about studying the Hebrew Scriptures is the ability the prophets and patriarchs seem to possess in perceiving the presence of God in ordinary occurrences. Jeremiah writes in his Lamentations, “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness,” in connecting the potent mercies of God to the inevitability of a new day, the prophet speaks of a God who cuts through the suffocating darkness of our deepest night and causes the sky to bleed fresh colors as He pulls the sun across the sky. Because of Jeremiah’s passionate longing to connect the abstract concepts of a God who is wholly other than us with everyday and universal realities, we now have a familiar metaphor for mercy.
The prophets ascribe arms, eyes, hands, even “a backside” (Ex. 33:23) to a God Jesus defines as pure Spirit. And while God may not technically have body parts (apart from his 33 year incarnation), I believe an intentional and sometimes painful stillness to the pulsing world around us opens our hearts to the many ways God is actively engaged and embodied in the world. But if we hurry, if we race through life and only leave room for beholding God in the flashes across the sky, we’ll miss His still, soft voice.
I’ve found photography to be a form of watchfulness. With a camera around my neck I am more frequently caught by leaves (father than trees), droplets (rather than rivers), and dimples (rather than groups of friends), and therein I am released into a world of redemptive energy.
The Patriarch Jacob echoes this reality following his escape from Esau’s wrath and chooses a midnight stopover at a middle of nowhere place called Bethel. After dozing off, Jacob witnesses angels ascending and descending on golden steps amidst the blackened sky. Waking from his slumber, he confesses to the barren landscape, “God is in this place, and I did not know it.”
God is in our midst, and most of the time we do not know it. Or we don’t think about it. Or we don’t believe it, because why in the world would God be in the midst of a lonely, windblown grain of wheat, or an abusive father, or a cold-hearted cynic. But He is, and He’s in the midst of all these places waiting patiently for us to behold grace.
God is in Turkey. He’s there, drawing unsuspecting eyes unto Himself. He’s there, moving through the waters of the Bosporus, swirling up the marble minarets of the Blue Mosque, and echoing off the dusty crosses of Ayasofia. I’m so grateful to have been awakened to His presence in such a beautiful place.
