Blurring the moving parts of life long enough to see the rocks

Elliott taught me how to do long exposure photography yesterday. Well, actually, it's more transparent to say he taught me how to hit a button in the photos app on my iPhone.

Nonetheless, that button helped me create an amazing picture of a waterfall we found yesterday. So amazing, in fact, I had to do a little research to find out exactly what this long exposure photography is!

Here is part of what I found, and most applicable to this photo:

One of the primary reasons to use long exposure is to blur moving elements. This could be anything from waterfalls and rivers, which get a smooth, silky appearance, to clouds moving across the sky, which can create a dramatic and dynamic effect in the sky.

As I reflected on that definition, and this image, I got to pondering how that effect might be useful in life. Blurring the moving objects to bring more intense focus to the still objects. To the stable and dependable and immovable objects in our lives.

For me, prayer is like long exposure photography. It's that time in the morning when I sit and blur out all the noise in my life to bring focus to God. It's when I leave the lens of my life open long enough to let all the noise fade so that I can clearly see and feel and hear God sitting right there next to me.

Right there next to me where he always is, but where I quite frequently lose sight of him while paying attention to all the moving objects in my life.

The rushing water in a waterfall picture is beautiful. It can be mesmerizing.

But the water in the image is fleeting. It's here and then quickly gone. But the rocks, the rocks never leave. Rain or snow or shine or flood or drought, the rocks remain.

It's easy to lose sight of that when mesmerized by the water.

Life is full of moving parts. Life is full of things that are here today and gone tomorrow. Life is full of things we can enjoy but not fully depend on.

The key in life is to find your rock.

To know where to stand in the midst of the swift and moving parts so as to never get swept away.

The key is to every once in awhile hit that long exposure button. Hit it and have revealed for you in majestic ways, the Rock.

The Rock, it's not trick photography, just a way of using photography to reveal the immovable parts in our life.

Sort of like prayer.