I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called

Ephesians 1:18

Over the past few years it has become a birthday tradition for me to grab my camera and walk the neighborhood. March 26 is typically a beautiful spring day with a lot in bloom, and yesterday was no exception.

I approached my walk as kind of a spiritual discipline. My intention was to “see things differently” or, “see with new eyes.” To that end I carried my Nikon DSLR. Typically, ninety-five percent or more of my images come by way of my iPhone – but this time my intention was to take only photographs made possible by my Nikon and also its telephoto lens.

The second guideline was to take a simple rectangular walk and grab pictures as they presented themselves. In consequence I walked north on Saint Patrick, through the common, then a couple of blocks beyond. I turned left on Bridgers, took some photographs around The Grove, then hiked south on Saint Andrew then left on Church and home. Just a one-mile rectangle (even my photos of Park Avenue and Main Street were taken from Saint Patrick and Saint Andrew).

The idea of “new eyes” is especially apropos here at the beginning of what is a new decade for me. It may sound absurd because, after all, March 26 is only a date on the calendar and nothing substantive has changed. But I am convinced that outlook is everything. And, just as this set of photographs is the result of my choice to keep my phone in my pocket, this new decade of my life has everything to do with the lens I choose to look through.

I believe it is clear that the lens through which we view this world needs to be Jesus. Not all that other stuff that is too often front of mind – the politics and the culture wars and the “us” and the “them” of our lives. Not that, but Jesus.

“Then everyone who has eyes will be able to see the truth, and everyone who has ears will be able to hear it” (Isaiah 32:3).

– DEREK