by Brad Huard
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
It was late summer when we sold our house and moved into an apartment. After 22 years in the same home, I found the whole process of moving to be a bit stressful as we tried to figure out what to keep and what to give or throw away. It’s hard trying to separate the memories from the objects themselves. Some things are so cherished that they take on a priceless quality well beyond recognizable worth.
First, we struggled to sell the dining room table, an inheritance gift from my beloved mother-in-law, Josephine. Then came the selling of my old record albums of The Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, and Prince. It didn’t matter that we hadn’t had a turn-table to play them on in nearly 30 years; they were special to me, holding all my faded dreams of one day being a rock star. But what I dreaded most was dealing with an old dust-covered box in the far dark corner of our basement. You see, I am a photographer, well, an amateur photographer, that is, and in that box was nearly every 35-millimeter picture I had ever taken. That dusty cardboard box contained the historical documentation of my lifelong quest to answer the questions, “Who am I?” and “Where is my place in the world.”
These are the same questions that Jesus often addresses with the disciples. Jesus was always trying to prepare his disciples for the time after the resurrection when his physical presence would no longer be with them, to show them what he meant by, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.” He knew that nothing in the entire universe would ever be the same after his death, resurrection, and ascension, and the only answer to those questions was to remain in his love.
Regardless of how old we are or the circumstances of our lives, most of us spend a lifetime searching for the answers to the questions: Who am I? Where is my place in this world? That’s why we sit in silent contemplation, living in the present moment through Centering Prayer, where we realize that our search for those answers is ultimately about our search for Christ. So, we know the answer is always right there in front of our faces, but it’s just at times that the questions become more desperate, such as when a loved one dies, or a marriage ends in divorce, or a cancer diagnosis. During those moments, we need something to hold on to, comfort and console us, and remind us that things are OK. Something like photographs.
As I went through every one of those pictures, I began to realize that it wasn’t the picture itself that was the story or the gift of that moment in time, but the experience itself that held the presence of meaning and love. Without making space for contemplation and Centering Prayer in our lives, sometimes our fear, desolation, and desperation can lead us to start frantically gathering our photographs and storing them in boxes all over our lives and miss the reality that our lives already embody the timeless presence of the eternal love of God. Our actions, decisions, and journeys embody all of those picture-perfect moments that have guided and carried us to this present moment of time and place in the world.
In many ways, Jesus is not just giving us something; he tells us we are something. If we remain in his love by loving one another, then we have what Jesus has with the Father, and we are complete. In that love, we learn God’s presence transcends time and space, good and evil, life and death. Ultimately, it is all about us, in the best sense of these words.
Who are we? We are the love of Christ. Where is our place in the world? To be the love of Christ to one another.
