Imagination

It's an intriguing photo. Questions like, where was this taken, what kind of building was it, all enter my mind when I first look at it. I took the thing and it makes me wonder. It's a photo of an abandoned building in Chattanooga TN and there's a greenway right beside it. As I was biking through the area, I had to stop to take some photos of its unique shapes, designs and colors. This reminds me of the colorful houses in the Hispanic cities around the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. The rustic but almost livable vibe you get from this is totally deceiving. It is definitely not livable, yet the camera can capture such a narrow window to fool the mind into painting the rest beyond the pixels we see here. It may be a house along the shores of the northeast coast, a lighthouse perhaps. It could be a run down shack with multiple generations of family living in it. It could be any building with countless locations. See the trick is to remove those things recognizable in order to free up the imagination. If you took a wide angle shot of Big Ben in London, because it is iconic and billions of photos have been taken, the imagination is completely disengaged. However, you take a picture of a portion of the clock face, then suddenly it could be any clock face from around the world. Then the viewer takes themselves on a trip around the world trying to figure out, which clock is this. 

So, when taking photos, try to be a bit mysterious and hide the subjects true origin. It'll open up so much dialog between the viewers and the one who took the photo. 

With Winter fully engaged where I live, it's been a bit of a photography slump. If it's not raining, then it's too cold to go out. Not to mention the sun goes down shortly after I get off of work. So, new photos for me are a rare thing. However, a trip to the Caribbean on a cruise is upcoming and I plan on doing a lot of photography. So, upcoming posts here we come.

As with most of my posts, I reread them over and over, edit, read, edit, and then finally publish. To say I am a little OCD about my writing is an understatement. As I was in that process I thought of a spiritual principle to go with the above text.

If we take a global approach to God and Christ, we can often collect every one else's already established ideas, religiousness, and perspectives and adopt them as our own. Like my description of Big Ben or a picture of every famous spot on Earth, it becomes so overly photographed that the place loses its identity and special meaning. If we adopt a religious, church, law inspired, scripture lead, mass induced worship driven relationship with Jesus, we've missed the opportunity to become personally involved with knowing Him. 

The idea of taking just a section of wall was for the viewer to fill in the rest with their imagination. Like a relationship with Jesus, we must get the foundation set in historical accuracy and spiritual significance of His coming and dying but we should stop there with the overexposure to everyone's opinions and ideas and let us fill in the rest of the picture with direct understandings from Jesus Himself. 

If we are spoon-fed our entire lives we never learn how to do it ourselves. We become complacent and completely reliant on the person feeding us. They could feed us poison and we'd be helpless to do much about it.

However, if we use the source, Jesus Himself as our guide, then we cannot be led astray. Such as my picture above gives you a basis for your imagination, so too does Jesus act as the source of your imagination. He will paint the picture beyond the borders of what we initially see. He will create in us and fulfill in us the correct perspective which is the perspective of the Father. 

It says, My people perish for lack of understanding. 

So seak His understanding by spending time with Him and empty out your preconceptions and religious traditions. Let Him fill in the rest of the picture for you.

To God be the Glory