It crystallized this morning - the more I do the less I get done. The more I scurry about doing this and doing that, the less I accomplish, the less attention I pay to doing and being what really matters. Specifically, the more I consume myself with the business of photography-related stuff the less real photography I do.
It is easy to burn up time and energy with activity. It's succumbing to the tyranny of the urgent, as wiser folk than I have called it.
During Lent we will be reading together Scot McKnight's "40 Days Living the Jesus Creed." The book is based on Jesus' reply to the teacher of the law recorded in Mark 12:28ff.
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"
“The most important one," answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these." (NIV)
Love God above all and your neighbor as yourself. That's what matters; the rest, all that urgency and activity, is periphery. The gifts I have, artistic and otherwise, are given to me by a loving God to be used to serve him and my neighbor. I am not entirely sure what that means, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't mean spending hours looking at random photographs and clicking the shutter just to burn up film.
(If you can't find anything to offend you on deviantArt.com your are either not looking very hard or completely numb. The same is true on any big artists' site. But the real problem is not the garbage but rather the overwhelming amount of jaw-droppingly good stuff in all sorts of genres. I been a member there for ten years. The place is addictive. You have been warned.)
So what to do to get things back in balance and myself focused on what matters? There are a few specific changes I am making on dA to limit my time there and make it more productive. I am doing better a journaling having made the switch to writing first in my paper journal, writing being an important part of who I am. And I will be reading through "40 Days" with a small group of folks who don't mind calling me to account (and who expect me to return the favor).
It should be an interesting Lent.
"Chasing Shadows - January 2015"