Everything is meaningless/futile/vanity. So says Ecclesiastes. Its enough to sober a chap. I spent last week scanning a vast number of slides and photos that I have inherited. They tell the story of my Mum before Dad, Dad before Mum and some very early me photos. I’ve used some as pics for recent blogs. The photo with this blog is a bit blurry and it shows me putting on a running shoe. I’m about 11 in the photo. The school played a ridiculously dangerous game where all the school children would be at one end of a sports field and all the dads at the other end and the game was Which Dad could get the most amount of shoes. I dont think we could play it now.
So the photos have been making me smile, remembering old times past. But they have also, says Lucy, been making me morose. I look at those splayed out long wide school photos and I can’t remember so many of their names but I have an emotional reaction to some of their faces. Some are good emotions, others are not, a twinge of fear flushes up, I wonder if they were a bully. I make a point of forgiving again and remember to leave vengeance in the hands of the Lord.
I scan through the photos of the people coming to my parents wedding. Its very funny, all these 1960s styles of hair dos and clothing.
And then I come to the skeletons in the cupboard. I seem to have quite a few. I suspect that you do too. The unknown story of my father’s father who survived the war but chose never to come back, abadoning a wife and three children. Thats the easy one. I’ve mentioned before about my Mother’s death so I wont repeat that. But even still I find more skeletons in the cupboard than I remember. Here are unknown questions, and its not clear to me who could answer them and its not clear to me what the fruit would be of knowing. So many dead people in these photos.
You can see what Lucy means.
And then slowly I begin to see these photos differently. Their lives have not been meaningless, their work has not been futile nor in vain, pace Ecclesiastes. Here are the people who have been formative for me. They have held me, helped me, prayed for me, witnessed to me, rebuked me (certain teachers particularly!), picked me up. These are the faces, the cloud of witnesses, who have been part of my life, my vocation, and so I am once again thankful to them for their love and their blessings.