Our church family now publishes amateur photographs — scenes inspired by the Holy Spirit — on its social media site. The response has been heartwarming, and immediate.
The visual world — shared through photographs since its invention in the mid-1820’s — affords free travel for all to locations and perspectives previously unimagined.
And because we’ve been awarded an ever-changing visual display of diversity — if there’s anything God loves, it’s diversity — we need to note and share it, which is one more way to spread the peace and love of our Creator.
Unlike Francis Collins, the renowned American scientist who came to faith from an atheistic background, I was an early convert. A one-banana monkey.
At age seven I found myself alone in the woods where every branch was encrusted with a quarter-inch of fresh ice, the result of a slow, freezing, overnight rain. Lying on my back upon encrusted snow, I witnessed the clouds parting, the sun arriving, the most wondrous light show appearing, the wind nudging branches in slow kaleidoscopic circles while my young brain popped with sensory overload.
This spectacle could not have created itself, any more than all the other spectacles to follow, witnessed by seven billion different ways through seven billion different perspectives, all changing each half-second.
Francis Collins had to map the human genome to “get it”. But this simple country boy was poleaxed by a simple ice storm.
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My paternal grandmother put a camera in my hand when I went to college — a 60’s era Leica — and I wore it out, along with dozens of digital models over the years. Several file drawers now bulge with negatives and prints, and the safe is stacked with hard drives instead of cash.
Why?
Because there is no end to the ever-changing display of visual bounty He’s gifted the world.
One doesn’t need to be a photographer to enjoy the show, but one should notice, and share the experience — conversation works — and to feel a little gratitude for the gift.
Vincent Van Gogh sold one painting his entire life — for $50 — yet he produced a staggering amount of work, some of it now selling for millions.
What drove this creative genius who worked without reward?
The simple need to share. When confronted with beauty, he became overcome with the desire to record and share it with his brother Theo.
When we step away from the mirror, when we turn away from ourselves, when we turn away from the noise of the man-made world to notice and share …
We remind each other how vital, how immediate, how visual, and how utterly generous The One really is.
(Note: Photographs will now appear on the site on a random basis, as they are revealed to the one who captures them).