I Took A Picture Of A Washing Machine

You took two and deleted one.

That is the detail that gives the whole thing away. If it had been ridiculous you would have deleted both, quickly, and laughed at yourself, and moved on.

Instead there was a second of consideration and then one got kept, and it is still there, and it is a photograph of a washing machine in a kitchen with the morning light coming in on it.

And you have not shown it to anybody and you are not going to, and the reason is a small dread of the face somebody would make.

And that dread is what this article is about, because the picture is fine and the dread is doing real work.

Because there is a rule somewhere that says certain things may be photographed and certain things may not. Children may. Views may. A meal may, which is odd when you think about it, and nobody blinks.

A washing machine may not. And nobody wrote that rule down and nobody ever agreed to it, and it is being obeyed anyway.

You are a woman who noticed something and kept it and not a woman being ridiculous, and a photograph of an ordinary object has never once been a sillier thing to keep than any other picture.

Kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart

There is one sentence about Mary after the shepherds leave, and it describes a completely private activity.

But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. (Luke 2:19, King James Version)

Kept all these things.

She keeps them. That is the word. There is no suggestion that she said anything about them at the time, no conversation recorded, no explanation given to anybody in that room.

And Luke writes it down with no comment attached. He does not call it sentimental. He does not call it wise either. He records that a woman kept things and turned them over, and moves on.

You are doing something Scripture records without one word of comment, and a woman who keeps something has never once been assessed by that verse for keeping it. The Holy Spirit is the one present with somebody looking at a photograph she has not shown anybody, and Luke 2:19 reports the keeping plainly.

And the word pondered is worth having.

It means turned over, weighed, put together with other things. It is an ongoing activity rather than a single moment of feeling. She did not have a reaction, she began a process, and the process ran for years.

You are beginning something rather than having a reaction, and a picture kept on a phone has never once been the end of the noticing it started. The written word describes an ongoing turning over rather than a moment, and the Spirit of God is the one present in the turning over as much as in the taking.

And in her heart is the last detail, and it is the one that answers the dread.

It was private. Nobody was shown. There is no record of Mary explaining any of this to anybody for about thirty years, and the keeping was complete and valid the entire time without an audience.

You are permitted to keep something without ever showing it to anybody, and a private thing held in a heart has never once needed a witness in order to count. The Holy Spirit is the one who makes a private thing sufficient, and Luke 2:19 puts the whole activity inside one person.

The rule nobody wrote

Something practical, and it is about the rule itself.

The rule says a photograph must be of something that is allowed to be sentimental about.

But look at what a photograph actually is. It is a record that a thing was there, taken by somebody who noticed. That is the whole of it.

And what was noticed, standing in that kitchen, was not a machine. It was the corner of a room that has been walked past thirty thousand times and is about to be different.

You were photographing a corner of a room rather than an appliance, and a picture of a place a family lived has never once been a picture of the object standing in it. The written word describes a woman keeping ordinary things that nobody else marked, and the Spirit of God is the one who knows what was actually being photographed.

And here is the practical part, which is a refusal rather than an action.

When somebody sees it, and somebody will, do not explain it.

Do not say I know it is silly. Do not say I do not know why I took that. Do not do the small laugh that gets in first and makes the thing safe before anybody has a chance to say anything about it.

Say: yes, that is the old one. And then say nothing else.

You are able to let a photograph stand without a defense attached, and a picture explained away has never once survived the explanation. The Holy Spirit is the one present when somebody scrolls past it, and Luke 2:19 has a woman keeping things without one word of justification.

And in about eleven years, that photograph will be the only picture anybody has of that kitchen the way it was, and nobody in this family will be looking at the machine when they look at it.