Viewpoint
“While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (2 Cor. 4:18, NASB)
One of the more confounding principles of photography for aspiring photographers is often the aperture setting and how this impacts the image being captured. Aperture setting is at its simplest the size of the opening within the lens itself to dictate the amount of light being let into the camera onto the sensor. Very similar to the pupil of your eye, it opens and closes to allow more or less light to be captured. The setting of the aperture size has a direct impact on exposure and also depth of field. Indirectly, changing the aperture may impact the shutter speed or ISO settings because these may need to be adjusted in response to a change in aperture, so the image is not overexposed. I am not going to go in depth with all of this as an entire manual could be written on the science of how aperture affects the photography triangle so my primary focus will be specifically on depth of field and how this can be used as a metaphor in the spiritual life.
Aperture is completely inverted to what most new photographers would assume. If you were to set your camera to a “wide” aperture the number might be something like f/2.8 and if the setting were to be “narrow” it would be in the neighborhood of f/11 or even higher. The opening in the lens for the f/2.8 is much larger than the opening for the f/11. In order for this post to stay on track I will simply recommend that for further study on this subject you seek out any of hundreds of excellent writings and videos online that explain it all in detail.
The one point that I want to make with aperture is to consider the impact on the photo that a “narrow” aperture has versus a “wide” aperture. One of the most noticeable impacts on the image is the depth of field. Very wide apertures tend to produce a very shallow focus area (depth of field) so the image only shows clearly what is close to the camera and the background ends up blurry. This blurry area is called “bokeh”. If you narrow the aperture (f/11 for example) then the area that is in sharp focus is much deeper into the image and even parts of the scene very far from the camera are in sharp focus.
Wide = short view. Narrow = long view.
Our spiritual life has a similar aspect to how our life is impacted by our view… let’s call it a “life aperture” setting. The verse above in 2 Corinthians teaches us to look at the unseen and the eternal and not to be focused on the here and now. In other words, take the long view. I believe that there are numerous scriptures that point the way to the “how” of taking this long view and that is by narrowing down our focus down to what ultimately matters and that is Christ alone. Paul teaches this in 1 Cor. 2:2: “For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” Matthew 7:13 speaks to the fact that we must “enter through the narrow gate” (Christ).
By reducing our focus on temporal things around us and increasing our focus on Jesus our “life aperture” will become narrow and this will likely seem odd to the world that is living with a wider setting but the beauty will be the view that this gives us toward seeing past the immediate and on to the eternal. When this happens, fear subsides, stress drops, and hope increases!! We find out that our daily problems are small in light of eternity when we keep our eyes properly fixed and focused on Christ.
I hope that this little journey through a bit of photography science metaphorically tied to the spiritual life has been encouraging to you today. As always, if this has blessed you feel free to let me know by adding your comments below.
