Come to a Quiet Place
“Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.” Mark 6:31
In this passage, Jesus and the disciples had fed the 5000 and were tired and hungry themselves. Jesus recognized this and told them they needed to get away to a quiet place and rest. This is advice that we could often use but don’t hear. I think God is smart enough to know when we have had enough and need a break. Sometimes the world, though, closes in around us with all of its demands, with all of its pressures to do this and do that, so that we pay attention to everything that wants our attention and not enough attention to our own needs to be quiet and rest.
While I love the national parks (and am really enjoying finally watching the Ken Burns series on the parks), it would be hard to heed Jesus’ words if I could only go to a national park. The closest national park property (the Santa Monica Mountains) is an hour away through LA traffic.
But there are quiet places all around us if we are open to them. Sometimes that quiet place for me is doing close ups in my native plants garden. I can be alone there with the life growing in the garden and such scenes seen through my camera can be actually more calming and restful than popular, but overcrowded, parks such as the valley in Yosemite National Park. For me, being out in nature, focusing in on details with my camera rests my mind and takes me to a very quiet place.
There is more. Going back to my photographs later, or seeing other photographers’ pictures of their quiet places such as Chuck’s, also brings me quiet and rest.
— Rob