2016-02

Seeing Life Through a Lens
For those of us who are
usually the last to get wet
when it rains (one of the
few advantages of being
short?) the Hall of Mirrors
at funfairs offers an opportunity
to look tall and impossibly thin.
There are other mirrors that can
make you look squished or with
a strange wiggle in the middle!
Perhaps these mirrors reflect the
imagination of children, who often
see the world through a particular
‘lens’ of fun, joy and optimism.
These days of
course children are
more likely to use
one of the many
apps on phones
and tablets that
can do the same
thing as the Hall of
Mirrors or better –
my daughter has a
collection of rather
embarrassing but
funny distorted
pictures of her poor
dad!
In the popular
Bible passage often read out
at weddings about love (1
Corinthians 13), St Paul writes:
“When I was a child, I talked like
a child, I thought like a child, I
reasoned like a child. When I
became a man, I put the ways of
childhood behind me. For now
we see only a reflection as in a
mirror; then we shall see face to
face. Now I know in part; then I
shall know fully, even as I am fully
known.”
We all see life through some
kind of lens, perhaps distorted or
altered by our upbringing, culture
and life experiences. I wonder
how our own lenses distort our
view of how things really are.
‘For now we see
only a reflection
as in a mirror;
then we shall see
face to face. Now
I know in part;
then I shall know
fully, even as I am
fully known’
1 Corinthians 13
Having reached my mid-forties
when the physical lenses of my
eyes are not as flexible as they
once were, and finally giving in to
needing varifocals in order to
see things both near and far
away, I also wonder how the
way I see things as an adult may
have become less flexible, less
imaginative and less forgiving
than when I was a child.
St Paul says: “...now we see
only a reflection as in a mirror;
then we shall see face to face.”
Writing to the first
followers of Jesus
Christ but also to us
today, St Paul gives a
timely reminder that
things are not always
as they might seem.
It would be perfectly
natural to look at the
recent dark, horrific
events such as
those in Paris on 13
November 2015 and
say to God: where
were you in all of
that? How could you
allow it? And yet, if we look closely
enough, flex our lenses as-it-were,
and the bigger picture emerges,
we notice a multitude of sacrifices,
acts of mercy and heroism,
where local residents opened
their homes to strangers, people
queued outside hospitals to give
blood, others shielded each other
with their own bodies.
As St Paul rightly concludes:
“And now these three remain:
faith, hope and love. But the
greatest of these is love.” May
we look forward to knowing these
fully, even as we are fully known
by God.
Daren Craddock
St Chad’s Church, Linden Avenue, Woodseats
Church Office: 9 Linden Avenue, Sheffield S8 0GA
Tel: (0114) 274 5086
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email: office@stchads.org
website: www.stchads.org