A little perspective, like a little humor, goes a long way. Allen Klein
During our last post together "we" discussed Focus...
[Tip: hee hee...I was really the only one discussing. Do you like how I tried to push some of the blame for my bombast off on you?]
...now, during the last couple of days, after spending a little time with Mr. Twain in "Innocents Abroad", my thoughts have shifted to a close cousin of focus...Perspective.
In Chapter VIII, he finds himself in Tangier, a great melting pot of all that's not... "white men". Since, as we know from not too distant history, most Anglos for these past thousand years or so have thought themselves to be the center of the Universe, he is refreshed and thrilled to find himself on exotic and foreign ground:
He seems to savor and revel in the sense that there are great depths of history and a life outside of his own recent perceptions of the world. His perspective shifted.Here is not the slightest thing that ever we have seen save in pictures--and we always mistrusted the pictures before. We cannot anymore. The pictures used to seem exaggerations--they seemed too weird and fanciful for reality. But behold, they were not wild enough--they were not fanciful enough--they have not told half the story. Tangier is a foreign land if ever there was one, and the true spirit of it can never be found in any book save The Arabian Nights.
Recently my Stepmother and Father sent me a link to a clip of the Hubble Telescope and what it "saw" in 1996 when pointed for a mere ten days toward what seemed to be a spot of apparently nothing, "no bigger than the size of a grain of sand when held at arm's length"- a picture of a mere "rich harvest of about 10,000 galaxies." Astonishing! This "nothing" area is now referred to as the "Hubble Ultra Deep Field" and with it the people of Earth's universal perspective shifted.
We as mere humans have very fragile perspectives indeed. The smallest things can throw them off or shift them. Today I inadvertently stood in front of the USB wireless adapter which is hooked into the back of our computer tower. My husband had been diligently working for quite a while on setting me up with a "Network Place" and suddenly our connection, wireless and relationally, all but ceased.
[Technical Stuff: I really didn't know I didn't have a network place to start with...haven't I been on my blogs and Facebook all this time????]
As I shifted my willowy figure (dream perspective) about six inches to the left, my physical frame of reference shifted and I found myself suddenly back in the realm of "Net-World".
[Remember: Yes, my relational connection w/ Mr. Brown remains intact as well.]
Speaking of my willowy figure, I think I have the most attractive friends in the world. For instance, to take a risk on one whom I hope will forgive my frankness...(pray for me!)... there is Rachel. I think she is one of the most beautiful ladies I know. She is Shelly Long-ish. And while she has a pretty face, she probably wouldn't win a Miss American contest, unless perhaps her biased husband Mark were one of the judges. At 4?-years of age, I have matured in life and my viewpoints and understandings of relationships have grown, so I believe I understand why I value her beauty so much:
It's quite simple really. Being always transcends appearance-that which only seems to be. Once you begin to know the being behind the very pretty or very ugly face, as determined by your bias, the surface appearances fade away until they simple no longer matter. [...] God, who is the ground of all being, dwells in, around, and through all things-ultimately emerging as the real-and appearances that mask that reality will fall away.— William P. Young (The Shack)
It's all a matter of perspective.
If we stopped to try and process all that is going on in life around us at any given moment and to attempt for the sake of all we love to maintain control over all the innumerable realms of reality, from microscopic to cosmotic...
[Technical Stuff: Is cosmotic a word? if not, I like it anyway.]
... well, I think our brains would explode or something gross like that for the effort. Now THAT would end the perspective problems would it not?
But, thankfully we don't need to control or understand it all. Even if all of the great experts in the world, from "quarks-studiers" to astronomers to all-wise theologians, were to disappear, there would still be ONE who holds the ultimate perspective in His hands. Without Him, we would all be, in Twain's words, like "a crowded city of snowy tombs!"
Psalm 139:
O LORD, you have searched me and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.
5 You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me eere written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18a Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When we awake tomorrow, He'll still be here, there and everywhere, and that's a pretty good perspective!
When we awake tomorrow, He'll still be here, there and everywhere, and that's a pretty good perspective!
Good post.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking about perspective this morning. I chose not to wear my coat to church - - - got in my car, backed out of the garage and noticed it was a balmy 5 degrees outside. 5 degrees. I thought, "it will be FREEZING when I walk from the car to the church."
But when I got to church, it didn't feel 5 degrees. It felt "balmy-ish"
That's when I thought of perspective. If I had hit a 5 degree day after a 70 degree day, it WOULD have felt really cold. BUT, today - - - after several weeks of near 0 degree weather, it just didn't feel that bad.
Don't get me wrong - - - I wouldn't have wanted to STAND out there for an hour without a coat - - - but you get the idea.
Now it's up in the low 20's and it actually is reminding me of spring.
Perspective.
Welcome dear cousin Keetha to my blog! I now total FOUR whole fans! (One blogger, two Facebookers, and one ambidextrous. Two family, two not-family...all four friends.) Much excitement!
ReplyDeleteI just had a good hour's nap after not having slept the night through for more than 2-3 evenings during the past month. So now, though it has started to snow here in Show-Me-ville, making outside visibilty muddled, I feel like my true perspective has cleared!