A Black & White Reflection

The snow is blowing outside and the house creaks with each gust that sweeps across the western plain. My family left a few minutes ago, bundled securely into the blue 15-passenger van as they vanished into the white.

A quiet house, a snow storm, and the promise of prolonged solitude. This is a heavenly recipe for me to rendezvous with my Savior and my God...

An unfamiliar song plays over the laptop on the oak desk in the corner... "...MY love is over... it's underneath... it's inside... it's in between... the times you doubt ME, when you cant hear, the times that you question 'is this for real?', the times you're broken, the times you mend, the times you hate ME and the times you bend..." (Tenth Avenue North)

The house has a chill to it that makes me glad of my long underwear and wool pants. My socks have long since been discarded in the middle of the room. I've a pile of books waiting to be read and much I look forward to doing over the next 24 hours.

I wandered across the living room to stand for a bit at the fireplace. I've only been home for a few hours, but I've made this trip at least a dozen times already to warm up my extremities. This time it was different...

In the middle of the mantle I found myself looking at a family, not unlike my own. A family inseparably knit, intricately woven with my own.

It took me a few moments to sift through the cobwebs of my memory to recall who it was staring back at me, captured in black and white upon the mantle piece. They appeared so real... I am sure they could see me just as I saw them. They are watching me from across the room even now. I felt that if I could get around the edge a bit, I'd be able to see into the room in which they sat...

My first thought was probably this, that "these people are all dead." It's a humbling thing to look into the eyes of a young family, the three small children bracketed by a young husband and wife, the wife as lovely as her husband handsome. A good looking bunch. Smooth skinned all. In fact, but for a few points of style in what they were wearing and the father's prodigious mustache they might have been our neighbors here in the 21st century. The kids could have been friends with Samuel and Macy. Right there in front of me.

I wonder what the mother and father were thinking about as the bulb flashed and my window into their lives snapped shut? What did the kids do after the camera was no longer trained on them? Were they hungry? What issues were pressing in their lives? Concerns? What did they have going on that afternoon? What were you speaking to them, O God? Did they hear you? What was the weather like? What made them laugh? What made them cry? What did they burn for?

The little round cheeked girl on the left, leaning on her daddy's strong right shoulder. That is Great Grandma Evelyn. Born in 1900, she might be two in the photograph. I'm dating the picture at about 1902. When she passed away a few years ago, she was 104, the last person in the photograph now gone.

The painting that hangs on the wall above the photograph is that of God's hand reaching out to Adam, a recreation of Michelangelo's masterpiece on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel...

Grandpa Gene looks at my on the wall above this laptop. His life has been spent. He now celebrates his 3rd year in eternity.

Man searches for significance and meaning in this breath of a life he is given.

What is the measure of a life well lived? God, help me to live my zero life in such a way as to bring You glory.