Sunday, February 18, 2007

The Icons of My Faith (or, The Gospel in Pictures)

Each one of these pictures tells a story--testifies--about the creator of the world. They do it so much better than I can.
Life is a worship experience.

10 comments:

  1. I've enjoyed diving in to some of these and wondering what was going on the moment they were snapped. Did you select these pictures or did someone else?

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  2. During church this morning, I was thinking about all the places I have seen Jesus in the last few years. Suddenly I had a slide show going on in my mind's eye, so I grabbed a little piece of paper and started making a list--a kiss on the cheek, a candle flame, an eclipse, a hand on a shoulder...

    I wrote about 50 things down before the service ended. After lunch, I googled each term, looking for a good image. As I was collecting them, I realized that they were, for me, icons of my faith. They are what I believe in.

    If I was to build a sacred place, pictures like these would hang on the walls.

    Whenever I ask the Father to reveal Himself to me, these are the kinds of things I get.

    (The only one I have a connection with is the lady in the third row, second from the left. A friend of mine took her picture a few weeks ago when he was in Laos. It's such a beautiful face.)

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  3. Cool pictures! What a neat excercise. That would be fun for everyone to do sometime.

    Love you,

    lcs

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  4. This is really a good idea! This is not the first time I looked at it but it is the first time I really "saw" it. I might try this sometime. Might be kind of therapeutic. Just have to figure out how to get all those little pictures connected into one. :-) jp

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  5. If you collect the pictures, I'll make the collage for you! Just email them to me.

    --Jon

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  6. Jon,
    I've been looking at these pictures, thinking about how personal I want my God to be. I mean there are times when I want, like six-year old, a God who is "out there" protecting, guiding, almost parental. But other times, when watching a sunset, listening to my kids converse, or looking at your pictures, I can see the universality of God as well. He is present in all, not just out there. God is personal, but He, to me, is also in us, with us, among us, in everything. Jesus came to show us both of those things. To live a life with his personal God while reminding us of the God, the mighty wind, that flows through everything that was created. The kingdom of heaven here, now. Not just in some far off place. Salvation, the salve for this life not just the next. This post seems to me, a reminder of how we can make that mighty wind more personal. Let God speak to just me through every one and everything. Let the salve come in whatever form it may. Thanks for the connection.

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  7. I just realized that in one comment a while back I credited John Donne with the sermon "Sinners In the Hands Of An Angry God" and of course that was Jonathan Edwards. It would have been pretty hard for Donne to have delivered that sermon - since he died about 90 years before in 1631. :-)

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  8. The only problem with John Donne is that he spells his name wrong.

    --Jon

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