Unless I’m being sneaky, the moment I pull out my camera, I’m swarmed by kids wanting their pictures taken. “One photo please?!?� they exclaim. This is of course just the beginning of a series of 1000 photos.
In the process of taking photos yesterday, I took a shot of this boy:
He runs over to the camera to examine my work. He frowns. Most of the children speak broken english. “No! again� he says, pointing to his hand. What this picture doesn’t show is a crippled left hand. Doing what I thought was best, I cut off that part of him. Thinking, “Thats what I would want.� Hide what is broken and messy. But instead he wanted to include it. He wanted a picture of himself as a whole:
Wow. I was immediately hit with the implications of his actions. What if we all lived like that? Fully embracing our imperfections and openly bringing them to the table? What if the Church acted like that? Apologizing to the local community for their hypocrisy. Declaring that they had reduced the call of Christ. What are you hiding? You’re not fooling anyone.
