Day 14 Home—Selfies Time

Selfie Phenoms

“We suck at this!” That was our constant refrain. ”We suck at this!” And we did, actually. But taking selfies became some of the most significant moments in our day. These narcissistic mementos started when we were with our three friends—Suzanne and Bob VanDyk-Jordan and sister Leanne VanDyk. Bob was the selfie guru in our tribe. He nailed it almost every time.

Alone Together

So when these three moved on to bikes, Sally and I were left adrift of any help for the necessary skill of selfie-taking. However, undaunted, unashamed and also unfettered from the master, we began to make our own pictures. We sought only to please and amuse ourselves, because what selfie-taking became for us was moments in our day where we would laugh—at ourselves, of course. Why? Because we sucked at taking selfies and that was somehow funny to us.

One night we decided to post some of our attempts at these bad photos. And you loved them, or at least we decided that you loved them, maybe because we loved taking them. So everyday we’d stop and take pictures of ourselves in a variety of places but always with the same pose—just the two of us, alone-together.

We shot a photo of us with a horse, a dog, a statue of St James—okay lots of selfies with statues of St James. We took pictures of us with crosses and bridges and corn fields and of us at the break of day. We loved day break. Day break is not sunrise, but the beginning of sunrise. It’s the premiere of the sun coming up. It’s darkness fading away. So it’s light and hope and promise and I know that’s going too far, but to us then, it was all of these and more. So everyday we’d take a selfie at the break of day. And we didn’t have to plaster on a smile. We were smiling. We were not alone-together after all, but together with everything good and beautiful and hopeful. God it was good!

Nailed It!

I don’t know why you loved our selfies so much. Maybe it is as simple as because you love us. Or maybe you liked our smiles or the fact these selfies were always of us, and never of me or she—always us—alone-together. We posted good ones and bad ones and silly ones and serious ones, and the bad ones were the best ones, right? Because the bad ones were the real ones that represented those moments in life when the picture you wanted didn’t turn out so good. It’s when you weren’t at your best, even though you were doing your best.

We loved doing selfies. We loved presenting them, presenting us, to you all. Partly because we knew that you were accepting of us as we were and in some small way you were with us on this journey. So the selfies had you in them in some way. Maybe I’m going too far here too, but it felt to us like these were not just of us but of all of us connecting through this medium. You put yourself in the picture, maybe.

It’s Okay to Like Yourself

Please, if you don’t like you, then find someone to walk alongside you for a while, someone who loves you. Or maybe you can try someone who is a professional at walking alongside folks, someone who can help you see the beauty in you and in others and in the world around you. It’s far too easy to see the ugliness, isn’t it? What Sally sees in this picture is that her glasses are crooked. Is that what you see? See?

I’m a Jesus guy and not because he’s Lord or Savior or any of the other names given to him. I simply like him. And I believe that Jesus likes me as well. That matters, I think, or at least that matters to me. I bring Jesus into this because maybe you need to hear someone simply say that they believe that Jesus probably likes you too. And that’s not saying that Jesus likes everyone, because I don’t believe that’s true. But you—Yes! Probably.

stillprocessing.org

If this blog piece touches you at all, and you live in the Holland/Zeeland area, then I invite you to come to the first gathering of Still Processing. It’s 7 pm on November 3 at Brew Merchant located in Holland. The presentation will be one hour long and involve input from a variety of voices. Give me a shout out if you are planning to be there—marlinpvis@gmail.com.

Ok—thanks for reading this.

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