fleeting

It’s a moment that I’m after, a fleeting moment,
but not a frozen moment.
Andrew Wyeth

(a store window seen in Savannah, Ga / Julie Cook / 2021)

Fleeting– the opposite of lasting or enduring.

That which is brief, momentary or transient.

Much like the still images taken from a strip of film.

Frame per frame-
Sequence by sequence-
Moment by moment-
As black and white images blend to a tonal pallet of grey…
each frame is its own static story of something or someone
that has preceded the current moment of time, thus becoming
nothing more than the past…a past that becomes now motionless.

These junctures in time, these single breaths of life, may each be
caught and thus captured… and in turn,
become a single entity of both space of time
as they are now ‘saved’ for a time to be.

They simply become moments frozen in an everlasting vacuum of
continuance…allowing that which was to become
a part of that which is as well as that which will be.

Thus these physical and tangible moments, which
each come and are quickly gone, now only add to our own
individual continuum of time.

And so we ponder…

Are not these someones or somethings…
these moments and persons which are each captured in
writings, recordings or even videos and photographs…
are they not more or less paralyzed…as in immobilized…
void of all movement and action… rendered lifeless
and thus resulting in the transcending of time…because time
has indeed thus stopped.

Or has it merely been paused…resulting in the ability to resume the
moment?

Oh how we yearn to resume such moments and individuals.

Images each recorded and saved…poignantly yet painfully reminding
us of that which was is now simply no more…
and is rather just traded to that of a memory.

And so we continue to wonder…
do these captured moments of both places and persons–
places and persons who may or may not be known to those who are
now viewing or reading or hearing them,
do they not give way to segments of a larger juncture or turning point?
All of which now afford anyone and everyone to read, hear,
see and even share in what was?

As in…do not these captured moments simply allow anyone and everyone
who comes across such, to be able to partake in each individual or thing…
while interpreting them uniquely from each individual’s vantage point?
Invoking shared emotions despite the images not necessarily being our own?

A single active event or person…all of that which once was…
now gives way to the actions of anyone’s and everyone’s life as the
past becomes the present and, if we are so fortunate, the future.

It is a collective sharing of both space and time of that which once was
for some, being that of memory, now becoming the active imagination of another.
and thus fleeting no more…

“Your poor heart, in which God put appreciation for everlastingness,
will not take electronic gadgets in lieu of eternal life.
Something inside of you is too big for that, too terrible, too wonderful.
God has set everlastingness in your heart.
All the things of this world are here for but a moment and then are gone.
None can satisfy the longing for that eternal ragging in the soul of every man.”
A.W. Tozer, And He Dwelt Among Us: Teachings from the Gospel of John