This morning I was trying to fix some scans of deteriorating snapshots. A few of them were of black and white persons – together – on a sofa – in the south, no less! I noticed that photographically speaking, it’s hard to get a good picture of black people and white people together, especially if you use a cheap flash.
Either the image is too dark, and you can’t see the faces of the darker people, or it’s too light, and the faces of the lighter people look like ghosts. It’s tricky to get it “just right” after-the-fact. As in all photography, the key is good lighting. It seems to me there’s a metaphor in that.
Sometimes it’s hard to see other people in a good light, much less their best light. But if we have enough light, their faces become clear. We can see them as they were meant to be seen and understand them as they were meant to be understood.
Yet, we live in a world in which we are encouraged to shed light on the faults of others, while keeping our own faults in the dark. We look at others under poor lighting and pass horrendous judgements on them. And we base those judgements on a mere “flash” of information, that we or others select for maximum devastating effect. We are content to see the world through a lens limited by “facts” that favor our image while distorting the image of others. We live in our respective bubbles, seeing the outside world in perpetual twilight, while our corner of it remains in bright daylight.
Malcolm X said, “We need more light about each other. Light creates understanding, understanding creates love, love creates patience, and patience creates unity.” “We need more light” is a common refrain from Quakers, Presbyterians, and many other believers. Maybe we should all pray for more light.
As we think about where our country is heading in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead, we need to keep in mind that without enough light, we can’t see each other, much less understand one another.
MurrayWorks 