The Sun On Her Face

No. 69 - 04th February 2018

My wife and I went for a bit of lunch at Rose and Olive, the little tea shop near the top of the High Street. It was quiet in there, and the sun was glaring in through the window and into my wife’s face. Unfortunately, with no other light around her, the harsh sunlight picked out every little crease and wrinkle in her face. My wife was very gracious when I rather tactlessly told her about it. And yes, I did ask her permission before writing this. Well, having been a film cameraman in the past, I’m very much aware of the effect that different lights can have on people. For instance, I would use a broad, soft light to wrap around the face and fill in all the shadows, whereas, a small hard light, like the sun, will cast very harsh shadows. When we were filming a woman, we would use the soft light to soften her face and hide all the texture in the skin. Whereas the men would get a hard light to show up their rugged features. In fact, with a good face, we would use a kicker, which was a small light coming from behind and glancing off the side of the face. You know how the low, early morning sun picks out every little bump and hollow in the landscape. Well, the kicker would do the same thing and really show up every pore in the skin. Needless to say, the women hated it. Not after having piled on the makeup to hide all those imperfections.

The concept of light is used a lot in the Bible to describe the way the Scriptures can shine right into our very souls and pick out every blemish and stain. Sometimes we’d rather keep our inner selves in the dark, because we don’t want all our failings to come out in public. But hiding so much of ourselves, just keeps us from developing deep relationships with other people and especially with God.

The Apostle John once said that “God is light with not a trace of darkness in him. So, if we were to say that we enjoyed a relationship with God and still went on living in darkness, we would be lying, and not speaking the truth. But if we really are living in the light as He is in the light, then we have true fellowship with each other, and the blood which his Son Jesus shed for us, keeps us clean from all sin”. Hey! It’s not so bad having the spotlight on you, is it?