Capturing Life

The week has been busy. Tasks. Projects. Conversations. Traveling. Following the news. Visiting with family. Friends. Making new acquaintances. Remembering and forgetting includes the idea that we often connect with life in a seemingly blur of space, time and experiences.

Quite a few new observations popped in my mind, and I captured most of them, but several slipped through the cracks because I failed to write them down. Ethereal slips of memory that are some of my biggest personal regrets! You know, saying, “I’ll remember that….” and then promptly forget what I said would be in my memory just 5 minutes ago.

Capturing Life.

I’m seldom happy just living in the moment. It is my joy to capture the impression of the moment, analyze, store, recall, update, and restore them for the future. I love to live the memories of everything I’ve enjoyed.

This is something that has become a learned habit. When I’m with friends and family I’m quick to soak up the experience so I can recall vast amounts of detail to remember in the future. Sounds. Smells. Conversations. Stories that will bear retelling, even if only in my mind.

Capturing Life.

This has become important to me. I don’t want life to run together in a blur where I forget the experiences and people. Just last Tuesday I met the Fire Marshall at our church. Over the past 5 annual inspections we have developed an annual conversation. “Gift of Gab” is the way he describes it, but we’ve exchanged the experiences of life as seen and reported over a years time.

This is Capturing Life, remember, reconnecting, savoring the experience and remembering the connection for the next annual appearance!

I’ve learned to look at my boxes and boxes of photos of things captured through the years and have good recall. Many of the old photo’s have a date and time stamp from either the process, or the capturing process. It’s like I can regress to that time and recall some faint scenes, but he capturing process of the picture helps me see the whole picture of the moment.

Sometimes Life happens across an expanse of time and distance. Thursday night in Canada I met a man who knew my brother at a certain church in Texas…30 years ago! I’m sure I met him back then because we visited there after returning home from Alaska in the mid-80’s. We both look different but had we time to talk? Well, we would have connected life from experiences captured three decades ago!

Capturing Life.

After a church service in Washington last night, I was wandering the hallways, Hall Duty as my friend Preston says! I spend this wandering time talking to long ago contacts, making plans for future events, and enjoying the moments of reconnection. One good man stopped me and thanked me for Live Streaming our mid-week Bible Study. He and his family watch it every week. From 200-500 weekly views of the teaching event, it confirmed my thought that we Capture Life from a wide range of inputs. Some good. Some not. Some impactful. Some far from the idea of positive influence! Regardless, if we are the sum total of our heritage, fresh inputs, and what we do into the future, then it tells me to make sure I bring in the valuable aspects of life to build a better library of captured moments!

This is perhaps one reason I like to travel, experience, and then use the captured events in my logical presentation of life. My first visit to the Middle East and this is one of the most impactful photo’s I’ve ever recorded and it came from the valley of the lost and found city of Petra.

This takes me back to all those thousands of steps, hours and minutes…and instantly I’ve recalled the life I captured then.

I remember the heat, shade hopping, camel races, the miles of hiking, the friends I had made on the journey, and the hope that this would not be my last unique experience….

Here’s my thought.

Capture your moments of life, save them away with the fondness of a treasured antique, and then recall them in moments when you need a “pick me up” thought.

This never fails to make me see life in the Long Run, and not the short tragedy.

Now. Reach far into your storage cabinet of life. Recall some good moment. Bring the file out and savor the life you captured some time ago.