Images

Been wondering tonight what happens to all the pictures in our memory from the stuff we encounter in a day.

You know, the smell of fresh brewed coffee, the look of milk being poured onto your cereal, the lovely feel of a hug from the one who loves you and who you love, the sharpness of the red pencil in your hand (with a well-worn-eraser) used for the crossword puzzle from the Sarasota Herald Tribune, the whelming warmth of a July Sarasota sun during an all-too-warm-late-morning-long-run over to Honore from here, the conversations with an Apple techie as he guides you into syncing your Apple lives with your newly gifted iPad (thank you women and men of St. Andrew), emails with Jeff and Ed and Jeanne and Nicole.

What happens to all these snapshots from a day in our lives?

Here are are seven pictures from late on this particular July, 2012, day in my life:

 

Vibrancy.

Beauty.

Grace.

 

In the most recent issue of “The Progressive,” Wendell Berry has an article titled, “It All Turns on Affection,” within which he talks about one of his teachers Wallace Stegner.

Stegner believed we Americans are divided into two kinds of people:  “Boomers and stickers. . .   Boomers are those who pillage and run, they want to make a killing and end up on easy street.  Stickers are those who settle, and love the life they have made and the place they have made it in. . . Stickers are motivated by affection, by such love for a place and this life that they want to preserve it and remain in it.”

 

Hmmmmmm . . .

 

images of this day In my life (that stick with me) have to do with affection.

 

Hrrrrrrruuuuuummmmmpppppphhhhh . . .

 

the images of the day of horror and tragedy and evil that James Holmes created, the graduate student in neuroscience, who walked into a movie theater in Aurora, CO, and murdered twelve and maimed many more . . . are not images of affection!

 

My heart aches for the families of those who were slain and for those who are injured and may recover. . . and those that won’t.  My heart aches for the people in the theater who were not shot but who are life-injured.  My heart aches for each of you reading these words who weep over the images of James Holmes’ gruesome action.  And my heart aches for James Holmes.  My heart aches for anyone who sees violence as salvation.

 

Sisters and brothers of the journey,

 

it is for us,

 

you and me,

 

to be “stickers” . . .

 

motivated by love for life!

 

May we live it, breathe it, teach it,

give it, receive it, honor it,

hope it, act on it, love it,

be it . . .

 

 

May it be so . . . !