Category: Photography

Something Else

On By Charis PsalloIn Photography, Water4 Comments

 

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“When we lose sight of God we become hard and dogmatic. We hurl our own petitions at God’s throne and dictate to Him as to what we wish Him to do. We do not worship God, nor do we seek to form the mind of Christ. If we are hard towards God, we will become hard towards other people.”
— Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

 

Disappointments in life come because we had expectations. Not dreams. Expectations. When we have a picture of love in our heads it can become our definition of love. We may not all say it out loud to parents, or potential partners, or even friends, but we all think, “If you love me you will ____________.” It’s a test that we ourselves mark. And sooner or later we are disappointed. Sometimes profoundly so. Either the false expectation goes, or the relationship slips into the slow death of lost hope.

Sometimes we think we are praying when we are actually putting God to a test. We are saying, in essence, “If you love me you will ___________,” or “If you are really God you will ___________.” When we put someone to a test we have decided in advance what the right answer is. We are putting ourselves in a position of judge over someone when our expectations must be met for them to pass the test. We make ourselves superior.

God doesn’t play that game. You may have noticed.

We have expectations that if he loves us he will give us a good marriage, robust health, intelligent grateful children, a rewarding career, financial security, a life of peace with reasonable neighbours, and a good reputation that reflects our glory. When God doesn’t meet these expectations of our own design it is easy to allow disappointment to harden into resolution. Instead of finding out who he really is we create another false god, one who is uncaring, or capricious, or inaccessible or hard and dogmatic – at least this god doesn’t disappoint us. Instead of searching for God’s true nature we build our own constructs and dogmas, then we preach that god with our actions and attitudes. We can become hard, graceless, or apathetic.

I think disappointment and loss of hope is the greatest pain known to mankind. We can forge through almost anything but hopelessness. Without hope, what’s the point? It takes the courage of hope to take the risk of pursuing God through the pain of disappointment, to humbly admit that we do not hold the answers, to seek the mind of Christ. Sometimes the ultimate form of worship is simply to make an offering of our pain and say, “You are God and I am not.”

When Moses (who up until that point had settled into the disappointment of his life’s circumstances) asked God to show himself, the aspect God chose to show was his goodness, which was so overwhelming Moses had to be hidden in the cleft of the rock. God’s goodness doesn’t always fit our definition. It is something else, because God is Something Else – holy other, entirely unique, and worthy of seeking out. We don’t come to him so that he can reflect our glory, but so that we can reflect his.

We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance.

And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.

And this hope will not lead to disappointment.

For we know how dearly God loves us,

because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

(Romans 5:3-5)

When the Master Speaks

On By Charis PsalloIn Black and white, Photography10 Comments

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Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty
The earth belongs to You
We’ll prepare to go with You, Lord
But until the day we do, Lord,
Minute by minute, we’ll continue in the story
This mystery, Christ in us the hope of glory

– Marty Goetz (from “Hope of Glory”)

This song has been playing in my head for the past two nights. I’ve been thinking about hearing God’s voice, the means he uses, and the discernment he develops in us to know when the voice is his and when it is not.  This line particularly was on repeat in my dreams, “Glory to glory, even by His spirit, moment by moment, when the Master speaks I’ll hear it.”

I talk about learning to hear God’s voice, but honestly hearing a little bit leaves me feeling frustrated that I can’t hear more.  I want the unmistakable thunderous voice from the clouds giving explicit directions. I know one fellow, equally frustrated during a period of unemployment, who stood under thunder clouds with a metal rake balanced on his head and shouted to God, “Talk to me!” I know the feeling.

On the other hand the Bible tells the story of that time when God spoke in a loud booming voice from the sky. Some heard him clearly but others said all they heard was thunder.

The thing is, for his re-born, Spirit-filled sons and daughters the voice is no longer up in the sky. The voice is in us.

In a dream I saw people throwing huge lasso ropes into a city that was crumbling faster than a set for a sci-fi dystopia movie. One of them looped around  a young man who was almost entirely buried in debris. I joined in pulling on the rope and hauled him out of the city of destruction. He stood up, brushed himself off and began running.

I yelled, “Hey! You’re not cleaned up yet!”

He shouted over his shoulder, “Do you recognize Christ in you well enough yet to know that he has called me?” and kept running.

Then I saw a word I had never seen before written in the air. When I woke up I googled it.

