Most of you know that I am not the most observant person. It takes a lot for me to notice things, that is unless I have a camera in my hand. Give me a camera and I notice everything! I see things differently. I notice both fine detail and collective beauty. Maybe that’s why I love photography so much? When life becomes so blindingly distracting, I take great pleasure in seeing what other people walk by. I love seeing surprising vignettes of beauty, particularly when they are surrounded by ugliness.
Of course, there is nothing special about me. I think we all have these two modes in our lives. There’s a lot we ignore, overlook, push aside, and hide. And, there are some things we become enamored of or fixated on. Some things we just can’t see and some things we can’t not see. We filter life for the sake of the hope of self-preservation or for the comfort of self-delusion or the pursuit of self-interest. We all do it as a normal course of living, that is, until something shocks us and forces us to reboot.
Our first live stream service!
It probably should have happened a long time ago, but Keele now has a Twitter account.
The reason why we have finally left the tree and soared off into the Twitterverse…
Have you ever been in an earthquake? I have. A few minor ones here in Toronto. That strange, oscillating, movement of a foundation that is usually solid and dependable, messes with you. It makes your body betray you. It radiates a signal that sends your nervous system into a panic.
Have you ever seen a tornado, up close and personal? I have. I was in a security trailer, at Sheppard and Weston, as I watched a tornado rip a bus shelter out of its concrete anchors (I never did see where it deposited it). I saw it rip the roof off a factory building directly across from me, like it was the perforated cardboard top off a Kleenex box. All this happened as close as 50 metres from my not-so-secure location.
Some things we experience make our legs feel wobbly and our world feel wobblier still. Like, for example, mountains quaking and falling into the heart of the sea and the tsunami that follows. (Psalm 46:2-3).
This is not the stuff we normally experience. This isn’t the kind of thing we have reference points for that help us file our experiences under the “Not to worry, I’ve seen this before!” category.
Well, it wouldn’t surprise me if we all had wobbly legs right now. I know that I, at least, do. It all boils down to not having a category to file all the rapid-fire, shifting, quaking flood of changes and information that both surrounds and isolates us. It is all a bit overwhelming, isn’t it?