by JVS on May.20, 2008, under 2008, Photography, Writing
I must have sat there for 10 minutes, camera zoomed out to the max, lens fixed on the subject tree top, auto focus set, finger pushing halfway down on the trigger, hoping the image stabilization software will correct my shakiness, hoping the flashing red battery light wouldn’t cut this opportunity short, and waiting for that bird to land. Not just an ordinary bird, no mere robin, chickadee or sparrow, but some kind of uber-aviator, with a very distinct call…
For a day and a half now I’ve been trying to capture this superb specimen, but I’m finding it too fast to shoot. Yesterday morning, as I sat eating breakfast, looking out over the foothills, I was introduced to two of them doing an air show. I think they were brothers, they were having so much fun. I tell you this species is like the F18 of the bird world; huge speed, incredible maneuvers, daring stunts – flying toward each other and then darting aside at the last possible moment – a better overall show than any crack air force team I’ve ever seen.
If I’m patient enough, attentive enough, perhaps I capture one yet. I’ll be here writing for a couple more days.
Watching those two flyers I thought, “They’ve lived more life in the past ten minutes than I have in a month! I want more of that.” Later that day I went for afternoon walk and saw, at a distance, a young colt playing with its mother. It would sneak up on her, and then when she feigned noticing him, he’d dash off, leaping and turning, tail flying everywhere, and then prancing away. Prancing is really the only word for it. That pastoral scene was a perfect image of leisurely play, of being there, of living life. “I want more of that too,” I thought. Walking back to the cabin I passed three young children laughing and singing on their backyard swing set.
Today I hope to pen a few more thoughts about seeing God in the world. Today’s chapter will be looking at how we learn to discern his presence.
This morning I read these words from a devotional;
“Leisure is not the attitude of mind of those who actively intervene, but of those who are open to everything; not of those who grab and grab hold, but of those who leave the reins loose and who are free and easy themselves – almost like someone falling asleep by ‘letting oneself go.’… When we really let our minds rest contemplatively on a rose in bud, on a child at play, on a divine mystery, we are rested and quickened as though by a dreamless sleep… It is in these silent receptive moments that the soul of man is sometimes visited by an awareness of what holds the world together.” Piper, Leisure, The Basis of Culture, 40-42
(That first picture I posted, of that tree top… in the bottom left corner, that tiny black blur… that’s the F18!)
