Selfies

Today everything exists to end in a photograph.        Susan Sontag

Recently, I read a story about climbers on Mt. Everest who, after reaching the narrow pinnacle, were fighting among themselves to get a selfie of their accomplishment.  It seems the line was so long, that people were running the risk of depleting their oxygen supply while standing in line to get their selfie.

Like them or hate them, selfies seem to be the rage on social media.  The term selfie is a general expression used to describe a “self portrait.”  I’d never heard of the word until a few years ago when it suddenly became a craze, so I had no idea that it’s not new.  It seems that Robert Cornelius took the first selfie in 1839!!

The social media of today took the selfie from narcissistic kid’s play to a whole new concept over night.  After the famous selfie which was taken at the Oscars in 2013, it has become explosive.  I feel totally out of touch with the concept because I can’t see the purpose. (I do admit to trying it, and it always seems to end in disaster for me!)   All I see when I see a selfie is a close up picture of the person taking it with distorted things going on around them.  The focus of the picture is always the individual in charge.

Research says that the individual taking the selfie is usually one who likes to create his or her own self image and them share only the ones which contribute to the image they perceive will celebrate their accomplishments.

The Bible says absolutely nothing about selfies, but I began to wonder if folks like John the Baptist would have been guilty of posting a selfie of himself when he baptized Jesus?  Would he be tempted to put himself before his mission? We would have missed the whole point of the baptism and what it means to Christianity.

It seems as if that’s the way God sees us at times.  We are sometimes so interested in our own self image that we tend to  push ourselves to the forefront while all the rest of His world is going on behind us.  We are guilty of putting our focus on ourselves rather than others.  We need to be really sure that the cross of Jesus is always the main object of all we do instead of ourselves.

Selfies are funny and I understand the concept, but I do wonder if years later, we will look back and think about all the things that were in front of us and all the beauty of the things that were behind us.  We might realize how insignificant we are in the grand scheme of God’s plan.

Celebrate life with selfies, but don’t forget who’s really important!