Moments that matter

Driving through a small town I saw the sign for a photography studio named: Moments that Matter. It's a sensible name for the business of capturing discrete memories. Since we can't generate a continuous video stream of our past (yet), and since there's only portions of our past that we want to savor anyway, we expect photographs to bear considerable emotional weight. We want those moments captured on the photographer's film to matter indeed.

But then I started thinking about the rest of the moments. I know someone who is so desperate for the family moments he never experienced as a child that much of his life is spent searching for Moments that Matter. He's liable to state out loud when he thinks he's caught one by the tail: Isn't this great, us guys being together and sharpening each other? I'm prone to something similar, to a search for the perfect moment of peace and family harmony.

I think it leads to a lot of grumpiness in my life, this belief in Moments that Matter. That's because most moments don't qualify. They are moments when one of my children isn't obeying, or my wife and I disagree, or the tractor tire has gone flat, or I have indigestion. Because I have -- and I've only just realized this -- a Moments that Matter worldview, I'm prone to be irritated when the messy, ugly, tiresome moments intrude.

The other consequence, grumpiness aside, is that in my quest for Moments that Matter, I often miss what's eternally important. The most recent example took place at a gas station. While filling up I noticed a middle-aged woman sitting on the curb with a sack that looked to contain her belongings. She seemed dejected, and in my mind I concocted stories about her. Maybe the person she was riding with dumped her in this place. Maybe she was a drunk trying to sober up. Maybe her bag held drugs. Or a knife.

I felt like I should go speak to her, if only to ask if she needed help. But what if she needed a ride? Did I want her sitting next to my children, who were with me? What if she asked me for money? I'm not an adventurous person. I hate moments like this. They don't fit into the Moments that Matter portfolio that I'm trying to build for myself. You know: heart-to-heart talks with my sons, trips to the beach, writing awards.

So I didn't go talk to her. I finished filling up, and got in our minivan, and drove my family away. I watched that woman in my rearview mirror, and I wondered what difference my family might have made in her life, and she in ours. I thought about turning around, but as the asphalt stretched out between us it got easier to leave her behind. And then she was out of my sight, though not, it seems, out of mind.

We were on our way to church -- did I mention that? This was the reason I gave myself for not reaching out to her. Because we were running late for church.

So now as I consider Moments that Matter, I'm thinking that it would be good if I stopped worrying about how to amass moments that matter to me, and worry instead about how to use the time granted me in the lives of others. I have a nagging suspicion that pouring oneself out like that leads, in the long run, to more fulfillment than a life's scrapbook full of selfish Moments that Matter.

There wouldn't have been any photographer around to capture what transpired between that broken-down woman and my family, but I think it would have been a moment that mattered all the same. And now it's gone. We probably all have stories like that. Maybe in telling mine I hope to ensure that the next time one of these seemingly ignominious moments of eternal import draws near, I will have the courage to act on it.