Small Places

Be still, and know that I am God...Psalm 46:10

I treasure the quiet moments: silent darkness in the early morning, sunset reflection on calm water, cool shadow in treelit glades, mountain snow, amber fields of grain.... Ok, so you have to read this with a music track behind it - maybe Moonlight Sonata - with Lucy - because by the time you get to the fields of grain, you realize that what you're looking for is so over-advertised it's become trite.

You get the picture, right? Nowadays, it's easy to imagine postcard perfect scenes of peace and tranquility. We seek them out, as if something primal in us yearns for them. And we find them. Everywhere. The internet is full of photographic meditations in valleys, on mountaintops, on the oceans, in the oceans, by rivers, in forests, even in home and landscape design. Vacations are advertised to get away from it all - to leave the hustle and bustle behind. You can stay at a resort with a private beach, or upgrade your cruise cabin to include a personal balcony or an oceanview.... Entire vacations are planned around imagining ourselves inside pictures of solitude in nature. Entire industries have been built around providing these experiences.

You know, there is something to be said about seeking peace. But I think sometimes we've got it a little backwards. I'm not sure we have to go big to get there. We don't have to work all year in order to go to some exotic location to eke out a time and space to relax. We don't have to put ourselves in the picture - we need to learn how to put the picture in us.

I believe God works in the small places and spaces in our lives. He is in all of our moments - the important, life-changing, majestic and glorious scenes of mountaintops and oceans, as well as the in-betweens, unforeseens, and pauses in our lives - unexpected smiles, raindrops, color... One of the reasons I love photography so much is that I can digitally capture those details - the sometimes overlooked beauty in the common world around me. The camera lens helps me to focus and frame scenes - quiet moments - that would otherwise be lost in the visual noise of their surroundings.

Thank you, God, for quiet moments, for helping us to find You in the spaces. You are God.