A tip for getting dramatic photos in the wide-open. Live in your viewfinder. Explore the landscape through your viewfinder by keeping the camera at your side, not stashed away in your backpack. If you “live in the viewfinder,” you will see the world through the unique perspective of your lens and it will help you discover compositions, possibilities that you would not have found otherwise with your own eyes.
Another way of gaining a unique perspective on life is to ask a question with a question. It is a teaching style that teachers use with their students to motivate them to think, wonder and grow.
Some religious leaders in Jesus’ day were scheming to trick him into a dangerous mistake, and wondered if it’s “…lawful to pay taxes to the emperor or not?”
Jesus answered their question with a question. He requested a coin, a denarius with Caesar’s image on it. “Whose head is this, and whose title?” You know the drill. You know the Biblical story.
When Jesus seemed threatened, he was adept at turning the tables. Jesus also embraced positive opportunities to reveal God’s ways. Questions were met by questions in the form of parables (What! A Samaritan is my neighbor?) and by gestures of unexpected generosity (What! The last hired worker is given the same pay as those hired first). In other words, Jesus witnessed for God by inspiring others to think, wonder and grow. Instead of providing answers ending an encounter, he posed questions or told stories that caused others to be unsettled about old ways or unfair traditions while sensing a new relationship with neighbors and God.
However, instead of being God’s witness, we frequently are witless.
Too often, we try to impress people with what we know.
Too often, we tell people what they should think before they finish speaking.
Too often, when confused or fearful or angry or spiteful, we don’t seek clarity but raise our voice.
Wit is derived from the Old English witan and the Old High German wizzan. Those two were rooted in ancient Latin and Greek words. But all shared a common meaning: to see or to know. And thus we have witness, witless, witty, dim-witted and more. Someone who sees or knows is a witness. Those who refuse to see or know are witless.
Am I a witness or witless for God?
Henry David Thoreau wrote, “The question is not what you look at, but what you see.” In the encounter with the two-faced Pharisees, Jesus is said to have discerned their malice. I believe he knew they only looked through selfish, self-satisfied eyes, and only schemed to ensnare him. And yet his response, then and in so many other situations, challenged people to “see” beyond the self-destructive, foolish and witless.
Immanuel watches over us as we reflect: “But you, O God, see the trouble of the afflicted; you consider their grief and take it in hand. (Psalm 10:14).
Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends that we see life through the viewfinder of God’s vision. Let our questions about the things that happen to us help us to grow in God’s way of thinking, courage and love.
