Get Out of the Way

Last week I was volunteered to take pictures at the Special Olympics torch lighting ceremony and fund-raising carnival at Blanchard Valley Center. I'm very unsure of my photography skills and was nervous about disappointing people who wanted the event they had worked so hard to organize to be recorded.

That's always the human temptation isn't it? To make it "all about me?" Oh that human ego and all it's little tricks.

As we stood there waiting for the little pack of runners to turn the corner towards us I remembered that the essence of Special Olympics is simply to do your best. That's all any of us can do. I took a deep breath and got out of my own way.

I've just barely begun to look through the more than 200 images I shot last night. I wanted to quickly put up a few because, as I stood on Sandusky Street watching the athletes, coaches and Ohio State Troopers running towards me I got cold chills and the echo of Rabbi Abraham Heschel's words rang in my ears. . .

"When I marched with Martin Luther King in Selma, I felt my legs were praying."