Mental Aperture f/1.8

I can relate to author Ann VonKamp, who relates that her tools of introspective focus are ink on a blank page and the lens of her camera.  In fact, in writing this I'm penning my thoughts on the first fresh page of a new notebook.  I can't tell you what a giddy joy this is!  I actually closed the door to mute the other sounds in the house so that I could revel in the feel of the ink slipping across the page and the sight of my heart taking shape.

My other favorite tool to study perspective in my life is my camera.  My dad taught me to love what a camera can see that human eyes can't.  What interferes with our eyesight is our mind.  Our minds are always adding subtext to what we see, and our minds are not always the most trustworthy source for unadulterated truth.

I know my mind, in particular, loves to overload my sight with details and stress about what everything I'm seeing implies.  You know, the violation of the command, "don't worry about tomorrow for tomorrow has enough trouble of it's own" (Matthew 6:34).  Yep... Jesus emphasizes that because he knows we're inclined to be that way.  I often have to remind myself that even with a tomorrow filled with plenty of trouble, his mercies are also new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23).  There is a day-to-day reality of spiritual living, and I'll come back to that idea a little later.

However, when I raise the viewfinder to my eye something profound happens: that overwhelming subtext of my mental taskmaster is temporarily short circuited!  I can only see that which fits in the frame of my camera.  My favorite thing to do is play with the depth of field (how much of the picture is in focus and how much of the picture is blurry).  I can focus my camera on the petals of a flower and not even notice the trash can behind it!  In photographic terms I'm talking about the aperture.  The more open the aperture is, the tighter the area of focus in your frame.  How I've come to think of it, though, is the smaller the f-stop, the smaller the area of focus (f/1.8 for a really blurry background versus f/22 for a sharp landscape shot where every detail is in focus).

I love f/1.8!  I wish my mind would work in f/1.8.  I strive for a mind that sees in f/1.8!  It's scriptural, actually.  The striving comes in in the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2), and the f/1.8 relates to where our focus in life is.

I started this week in Hebrews 3.  Right away there is this verse: Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the holy calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus.  Refocus that mental aperture to f/1.8 so that you can see the perspective God wants you to have.  Matthew 6: 33 reads, "Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and everything else will be added to you."  Peter, bless his heart, had an f/1.8 focus when he got out of the boat and his eyes were focused on Jesus, but then his mind switched to an f/22 aperture and started looking around at the overwhelming context he found himself in and started to flounder, fall, and flail (Matthew 14:28-30).

Last week I went on a photography tour in the Negev with three of my friends.  We were in the Judean wilderness before sunrise, not knowing what dawn's light would reveal to us.  My first impression when I saw morning reaching around the landscape was, "Ugh. Empty brown hills and junky housing cluttering a landscape shot where I could superimpose a verse later."  What a laugh!  I was trying to spiritualize my f/22 corrupted mental subtext way of seeing things.  At any rate, I was there to take pictures, so I raised my camera to my right eye and my whole focus changed!  I started seeing those same ugly hills as being skillfully crafted.  The junky houses looked absolutely brilliant with the sun rays bursting out from behind them!  I noticed life in the barren landscape - small samples of vegetation persevering to survive.

I was at f/1.8.




And then something more amazing happened.  People started emerging from those junky houses and inviting us to come in.  It was a Bedouin family (the modern version of Abraham - desert dwellers without a permanent structure they call home), and the Bedouin are famous for their hospitality.  This family, even in their poverty, was no exception.

I kept my camera handy, but it was alternatively up or down (depending on how much tea or bread they put into my hands at the time).  I captured as much with my heart as I did on my SD card.  The Lord had already switched my mental aperture to f/1.8, and this is what I "captured":

• A face lined with struggle yet filled with joy. The matriarch of this family was actually from Bethlehem and had married into a Bedouin family.  She lived daily life always as a foreigner.  I can relate...
• Matted, tangled, dusty hair framing expressions of curiosity and wonder.  I'm sure the group of us in our Western clothing, fancy cameras, and strange language was quite the sight first thing on a Wednesday morning!
• Eyes dripping with grime and infection, like an alley cat we warn our innocent children not to touch.  I took pictures of the children with heartache, but their mothers melted with joy when they saw the images of their children on the back of my camera.

My camera's aperture setting of f/1.8 changed my focus.

It was this experience that was on my mind when I opened up Hebrews 3 this week.  Of course, as I mentioned earlier, it starts with an f/1.8 focus on Jesus.  Once we have the right focus we're told to hold on and hold firmly to our courage, our hope, and our confidence in our belief that we have accepted through faith.  Just to emphasize the importance of that, the writer of Hebrews poignantly illustrates that the Israelites had tried and tested God for forty years and still hardened their hearts.  For forty years they saw God's delivery, redemption, provision, and proof of his very nature being God, and the still did not have the faith to believe in him (vs. 7-9).

So resolve to "encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness" (vs. 13).  Something is actively trying to rend our courage, hope, and confidence - our f/1.8 perspective - from our grip, and that is sin's deceitfulness.  It's that deceitfulness that turns my world ugly and rewrites the subtext of what I see with my eyes.  It's the lies and unbelief that torques my mind's lens to a distorted focus.  My perspective of the world is alarmingly similar to the eyes of the Bedouin children - full of wonder and curiosity, but clouded with infection.

