Perspectives: Kindness

 Still posting signs from my blog image archive.  This one was taken in a bathroom.  Ignoring the weird punctuation, this image reminds me of the necessity of kindness.  This sign - in both its wording (even though it says Thank You) and its intention (which isn't visible in the image, but that I am aware of) wasn't kind.

I chose this image today because I was frustrated yesterday by someone who wasn't kind to someone else.  There are constructive ways to speak - and hurtful ones - about the same truth.  Can't we chose to be kind?

Perspectives: Perspective

 Look at these images.  Do you recognize them?

One of them is a light fixture from a restaurant, seen from exactly below the point where it attaches to the ceiling. Yes, the people in the restaurant were looking at me funny, but I didn't care.  The other one is a candle, seen from directly above the flame.

Our perspective changes how we see things. 

Can you truly understand someone if you can't see what that person is experiencing from the other person's perspective? As I am writing this, it is the day after women, all around the world, marched. From D.C., to Chicago, to Los Angeles, including marches in all 50 states and in cities around the world, men and women walked. Or stood still, because there were too many people to move anywhere. Today, I look on Facebook, and I see people denigrating those who marched. I see others reducing their efforts to nothing at all. 

I am blessed that in the work I do now, I am seen as a person of value, with gifts to offer and opinions to share. I am paid fairly, but it hasn't always been that way (in other jobs I've had, in other places). Growing up, I remember being treated as an object - rated by a teacher. I have been judged solely by my gender (She can't possibility understand how electricity works - I do understand, by the way) and by my looks (whether in a good or bad way). And my experiences are so mild compared to others'.

So, as I read Facebook today, I am angered. I am disappointed. I am proud. I am pleased. It is a mixed bag. I would appreciate it, though, if people would refrain from commenting about others they have not met, do not understand, and cannot judge because they will not see life from the other person's perspective.

Truthfully, I think we fail to see people as people - we see others as objects to be used for political gain.

This is not at all the post I intended to write, but it's in my mind today.

Creation

Frederick Buechner (Wishful Thinking): If you think you're seeing the same show all over again seven times a week, you're crazy. Every morning you wake up to something that in all eternity never was before and never will be again. And the you that wakes up was never the same before and will never be the same again either.

I've mentioned before that there are times that my camera helps me to see God around me better than without it. A couple of months last year, I posted an image on Instagram and Facebook each day for thirty days - Images of the day.  I'm posting a collage of the October images here.  If you read the blog, you may recognize some of them, but not all.

I'm going to add a series to the blog called Perspective. I'll post an image and explain what I see in it - the questions it brings to mind. I think I'll do this once a week.

Look around you intentionally.  I think you will see evidence of God. You will certainly find that you will wake up to something new every day.