Picturing Perspective
Yesterday, I wrote about the perspective I got from a truck full of chickens. Today, I want to talk about changing our perspective on doors.
What crosses your mind looking at the picture above?
My guess is that you are wondering what that guy is taking a picture of. Or maybe you’re pondering why this man is on the ground. Or, perhaps, you are curious why I took a picture of him. All legitimate questions. Here’s the answer. . .
On a photography safari to Virginia and D.C. last year, I snapped several pictures of my dad getting into this position to take a picture of some church doors in Georgetown. He’s a great photographer, and the thing he’s probably best at is taking pictures from unique angles. I’ve often seen him take a picture of the most mundane material—like a cup on a table, a sign, or a fence—thinking to myself, “Why is he taking a picture of that?”. Inevitably, though, the picture I see afterwards is fantastic and often uses angles most people would have never considered.
I’ve learned a lot from watching him look through the lens—or change the lens—to reveal something concealed by the conventional viewpoint.
I’ve learned that perspective comes from looking at things from different angles. It doesn’t change the essence of the subject; it simply highlights what we may have missed. This is why I love art—whether paintings, poems, pictures, songs, sketches, or cinema. Telling the story from a different angle often allows people to see truth and beauty. Humor does this as well.
So, there’s my dad lying in the middle of a brick walkway at a Georgetown intersection taking a picture of these church doors from a weird angle. A couple of people wondered as they walked by. I didn’t. I know the photographer. And I knew he was picturing perspective by working the angles.
It is only the wisdom and perspective gleaned from an hour of silent prayer each morning that prevents me from running for CEO of the universe. Brennan Manning, Ruthless Trust, p. 75.
Those who look beyond the literal see the world as a metaphor for God. When they direct us to the majesty of the mountains, the beauty of the prairies, the variety of wildflowers along the roadside, the smell of mint and hay on a summer morning, the rumble of a train through the valley, the sound of a waterfall, they birth the Word in our midst. They dare us to dream of our homeland, where eye has not seen, neither has ear heard, nor has the imagination conceived of the beauty that waits us. Brennan Manning, Ruthless Trust, p. 115.
