Above the Clouds

"Every room is about memory. Every room gives us layers of information about our past and present and who we are, our shrines and quirks and hopes and sorrows, our attempts to prove that we exist and are more or less Okay." –Anne Lamott, bird by bird

As a guy, I've never thought much about décor. I don't care what color the furniture is, or what color the carpet is, or what color the walls are, or whether my end tables are the latest design. But as I was reading Anne Lamott's book bird by bird last week, she made me realize that I care more about décor than I thought. My rooms and walls are full of memories. I have three framed photos on my living rooms walls—all three of the photos were taken by my dad.

He was a photographer who took thousands of photos over the course of his lifetime. I loved looking through his photos with him. I always felt like he was allowing me to vicariously view the things in life that he found most intriguing or important. Now that he's deceased, I have a permanent record of the way he saw life and those three photos mean more to me than I can express in words.

He took one of those photos from above the clouds in an airplane. It's one of the most beautiful pictures I've ever seen. I originally ran across it as I was going through a huge stack of his photos with him one day. It was either 3 x 5 or 4 x 7 originally and after he found out that I loved it so much, he had it blown up. I bought a frame for it, and then included the words from Psalm 19:1 underneath it: "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands."

I just snapped a picture of it with my digital camera and it really doesn't do the original photo justice, but this will give you an idea about what I'm talking about:


I often wonder what my dad was thinking about when he took this photo. He probably wouldn't have remembered, but I wish I would have asked him when I still had the chance. I often envision him sitting in a window seat on the plane as it makes its way to another obscure town that he's traveling to for business. I can just see him jotting down a to-do list in his little spiral bound notebook wondering how he's going to get it all done. Then all of a sudden, he glances out the window and sees the sunlight poking its way through dark, thick clouds and in the midst of the routine he finds hope, so he captures that hope with his trusty 35MM camera.

And now, I get to view that hope any time I choose.