In the corner of museums where the most precious artifacts are held and in the quietest places of the archives where delicate manuscripts cling tenuously to existence and in the holiest, most sacred corners of cathedrals and temples and sites of profound significance you’ll likely find a sign: No photos allowed.
You know the sort — an icon of a camera centered in a red circle with a line through the middle. I breathe a sigh of relief when I stumble upon one of these markers. The pressure is off. I can enjoy the moment, sink into the present. Wander and watch and worry not over the settings of my camera or whether I’ve captured the scene just right.
Despite the negative nature of the instruction — do not take photos — there is a freedom to be realized in its following. There is a shift in disposition that necessarily takes place. This is no longer a fact-finding mission, a research project, a task that requires documentation and diligent record-keeping and an all-encompassing eye. Rather, the moment shifts into one of wonder and awe.
My mind is no SD card; it won’t retain every feature, every detail. All I can do is be struck by what strikes me.
Last week, I spent time at the Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory on Manitoulin Island in Ontario, Canada. We were listening to stories from the Anishinaabe community, and in particular, how the Jesuits who have been missioned to the territory walk with and learn from the people.
While we were there, we witnessed a healing dance. But before it began, we were given a simple, firm instruction from the woman leading the dance: “No filming allowed.”
And so, those of us in the crowd with cameras put them away. We switched ourselves into watch and wonder mode.
“Ours is an oral culture,” our host explained. She went on to say how teachings were passed on in this manner, through word and action, and the listener was not expected to grasp the fullness of the lesson the first time around. Instead, it was incumbent on the one doing the learning to pay close attention to what they found most striking, and then to trust that in this striking detail was a key insight to be reflected upon.
There is great wisdom in this simple insight. There is a necessary acceptance of personal limitations: No one can grasp the fullness of the moment in its entirety; all we can do is let it wash over us, let it move us and be grateful we were there at all.
It’s countercultural in a lot of ways, too. How hard it is to act against this impulse to want all the info now and to be able to return to our notes or our photo albums on our own time to refresh our memories.
But what happens when we take this “no photos allowed” approach to our encounters with God? Whether we find God in a moment of silence on our front porch, in the deepest corners of a chittering forest, in the eyes of a loved one or in a well-worn pew in the back of our church, we necessarily enter into an experience that refuses to be photographed, to be captured in a way that our minds can fully slice and dice.
An encounter with Mystery reminds us that we are indeed limited and cannot (in this life) expect a full accounting for the expansiveness of God’s very self at work in creation. Rather, we approach humbly, open, available and curious about what striking insight God will uniquely reveal to us here, now.
It’s important to jot down notes on our experiences of God — of course! But this week, in our prayer, let us be careful that we don’t spend so much time trying to “capture” an experience of God at the expense of simply delighting in God’s presence, allowing God to stir in us something striking, something for which we are uniquely positioned to give further reflection.
Put your camera away. Let the Spirit wash over you. Allow yourself to be moved by God’s invitation.
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