I found it could mean a tight Somalian hat, it was an acronym for a number of obscure ventures and technical terms and it was part of a rude name I’m sure the Facebook police have banned by now. I gave up and came back and gave up and tried again. Pages deep on the search something caught my attention. The entire page was in a foreign language and it included this word only once. I was about to abandon this site as well when I saw numbers interspersed with the words and something like II Korint written on the top. I realized it was a page from the Bible.

I found the verse in my own bible in 2 Corinthians 13:5 and it said: Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?

My eyes fell on a phrase in verse 3 where Paul wrote, “since you are seeking for proof of the Christ who speaks in me...”

It “resonated.”

At first I felt quite privileged that God set up a riddle for me this way, the way I felt quite puffed up when I learned I was a descendent of European royalty. But just like in the way that I learned that the odds of anyone of European descent not springing from the loins of Charlemagne are one in 17 million this hearing God’s voice thing is not a unique experience. It’s for all his children. It’s matter of paying attention to the mystery of Christ in you, your hope of glory – however he chooses to communicate.

Minute by minute we’ll continue in the story.

Showers

On By Charis PsalloIn Photography, WaterLeave a comment

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Should pain and suffering, sorrow, and grief, rise up like clouds and overshadow for a time the Sun of Righteousness and hide Him from your view, do not be dismayed, for in the end this cloud of woe will descend in showers of blessing on your head, and the Sun of Righteousness will rise upon you to set no more.

– Sadhu Sundar Singh

Getting the Rest

On By Charis PsalloIn Black and white, PhotographyLeave a comment

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In order to make this journey–you have to make it without baggage. You can’t carry loads of bags with weight on you in order to be free and Jesus gives you an invitation to come unto him. Now you have to come to him–you will not get rest from anybody else. If you go to anybody else you’re going to find more work.

– T.D. Jakes

Toddling Toward Hope

On By Charis PsalloIn Art, Just folks, Photography3 Comments

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I love toddlers. Honestly, it may be my favourite age. Yes, I mean the tantrum-throwing, independent, illogical, ill-informed munchkins between walking and reasonable conversation age, the ones who cause their exhausted parents’ hearts to melt when they stand over their kid’s sleeping adorableness before they head out to clean up the day’s mess.

I love to watch them learn. They are voracious readers of everything and everyone. They crave knowledge and are driven to courageously expand their universe, but at the same time want to remain at the center of it.

As a baby a little girl learns that when she hollers Daddy or Mommy come to her. As a toddler she learns the hard lesson that when Mommy or Daddy call she is supposed to come to them.

It’s not an easy transition for anyone concerned. Toddlers are also discovering free will. Anyone who has tried knows you cannot make a toddler eat, sleep, sit still, keep their clothes on or pee where they are supposed to until they decide to do it themselves. You can cut down their options, you can try to pick them up (as they do the floppy noodle) before they dash for the road, but you can’t make them keep the water in the tub or kiss Auntie Bertha or stay out of the Tupperware drawer when company is coming if it is not on their agenda. They will let you know when they have lost patience with your interference.

But I love them. I love the mileage they get out of a few words. I love the excited laughter when they discover how to open, or flush, or unravel something all by themselves. I love the way they imitate older humans and want to be like them. I love them because they are headed somewhere and every day they change. I love them because they don’t stay toddlers.

It struck me the other day that as new believers in Christ we are like a baby who needs milk, shelter, warmth, affection and our heavenly Father obliges. He provides a baby with everything she needs. She calls; He comes. She knows how the system works.

Then one day he doesn’t come when she calls. He calls and holds out his hands for her to move toward him. After she chooses to toddle to his outstretched arms and she is rewarded with kisses and hugs he takes another step back – then another and another. He is becoming more distant. The next thing you know he is withholding her sippy cup until she sits in the chair nicely – wearing a bib that is not of her choice. What a shock!

The toddler Christian is accustomed to feeling that God is there to fulfill her agenda. Now it turns out he has an agenda of his own. Now there is this obedience issue to cope with. It’s a tough transition to make, and that is why many churches are filled with people who never grow beyond two or three years maturity level. It can be fun, but it can also be a wretchedly frustrating stage of growth because it means taking ourselves out of the center of the universe and putting God there.

The Bible says Jesus learned obedience. He grew in grace and in favour with God the Father and with people. When he laid down his Godhead privileges to experience everything we have he also learned as a human child that he had free will. As an adult he demonstrated that he was not doing the works he did because he was incapable of doing otherwise, but because he chose to. He listened to his Father’s plans. From his baptism, to his following the leading of Holy Spirit into the wilderness, to changing water into wine at his Father’s bidding – and definitely not his mother’s – to his battle with his free will in the Garden of Gethsemane he did nothing he did not choose to do. I believe he understands our struggle because he sweat drops of blood before he could say, “Not my will but Yours.” In the end laying down his life at the cross was his choice.

