THE "OTHER" GOSPEL, THE MEMORY OF THE BIBLE IN THE EYE OF YOUR CAMERA

The one I had was brown

Have you ever been on a pilgrimage?  Have you ever read Geoffrey Chaucer?  have you ever heard of the Pilgrimage to Mecca?  Did you ever ask yourself why Jesus, Mary and Joseph were 100 miles away from home when Jesus got lost?  How often do you, if ever, dream of traveling to your favorite religious site?
When you think of that, what is your first preoccupation, after money, of course?  Is it your prayer book or your camera?  
Why do I bring this up?  Because it came to me the other day when I though that it might be a good idea to dig out some old pictures and give them to our sons for Christmas.  So, of course, I dove into the box(es) of photos and the box(es) of SD computer chips to see what pictures they might appreciate more.  The emotion that overtook me while I was doing this was quite a surprise to me.  I decided that none of the pictures that I was viewing would be of any real lasting value to either one of them.  Why?  Because it struck me with some emotional intensity that what I was looking at was interesting, but certainly not engaging.  The exercise was rather fun, but did not rise to the level of awe before a family collection of treasure.  So, I stopped myself from spending any more time doing this.
It came to me that the truly meaningful pictures were VERY few and far between.  How many pictures of 3 and 4 year boys are meaningful?  There is one that I like, but I couldn't find it, so that was a disappointment.  Or was it?  It made me think of the picture that I took with my Kodak Box camera of old.  It was at Niagara Falls somewhere in the 1957 range.  It was one where I captured the boat, "The Maid of the Mist" floating at the foot of the falls and surrounded by a very clearly defined rainbow.  I admired that picture for a long time, but then I changed my domicile so many times during the passing years that all I have is the memory.  I have the memory, and nothing else, of my favorite picture of EFR Dion coming down the back stairs of our house on Hartford Street in South Hadley that I took with the same box camera by Kodak.  I remember it because it was February, a few days after he had announced that he had now lived longer than his father had.  I could go on for some time reminiscing about pictures that I remember and about pictures that were never taken.  Those that were never taken are still vividly present to me.  They move me as much as those that occasionally fall under my gaze.  Despite the convictions expressed here, I still find myself clicking away on special occasions.
In the introduction I asked about pilgrimages and what is the more important, prayer or picture.  I wonder what the right answer is.  It is impossible to go to a revered location on the planet without capturing the reality of it on camera.  I have my favorite pictures of places that I have seen only because I went there to pray.  I don't look at the pictures very often, if ever, but the fact that I stopped and captured a rare reality helps vivify my memory of it.  It is like multi-media impact on the brain.  It is rather certain to me that the effort that it took to stop, assess the angle of importance, check the position of the sun, wonder if I should have Belle there or not, should I activate the flash, how close do I want to get, portrait or landscape mode, etc.  All of this activity contributes in some way to the memory of the event.  In many ways it makes viewing the picture less important down the line because the memory is all the more explicit.
Think of it this way.  Mary and Joseph lost track of their Son one year during the annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem for prayer.  They didn't need a camera to remember where they found him.  I think that He never forgot it either.  We don't hear a single word about him for another 20 plus years, except that when He got back to Nazareth, he obeyed them and grew in age and wisdom.  Period.
Who needs a camera for that?