Monday Morning Music Ministry

5-12-14

“Selfie” is the latest neologism – a newly invented word – to enter the dictionary. These days, everybody, it seems, has been infected with the need to photograph themselves and publish the images far and wide. No matter that one’s arm is extended awkwardly, to hold the camera; that angles are askew; that silly smiles predominate; that people crowd the frame, even if a chinbone or cowlick are all that appear.

Well, it’s fun. Evidently, because everyone, inevitably, smiles. Facebook would look like a dry ledger-sheet if selfies were banned. The Pope has been in selfies. President Obama even took a selfie with Prime Minister David Cameron and the hottie Prime Minister of Denmark, Helle Thorning Schmidt, at what should have been a somber occasion, the funeral of Nelson Mandela. (You remember: Michelle Obama, NOT in the selfie, was not amused.)

History, and the history of art, tells us something about the changing manners and mores of societies. Some cultures and religions proscribed images of faces. Peoples have believed that depicting individuals robbed them of their souls. “Iconoclasm” originally was a term applied to those who were against any artistic portraits, and believed that icons led to idol worship. For several generations, photographic portraits of presidents and peasants mirrored stone faces and serious miens. Eventually, people in family portraits and on driver licenses felt the need to smile like fools.

Whether selfies are narcissistic or merely an amusing triviality will likewise come and go, similarly hinting at what our civilization is about, or not. The relevance of such things has a shelf-life, with expiration dates.

So maybe we should call them shelfies. In a sense, selfies have been a part of human history, because – whether we have cameras or not – we humans tend to gather with our like-kinds. We want to be seen with certain people, whether friends or celebrities. We want to remember, and be remembered. We are joiners, we form loyalties, we associate. With or without photographs, humans have always tended to compose selfies.

In this form of “virtual” selfies, how often is Jesus one of the group of people who gather around you?

Think back over your “crowded hours.” At significant times, was Jesus next to you? Was He one of the smiling pals? Was He in your circle of friends? Have you, by implication, always invited Him, wanted Him near, held him close?

The answer about whether Jesus has been next to you… is Yes, of course. Even if you have not regularly included Him in your activities, associations, and fellowships. He is always with us.

Go deeper and you can realize that Jesus is “in” those virtual photos, in the virtual album of your life. But is He a background figure, waiting for your invitation to get in the shot? Or have you let Him be a major presence by your side – in moments of joy, or times of sadness; in triumphs and trials; in happiness and grief?

The answer to such questions, the title on the cover of your life’s family album, so to speak, will reveal whether smiles in those selfies and shelfies are real and warm and life-affirming, or silly and frozen and artificial.

Say “cheese!” Someone IS taking a picture.

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There is an old folk song that deals with the regrettable aspects of life’s random snapshots, if we let sadness overtake us, if we choose to be pictured solo. A lot of people think Hank Williams wrote “A Picture from Life’s Other Side” because he a great version; but it was an old standard when he recorded it. Likewise the Blue Sky Boys and Bradley Kinkaid. Some people think that J Frank Smith wrote it, when it became the first big seller in recorded gospel music in 1926 (by his Smith’s Sacred Singers, a shape-note quartet)… but it was an old standard even then. It existed as sheet music in the 1890s. But, its message is timeless. This is a Mac Wiseman cover. The “Voice With a Heart” was inducted in the Country Music Hall of fame this year – long overdue for the man who has kept traditional American ballads alive than any other recording artist

Click: A Picture from Life’s Other Side