magic hour

A new showcase was published on Pictory a couple of days ago. It's a beautiful portrait of that magic & complex city known as New York, and I'm rather pleased to have a story included in the mix.

magic hour. NYC, June, 2006.

Towards the bottom of the showcase, @stormsky_dw says, "NYC is where the best and worst of America duels it out day-to-day on the streets." New York is a personification of man, and "What kind of freak is man?" asks Blaise Pascal, "He is the glory and the scum of the universe!”

We are walking, breathing, freak-ish contradictions. We profess love with tongues that curse. We have hands capable of healing or hurting. Our hearts often betray our own well being. We are created in the image of God & doubt our own worth or beauty. On any given day, we can believe the lie that life is meaningless, existence is an accident & nothing matters but pleasures available right now. Or, we can see the magic of it all, the art in everything and our own place in this giant narrative.

As I said in the story, I put the camera away just before something profound happened. However, if I have any regrets, it's not that I don't have the image I described - of my wife and the light. No, I regret that I didn't see her like that sooner - that I don't see her like that more often.

"If the point of life is the same as the point of a story, the point of life is character transformation," writes Donald Miller, "...in nearly every story, the protagonist is transformed. He's a jerk at the beginning and nice at the end, or a coward at the beginning and brave at the end. And if story is derived from real life, if story is just a condensed version of life then life itself may be designed to change us so that we evolve from one kind of person to another."

I didn't know it at the time, but that moment, running up 49th St. changed me and helped to transform my marriage. Whether or not you have the image to look at, take time, regularly, to remember those moments that make you, you. Try and understand your place in the narrative.

Ask your self, "What is my story and how is it changing me?"