My camera and Hebrews remind me to reset my mental aperture, to fix my thoughts on Jesus and in so doing I will gain a whole new beautiful picture of what I previously determined was ugly, bothersome, discouraging, or even debilitating.  The key to holding firmly to my courage, hope, and confidence is to have some daily disciplines (discipline being the very act of holding on) that involve what my friend calls, one anothering:

If one anothering daily keeps our mental aperture from becoming out of focus, I want to do more one anothering:

• Encourage one another (1 Thessalonians 4:18, Hebrews 3:13).
• Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling (1 Peter 4:9).
• Be devoted to one another in love.  Honor one another above yourselves (Romans 12:10).
• As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another (Proverbs 27:17).
• As I (God) have loved you, so you must love one another (John 13:34).
• Do not deceive one another (Leviticus 19:11).
• Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you in order to bring praise to God (Romans 15:7).
• Greet one another with a holy kiss (Romans 16:16, 2 Corinthians 13:12). ;)

While my camera helps me refocus my perspective of what is in front of me, imagine what all this one anothering can do to my perspective on life!

Where Did THAT Come From?!

I was coasting along, taking things one small punch at a time, absorbing upsetting news and a long list of complaints.  All.  Day.  Long.  Maybe absorbing isn't the right word...  I swallowed it all like a bothersome lump in my throat.  On top of that there were delays and a schedule to heed to.  The delays only reminded me of the failures of my system of control, and it all seemed to be unraveling at an alarming pace for me.  Those sour lumps I had swallowed suddenly started ejecting themselves from my stomach via word vomit.  And the word vomit was ugly.  It came with a stench and a punch (literally) and it was all directed at my failings.

Right away, as I'm confessing this, I see two truths clearly:

1) It is not my responsibility or in my strength to ingest the problems around me.  Rather than swallow the lump, I should have dissolved it by handing over the responsibility to the One who can do something about it.  Why didn't I take the time to pray and cast my burdens (1 Peter 5:6-8)?  Because it seemed small enough?  Insignificant?  I thought I could handle it and, honestly, I liked the high I was experiencing being able to cope - especially after being so fragile for so long.  But what is that other than pride?

2) What is in a person's heart comes out through their mouth (Matthew 15:18), and what came hurling forth from mine was nothing short of ugly.  How can the Holy Spirit give me such open eyes to see others with grace, and yet I'm so blind to myself?!  Something is really rotting in me... It's not just low self-esteem; my heart has turned a dark corner.

I had an ah-ha! moment later that day.  Some friends came over to watch a Beth Moore simulcast about grace.  This is the truth that left me "slack-jawed," as she put it: Realize that God being disappointed (especially in you) does not appear in Scriptures!  God is not disappointed in us!  Disappointment, by definition of the word, is an unmet expectation; it's a human malady.  God is omniscient.  He knows everything - past, present, and future - and can therefore not be surprised.  He knows every detail of your life, so how can He not know what you will do.  Now He is displeased by our lack of faith, but not disappointed.

That truth was so immediately freeing!  I know what happens in human relationships when someone is disappointed.  There is a break in communion.  There is a fracture of trust.  There is a separating of association.  The consequence in disappointment is to be removed for a period of time from the other person's grace or favor.  That's why disappointing someone you care about hurts so much, because you can't bear the shame of what you've done to your relationship with them.

That shame does not exist within your relationship with God because He is never disappointed in you!  You are always full-in with Him.  When you stumble or fall flat on your face with revealing skid marks across the bridge of your nose, He is not disappointed in you!  He stoops to pick you up with all tenderness (Psalm 113) and sits close to you to make sure you're all right, first of all, and then speaks with tenderness about what happened (Psalm 116).  His only goal is to restore you and to make His joy complete in you (Psalm 86)!

"This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in His presence whenever our hearts condemn us.  For God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything" (1 John 3:19-20).

God, I implore You - TAKE THE UGLY FROM MY HEART!  Remove my blinders.  Cleanse me from the lies.  I want Your eyes for me!  I want to know - full-out-head-to-toe-live-out-loud-KNOW - how complete Your grace is for me.  Show me today and then never stop.  Please...

And So the Onion Peels

Culture has been described as an onion. Immediately you can determine the obvious things about a new culture: shape, color, smell (most definitely the smell), and how it differs from other cultures that are already familiar.  But many layers does an onion have, and there is always something to peel back and discover (and, to be honest, learning about the layers does sometimes bring tears to your eyes)!

This morning I examined another layer of culture I have peeled back since returning for my second term:

1) I now recognize accents in Hebrew that I didn't know were there my first term. For example,  there was a mom in the kindergarten that spoke English and Hebrew, and I thought she sounded perfect in both.  I have spoken with her twice this week and realized that she, in fact, has quite a strong Ethiopian accent!  It's a small victory for my progress in Hebrew; at least as far as my listening comprehension goes.

2) It is acceptable to stare at people while you walk by.  They will also stare at you.  It's a really strange experience because it's as though they are watching the news on a screen,  be it a television or computer or tablet.  They simply stare at you without reaction or acknowledgement that you exist in flesh and blood.  And when you stare back at them,  it's as though your staring into a TV camera; so of course you are looking in their direction, but it's not really them that you see. So the exchange of stares occur quite detached from any sort of definable interpersonal interaction.  We just stare completely void of any uncomfortable glancing away or nonverbal suggestion that the golden rule of interacting with strangers has been violated.

I wonder what else is in this layer?