The Image of God (2)

Robert ParkeHarrison captures the essence of his own work when he explains, "My photographs tell stories of loss, human struggle, and personal exploration within landscapes scarred by technology and over-use...I strive to metaphorically and poetically link laborious actions, idiosyncratic rituals, and strangely crude machines into tales about our modern experience." Elegy, by photographers Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison is a contemporary image created in 2007. The term "elegy", not to be confused with eulogy, is defined as a mournful, melancholic, or plaintive poem, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead. This photograph, like other, similar images by the artists, includes butterflies as subjects. Yet unlike Mourning Cloak or Stolen Summer, Elegy conveys a sense of synergy between the little girl and the butterflies that softly touch her cheek.

I was particularly captivated by Robert and Shana's photo as it relates to an attempt to create an image of God. In my mind I considered this photograph as a fantastic representation of Karl Barthes' assertion that "Studying God is like trying to draw a picture of a bird in flight. One result is a bird frozen in time and space with precise detail. The other is a blur which captures movement and speed." When I think about the daunting task of creating an image of God, and when I consider the attempts to draw a bird in flight, and when I consider the butterflies in Elegy, I am reminded of this past summer. While on vacation at a beach that is my second home, I tried to capture exactly what it is that I love about this beach. I realized that all that I love about my beach is precisely that which cannot by captured or frozen in time. I love the deep rumbling of the waves, a sound that is only perceptible in person when the different decibels from different distances reach our intricate ears. I love the beauty of the waves, a beauty that is inherently found only in its movement and gloriously dynamic nature. I love the wind. I love movement its ability to evade restrictive boxes or outlines. I love the ungraspable. So when I look at Elegy, and when I try to imagine an image of God, I imagine movement. Our God-the perfect Trinity- is so immediate, so relational, so real, so human, so apart and Godly, and a beautiful/dynamic/eternal dance of Three. yet our God is also that which cannot be photographed or reduced.

So, Elegy, whether meaning to or not, is a fabulous image of the dynamism and breath of God.