Category Archives: photos
This is beautiful
Turn the light off and put it on full screen and enjoy.
Ocean Sky from Alex Cherney on Vimeo.
Like this:
The eye is the lamp of the body – Bin Laden photos
This came through to my inbox this week from the London Institute of Contemporary Christianity. What particularly struck me was the assertion that the graphic and violent images of 9/11 have been stored up and re-emerged in the impromptu triumphal celebrations on the day of Bin Laden’s death. See what you think:
Political expediency it may have been, but Barack Obama’s decision not to release photographs of Osama Bin Laden’s body is a welcome act of national self-censorship that constitutes a significantly counter-cultural move.
Ever since news of the al-Qaeda leader’s killing broke, there has been an inevitable drip-feed of ever more graphic images through the media to the viewing public. Iconic portraits of Bin Laden first gave way to stills of the compound and the abandoned American helicopter, and then to video footage from within the house, including the heavily bloodstained bedroom where Bin Laden was shot dead.
The media are eager to capture such images because it is the image that stimulates and sustains public interest in the story, whether on television or online. It’s the ever-present promise of new pictures that keeps us enthralled. The Internet and a growing superfluity of high-definition, touch-screen devices are constantly reinforcing the lesson television first taught us: seeing is believing. Naturally enough, the corollary is also true: in the absence of images there is doubt, or outright disbelief.
So it is that some believe the US should release photographs of Bin Laden’s corpse by way of providing conclusive proof of his death. Nevertheless, the president has decreed that these very graphic images will not be seen. They have been censored on the grounds that their publication would constitute a threat to US national security. I, for one, am inclined to agree with his decision.
Doubtless, national and political self-interest influenced Obama’s decision, but perhaps we should allow for the possibility that so also did a genuine concern for the global greater good. Since the eye is ‘the lamp of the body’ (Matthew 6:22), and just one look can kill the divine image-bearing people we were made to be (Matthew 5:27-29), we all need to consider carefully the imagery to which we expose ourselves, and to which we expose others. Is it not in all our interests to look on that which will enhance our humanity, and to look away from that which will diminish it?
For proof of the compelling power images can exercise over hearts and minds, look no further than those who, having been inundated this past decade with the traumatic images of 9/11, and of the face of the man behind that atrocity, took to the streets this week to celebrate his killing.
Even in our visual age, there are things we really don’t need to see. Trust me.
It reminds me of the much quoted phrase that one 9/11 survivor said – “I can’t find it in me to be glad that one more person is dead”. Forgiveness really does affect us as well as those we are forgiving.
Apps
Just discovered the wordpress app for iPhone! Very nice! I’m currently enjoying a very peaceful post-christmas break in a caravan in Cornwall. Nice chance to relax – I really needed it – and to have some fun with some new toys.
The photo is from the beach in Parr. The shapes in the sand created when the tide went out reminded me of the giant sand dunes of the sahara seen from a plane.
Starbucks and Christians
First, a photo that I took in Seattle of the first ever Starbucks coffee shop. We didn’t go in – there’s better coffee at Top Pot and a host of independent places.
But here’s something I came across on the BBC news website.
A group of Christians want Starbucks to ditch their new logo on the left) because it looks too slutty. They think the two-tailed mermaid has is in a compromising position. Did I mention its a mermaid?
This is the sort of thing why Christians aren’t taken seriously – over-obsessing with pointless bugbears that bear no relevance to anything and that look like they’re spoiling other peoples fun, rather than truly engaging with culture in order to help people know God.
How does protesting about a coffee shop logo share the love of Jesus?
Latte Art
On our travels we visited what seemed to be the coffee capital of the world – Portland and Seattle on the west coast of the USA. These towns are full of independent coffeeshops, with individual atmospheres – there are also loads of chain coffeshops like Starbucks, which started in Seattle, but we didn’t go in any of those.
One thing we loved, apart from the great coffee was the Latte Art. This is the process of drawing a picture into any steamed milk based coffee simply by carefully pouring the steamed milk over the espresso. There’s a video of a barista from a coffee shop in Chicago here. We were quite impressed at the designs they came out with. It was almost a shame to drink the coffee. I say almost, because, it was great coffee. (best mocha I’ve ever tasted at Stumptown Coffee Roasters in the Belmont district or Portland, OR. Their standard americanos and filter coffees are great too)
It is certainly transitory art – why all this effort for a bit of art that will be gone in 20 minutes. We got thinking that God must love this – taking pride and being creative for something that will be gone so soon. We loved it too. An equivalent mught be the story of the cleaner who makes an effort to sweep the floor under the mat in a room where nobody goes. God notices, and these things add colour and flavour to the world. Keep it up independent coffee shops of the north west!
