The Eye

Photographers and artists talk about having "the eye." My friend Linda told me a story about going along with a photographer friend while he shot photos. He'd set the camera up on a tripod, frame his shot, then call her over to look through the viewfinder.

"I'd look, and I'd say, 'Where is that?' He'd point, and say, 'Right there,' but I could never find what I saw in the camera. I'd be standing right there, and I still couldn't see it."

We have always handed cameras to our kids, especially on vacation. When they were too small to handle a "real" camera, or when they were headed somewhere that we thought one might get lost or stolen (like summer camp), we gave them disposable cameras.

When our son was 3, we were headed with him to a nearby lake to take photos while the "big kids" were in school. We stopped at the home of a friend of my husband's family; she needed help with something, and my husband had volunteered. She had a rug made from the skin of a wolverine, and my son was fascinated. He asked her, "Can I take a picture of that?"

"Sure," she said.

We reminded him to turn on the flash indoors, and he said, "I know." Then he squatted down right in front of the rug, and shot it head on, with the wolverine's glass eyes looking right into the lens. My husband and I looked at each other and said, "He has it." Most people, even adults, would have stood over the rug and shot downwards, getting the whole thing in view. Not my kid; he knew, instinctively, where the good angle, the dramatic angle, was.

We usually have more than one camera going at any one time. My husband and I take jobs solo when the schedule dictates it, but it's always best to have both of us. A week ago, we were photographing our niece's wedding. One of us had the telephoto lens, good for zooming in for closeups, and the other had the wide angle lens, good for group shots and sweeping vistas. It saves time; at the exact moment that one of us is taking this shot

the other is shooting this.

We do this without actively communicating what we're doing. After so many years, it's a well rehearsed dance.

Sometimes, though, we'll be thinking the same thought at the same moment. Then the photos from the two cameras look like this:

When my son was 16, he went to Paris. We sent one of the good cameras, of course. There was no way a member of our family was going to Europe without decent equipment. While on a tour bus, he took this shot:

 Two years later, I took this from a Paris tour bus:

Genetics? Training?

I didn't see the images together until months after we got back home. It was a nice moment to say, "Yep. That's my kid."

"That's Just Not Normal."

I'm missing church today - car trouble, don't ask - so I've been reading my scriptures and otherwise trying to have churchy moments at home. That got me started thinking about a recent conversation I had with one of my childhood friends.

"How did you live a Mormon life in a household that was very definitely not Mormon?" she asked.

"I don't know that I can explain it to you. It was the only choice that made sense to me," I told her.

Her response: "That's just not normal."

I don't know that I worried about "normal" then any more than I do now. "Normal" is beside the point. I was sure it was the right thing to do, so I did it. I didn't care that much about whether other people did, or would do, the same in my place. I didn't know why, either, they'd care if I agreed with them.

I was seven years old when my best friends, our neighbors, took me to church with them for the first time. Back then, they had children's meetings on Tuesdays after school, and it seemed like it took forever for them to get home so that we could play again. "You could always come with us," they'd say, but we, my sister and I, turned them down. Finally, I agreed to go.

I remember the lesson from that day clearly. It was the story of the "pearl of great price" found in the Bible in the book of Matthew. A merchant, searching for pearls, finds one exquisite pearl, and sells everything he possesses in order to buy this single, perfect pearl. The teacher explained that it was a metaphor for giving up something good for something better, but I was a very literal child. I could not wrap my head around the idea of having a pearl, but no food, clothing, place to live, or money. What good would the pearl do?

Metaphor is a method of communication that grows on a person.

It only took a year or so of tagging along with my friends to decide that I wanted to be a member of the church. My dad said that I was too young, and that he wouldn't give permission until I was 12. I think he thought that it was a phase that I'd grow out of. I didn't; I was baptized at 12.

When my neighbors moved away, other friends took me to church with them. When they moved away, my mother started driving me to and from my meetings; she did it for years, without griping of any kind.