“No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” (John 10:18)

I’ve heard it said that being part of the family of God means never being led into the wilderness (times away from his felt presence to discover and establish our identity as sons and daughters); it means never seeking God’s agenda but brazenly declaring our own want list; it means never being driven by frustration with our old habits to plumb the depths of his grace that changes us, but instead it presumes on our own definition of “grace” that enables stunted growth and self-centered living.

There is power and provision for a hope that does not disappoint, but this is not it. Of course God still loves to give good gifts to his children and to respond to them. Maturity means changing the way we think until we realize it’s not just about God answering us when and how we want him to; it’s also about us responding to him when he calls.

I love toddlers because unless something has gone horribly wrong, they are people in process. If we, as those growing up in faith, never get out of our strollers, demand ice cream for breakfast and holler every time events do not go according to our desired design and timetable, we will not be loved any less and our needs will still be met, but we will miss the joy of mature relationship with our Father God.

I love toddlers because they teach me to keep growing.

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And When I Am Alone

On By Charis PsalloIn Flowers, Photography2 Comments

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I’m alone on my porch on a beautiful spring morning, drinking my second cup of coffee and watching the sunlight sift through the plum tree. It’s been less than a week since we stood in a downpour and committed my Dad’s body to the earth. Everyone has gone home, back to work. The flowers have wilted and the sympathy cards are stacked on a corner of the kitchen table.

Life goes on.

When I gave the eulogy at his funeral I talked to the children and told them about the great-grandfather most of them did not know before he had forgetting disease. We included all the children in our gathering because what better way is there to teach them about physical death and spiritual life than with a family member who loved the Lord, lived to an old age, and was longing to be present with the Lord and reunited with his loved ones? I spoke of all his fine qualities and the wonderful things he taught us. We do that at funerals. It’s about honour.

But there are things we don’t talk about. Like all human beings going back to Adam’s grandchildren he was the wounded son of a wounded son. He brought his deficits into our relationship the way I dragged mine into my own children’s nursery. There were seasons when I adored him and seasons when I avoided him for months at a time.

It was complicated.

I don’t think I had left anything unsaid before he passed away. He said he forgave me. I had certainly forgiven him and Jesus had replaced a whole lot of unwanted feelings with love and compassion for him, but there are a lot of things I can’t explain no matter how many words I use. No sympathy in form of visits or cards or flowers – or even therapy – can ever say, “I understand.” We say that to each other, but we don’t understand, not really. Every heart has its own sorrow. Every heart is alone in grief.

But we do not have to be totally alone. There is one who understands all our weaknesses. Unlike so many of the versions fed to us by angry unapproachable people of an angry unapproachable God who can’t bear to look at us because of our sin, Jesus approached us first. He, who was the perfect representative of the nature of Father God, chose to associate with those whose sins had become a part of their names -the harlot, the thief, the drunk, the hypocrite. He sat down right beside them. He was not disappointed in them because he never had any expectations in the first place. He had sympathy and compassion for them. He wept with them. He loved them. His joy in going to the cross was in knowing the freedom and new names they – and all who call on his name – would receive.

Since we have a great High Priest, Jesus, the Son of God

who has passed through the heavens from death into new life with God, let us hold tightly to our faith.

For Jesus is not some high priest who has no sympathy for our weaknesses and flaws.

He has already been tested in every way that we are tested; but He emerged victorious, without failing God.

So let us step boldly to the throne of grace, where we can find mercy and grace to help when we need it most.

(Hebrews 4:14-16 The Voice)

This morning  an old song came to mind:

In the morning when I rise,
Give me Jesus.

And when I am alone,
Give me Jesus.

And when I come to die,
Give me Jesus.

You can have all this world, just give me Jesus.

He’s all I need. Because of him life goes on – eternally.

Dangerous Proximity

On By Charis PsalloIn Art, Mountains, PhotographyLeave a comment

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I want a lifetime of holy moments. Every day I want to be in dangerous proximity to Jesus. I long for a life that explodes with meaning and is filled with adventure, wonder, risk, and danger. I long for a faith that is gloriously treacherous. I want to be with Jesus, not knowing whether to cry or laugh.

– Mike Yaconelli