In Eyes of the Heart, a book about “contemplative photography,” author Christine Paintner calls readers to take the time to really see their world. As she writes, “I take my camera out into the world, and it invites me to slow down and linger over these moments of beauty. It opens me to wonder and delight.
“Slow down enough to see what is around you, notice the details of things—the many shades of flowers, the texture of tree bark, architectural details on houses, and even the patterns on manhole covers or gutters.” [1]
Throughout her book, she reminds us to be patient and wait to receive (not “take”) a photograph.
We need the same patience if we expect to see, really see, people.
We can only properly receive them, not take them. Paintner continues... “In photography, both light and shadow are required to make an image...” We cannot even see a photographic image that reveals only light or darkness. We need shadows if we are to see dimension, texture, and nuance in others.
Everyone—including those we may see as wholly heroic or evil—carries God’s signature. When one of my dearest and oldest friends fell out of my favor, I believed the worst about him. Until we suddenly came face-to-face in a crowd. The flash of his smile, the long embrace, and the laughter sent the grotesque falsehoods down a drainpipe.
Lift the Chalice
To reject any human is like despising a gold chalice because it holds cheap wine. Most people are doing the best they can. But they pick up bad stuff—insults, injuries, false measurements, destructive ideologies, division, etc.—as they pass through life. All of that gathers like foul water sloshing around in the bottom of their personalities.
But we also have the power to lift the chalice higher. By pointing to higher ground, by revealing the mystery in our midst, and by living out the Apostle Paul’s words:
“the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. (Romans 1:20, The Message)
The Grace to See Beneath the Surface
Goethe famously said, “Treat an individual as he is, and he will remain as he is. But if you treat him as he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.” That observation is one of the pillars of a good life.
Our dear friend, Roberta Roachelle, lives that more fully than anyone I know. When she smiles, you suddenly realize you’re loved, and life is far better than you ever considered. In more than a half-century, I’ve seen her unfailingly treat everyone as he or she ought to be. And I’ve watched people become what they could be.
My brother Vernon, the longtime (and now retired) Sheriff of Pratt County, Kansas, often drove inmates to the state penitentiary to begin serving their prison time. He had others who could do that, but he saw it as a chance to touch and encourage those headed into a dark place and time. He treated them not as they were, but as they could be.
Let me tell you a secret; anyone can do that! It requires love, humility, patience, and grace. The great photographers may sit in one spot for hours. Waiting for sundown, a passing train, a hummingbird, or snowfall, they first seek to focus the eyes of the heart. They yearn to see the secret places.
What if we all did that toward the people, things, and holy moments that pass near or through us every day?
[1] Christine Valters Paintner, Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice. Notre Dame, IN: Sorin Books, 2013
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