My dad thought that my new religion was odd. He said repeatedly that, "They're good, hard working, honest people," but he didn't necessarily wanting me believing what they believed. My mother opined that, "The Bible was written for people who are less educated than we are," but she saw no real harm in letting her kids figure out what they believed, and why.

I was puzzled, as a kid, when people would ask me why I was doing this, or not doing that, "when your parents won't even care." It wasn't about what my parents thought or did, for me. It was about what I thought was right.

Besides, my parents weren't likely to complain about my adopting a code of behavior that was stricter than that of my peers.

It was never about rebellion, either. I am, by nature, a rule follower. I have always known those people who would never have considered a particular course of action until they were told that they couldn't do it. The word "no" is a huge catalyst for those people. That was never me.

Some people were sure that it was about conformity, about doing what would impress my friends. It wasn't. Anyone who really values conformity isn't likely to choose a strange, unpopular religion. When people were surprised that I kept attending church after the friends who introduced me moved away, I thought that was strange. I'd made a choice; why wouldn't I continue to act on it?

I value free will too much to want to have knee jerk reactions of any kind. Having obvious hot buttons, like either rebellion or conformity, makes a person far too easy to manipulate.

Trying to impress others isn't really on my radar, at all.

I never really thought that choosing and living my religion was easier or harder for me than it was for other people. Sure, I had anti-Mormon literature dropped in my locker at school. I had a family member say, in soothing, pitying tones, "You realize that your church is a cult, don't you?" Still, there's always somebody who disagrees with everybody, and most people aren't shy about letting you know.

Sometimes, my friends would gripe - "I can't believe I have to sit through Conference!" - and I would think, "What is wrong with you? I had to ask permission to be here." Other kids didn't "get" me.

As an adult, I discovered that most religious families - families practicing any religion - spend time and effort helping their family members figure out ways to cope with negative attitudes or behaviors. I became more and more aware that most people are uncomfortable having either society at large or their loved ones disagree with them. I can't imagine making important, moral choices by taking an opinion poll.

People would say, "Well, you know that most people disagree," as if they expected me to 1. gasp in horror at this startling revelation, and 2. change everything I thought and did, if I wasn't on the side of the majority (or at least, in whatever group people thought it was important to impress). Of course I knew that most of the world's population didn't agree with me. That's like knowing that it's two o'clock; true, but irrelevant.

Sometimes this would lead to conversations that would be funny if the other party wasn't deadly serious. What, exactly, I would ask, did they expect me to do about the fact that someone disagreed with me? Usually the answer was, in some form, that I should change my opinion (so that I'd be like "everybody else").

"Oh, so if someone disagrees, then other people should change their minds?"

"Yes. Once you've been educated about your errors, you should correct them."

"So, you'll be changing your opinion to mine."

"No!"

"Why not? I can explain why you should."

"But you're wrong!"

"What makes me wrong?"

"Most people disagree with you!"

"So, it's a numbers thing."

"No! It's about who's right."

"How do you know who's right?"

"I can show you all kinds of people and all kinds of sources that say that I'm right!"

"I can show you millions of people worldwide, and lots of scholarly sources, that say that I'm right."

"But you're not!"

"But you told me it was all about how many people agreed with an opinion."

It's just ludicrous.

I tried to prepare my kids for those moments in their lives. Still, when all is said and done, they need to decide, by themselves, what they believe and what they will do.

I'm happy to explain to people why I think and behave as I do. If someone wants to know, I'm happy to tell them. It's pretty obvious from the things I do, as well. My religion affects every choice I make - the clothes I wear, the groceries I buy, the movies I watch. I think that people would be happier if they made the same choices I do.

Of course, I'm also happy to let others make their own choices, because I cherish that right myself, and recognize it as sacred.

I learned that not only from my church, but from my mother.

So, OK. I'm not normal. I can live with that.