Seeing Report No. 1

Today I decided to review old notes. That's a first. Usually they're created with excitement, then quickly buried as high as landfill.

I will be brief, here is the report seen.

As a fan of ancient literature, a thought occurred to me:

What if the ancients weren't simply trying to tell us what to do, but were trying to awaken us to a new way of seeing?

My palate is fairly familiar with the Bible at this point, so I'll speak from that perspective.

The Bible often restores vision before behavior.

Sight determines the path.

Blindness leads to pits.

Looking at Matthew 5:13 to 16 through this lens raises two questions:

What is this text helping people see? What blindness is it challenging?

The ancient carpenter Rabbi is helping people recover their identity. He invites them to see themselves as God sees them rather than as the culture tells them they are.

Talk about freedom.

This is why I find photography and Scripture so fascinating.

Photography asks, "What needs to be noticed?"

Scripture asks, "What deserves to be seen?"

One trains the eyes.

The other trains the heart's vision. What have you been seeing differently lately?