Beauty Needs No Lens

Right outside our patio window, there are sparkling lights hung for the Christmas season. We took everything else down, but it felt right to keep these up, especially with the early darkness that plagues winter in the Midwest. And more beautifully, the sparkling lights illuminate the snow that is covering the ground outside in Cincinnati. With one of the most intense winter storms we have had in quite some time, it makes the outdoors look like a soft blanket.

Moments like these make me want to take a thousand pictures, to capture the memory and save it so I know what it was like. But I’ve realized that some things, and perhaps most things, cannot be experienced with a picture. Sometimes it is literally true, like when you try to take a picture of the stars with a basic smartphone, and it comes out blurry, but other times it is true because you miss the moment. I can try to take a picture of my son’s laughter when we play on the ground, but it’s not the same as experiencing it in real time. It’s too precious a moment.

It reminds me of a lyric I’ve heard in a song before, that says, “I look on up to the sky. I wonder why I put a filter between beauty and my eyes.” The filter is, of course, our phones. Any time we try to place something in between the present moment and our eyes, we miss it. It is never the same to experience it. I can show you all about the Grand Canyon with pictures and videos, but none of it compares to the awe-striking beauty of standing above it, looking down. Watching the details of the ridges, the Colorado river rush through it, and the birds fly across it. No picture can do it justice.

This doesn’t boil down to taking our phones away and getting rid of pictures. Pictures provide a snapshot memory of wonderful moments; they just don’t show the whole picture, no pun intended. I also love taking pictures, because they are beautiful memories that are eternal reflections. The point is that anything, whether a phone or a busy mind, can rip us from experiencing the beauty of the present moment. Let’s not let ourselves do that too much. If we do, we might miss the most wonderful gifts that are right in front of us.