The roots of our spiritual lives run deep.  In my latter years, I find connections among interests and events throughout my life that I was not aware of.  I will talk about my history here in hopes that it will encourage you to do the same.  You may be surprised at what you find.

I was born at the outbreak of World War II, in 1939.  My father went off to the Navy toward the end of the war and my mother, brother and I lived with my father’s parents for awhile.  I was six years old and in the first grade at school.  In those days parents were more trusting and didn’t worry about children being abducted.   I walked to school by myself.

School was about 10 blocks from home and a park, four blocks long, was along the way.  Since the park offered piles of leaves to kick, buckeyes to pick up and shine on the side of my nose, a fountain and a pond with frogs and goldfish as well as a woodland fragrance that had more come hither to it than an expensive perfume, I was detained on my way to school.  Since I went home for lunch and then back to school, well, four trips a day by the park was more temptation than an inquisitive six year old could deal with.  There were conversations at home about being late to school.

There was nothing wrong with school, I just found the park more interesting and for that matter, more nourishing.  I find it interesting that for most kids the park was usually just a place to pass through but for me it was a destination.  I felt more alive there, more in tune with something larger than myself.  To this day if I am sitting in a boring meeting or just need calming down I go back to the park in my head.  It has a connection for me that it took many years to recognize as spiritual.

One of the reasons recognition of the connection as spiritual was delayed is that I grew up in the ‘40s and ‘50s in mainline Protestant churches where the emphasis was on personal salvation and doing good works for other people.  There is a lot of good in that, it isn’t to be slighted, but the implicit assumption at the time was that the Earth, our planet, is here as a stage on which to live our lives as people to be saved.  No particular intrinsic worth of the planet was explicitly recognized: animals are nice but they don’t have souls;  trees need to be harvested for building houses; beautiful property needs to be developed; strip mining isn’t a great idea but it is efficient, etc.  All this proceeded, I think, out of the assumption that we are at most indirectly connected to the rest of Creation.

About 30 years ago my wife, our two children and I were members of a church in New Jersey.  One Sunday a student pastor was preaching and asked the question ‘do you love God?’  The only concept of God I had was as a rather moody authoritarian father figure and it was difficult to think of God in loving terms.  The question resonated with me but didn’t get a good answer.  However, it did stick.

About 15 years ago I read three books that reframed my spiritual journey.  Actually there was more to it than that, I found I could actually have a spiritual journey.  This was exciting.  One of the books had been suggested by the patent attorney at work.  It was ‘The Dream of the Earth’ by Thomas M. Berry. Another was Matthew Fox’s ‘Original Blessing’,  recommended by a wise pastor friend.  I found Sallie McFague’s ‘Models of God’ through a TV interview she did.

It wasn’t so much that the books by Berry and Fox imparted a lot of new information.  What they did more than anything was bring to the surface ideas that I wasn’t aware that I had and give them a coherent framework.  After reading them I had the beginnings of my own cohering view; it wasn’t yet coherent but it was making progress.  Without going into a lot of detail – for all I know these books would be of no interest and something else might be far more appropriate for you – here is the outline of that view which you will see is an expansion of what I said in my last post:

• God is the original creator and continues to create.
• Everything is part of God, God is in everything, everything in the Universe is therefore connected.
• We humans, as part of God, participate in creating.
• The consequences of our actions are far broader than we can see.

‘Models of God’ was downright exciting in that it offered many ways of thinking about and addressing God.  McFague offered the possibility of thinking of God as Father, Mother, Lover, Friend etc., take your pick of these or something else entirely.  All of these models and more are offered in the Bible.  The power of this approach is suggested in a couple of examples.  Suppose you have had a difficult time with your father.  Would you find it easier to address God as Father or perhaps as Mother?  As another example try the following exercise.  Imagine God as a strict authoritarian and then imagine God as an understanding mother.  Write prayers to each and compare them.  If you are like several people who did that exercise, they will be dramatically different prayers.  How you think of God affects how you address God and perhaps where you see signs of God in the world.

With these books as backdrop, my experience in the park was more understandable; I was going to church.  I’ve been to places of great beauty including Rocky Mountain NP, Great Smoky Mountains NP, Yosemite NP, Glacier NP, Yellowstone NP, Grand Tetons NP, Custer State Park in South Dakota, the Badlands and many others.  They all share the ambience of holiness for me.  Now that I had different ways of thinking about God I could answer the question about whether I love God.  I do indeed.  And beyond that I could begin to understand what those connections that form sometimes in photographic moments are – they are connections back to God and God’s creation.  They are spiritual.

Once I became aware of the possibility of spirituality influencing photography I was very gratified to see how many other photographers had something to say that was in one way or another related to the same point.  I’m sure many of them would not see the relationship between photography and spirituality exactly as I do, but I think you will see some similarities:

Minor White:

When you approach something to photograph it, first be still with yourself until the object of your attention affirms your presence. Then don’t leave until you have captured its essence.

Robert Adams:

‘Why is photography, like the other arts, that kind of intoxication?  And a quieter pleasure too, so that occasionally photographers discover tears in their eyes for the joy of seeing.  I think it is because they have known a miracle.  They‘ve been given what they did not earn, and as is the way with unexpected gifts, the surprise carries an emotional blessing.  When photographers get beyond copying the achievements of others, or just repeating their own accidental first successes, they learn that they do not know where in the world they will find pictures.  Nobody does.  Each photograph that works is a revelation to its supposed creator.  Yes photographers do position themselves to take advantage of good fortune, sensing for instance when to stop the car and walk, but this is only the beginning.  As William Stafford wrote, calculation gets you just so far – ‘Smart is okay, but lucky is better.’  Days of searching can go by without any need to reload film holders, and then abruptly, sometimes back in their own yards, photographers use up every sheet.’  Robert Adams ‘Why people photograph’, Aperture, NY, 1994, pp 15-16.

There is an old Buddhist proverb to the effect ‘When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.’  It took this student (often called a late bloomer) a while to get ready, but the teachers, he finds, are there in abundance – White,  Adams and many others.  They are there for you too.