It's all a matter of light.
That's what I've concluded. I'm sitting, looking at a photo a friend took in India. The colors are amazing! The bright blue of the water truck that pulled into the street, and the bright green of the hoses dangling from it. The Indian people wear clothes with the most vivid colors, and they sure make a beautiful photograph. The silver-colored pot on a woman's head as well as the water that spills over the hard, dirt road, reflect the colors from all the people of the village who gather to collect water from the truck. It makes me miss India.
Why?
When I was in India, I saw nothing but dirt, dust, dung, and dilapidated buildings. The heat, humidity, and hopelessness that were visibly worn by the people were oppressive and in no way beautiful. I couldn't wait to get home to the United States and to my sweet children who are coddled in our comparative mansion of a house with running water always available and air conditioning. How could people raise their children any other way? Could I ever picture my own children in this scene? Where they would take one step out the door and step into sewage on a busy road while being honked at by a car and simultaneously screamed at by a peacock? How did we get so blessed to be here, raising our kids here, and how is it that I've never appreciated that before? What I saw in India was ugly.
But when I look at the photograph, I see beauty. And it's a matter of light. My eyes and my cheap camera see things as dusty and dirty and do not see the beauty of the colors. My eyes are United States' eyes, that see this different place as substandard and vastly inferior. My friend's photo, with the miracle-working light and quality of camera capture the situation completely differently than I remember. There is beauty in India. I suppose it's like everything – a mix of bad and good, and depending on the light in which we view a situation, things can look vastly different.
The darkest shadows I saw were on the roads of a village. The roads could frighten me: riding into sector 23 in the outskirts of Delhi, driving at night through giant potholes and past piles of trash and a few cows, I couldn't believe we were going to actually live in that village! Darkness. Fear. All around me. The next morning, daylight brought out the village children, who would follow us around, full of curiosity. We tried to give them love, although not speaking Hindi reduced our attempts to many smiles and hugs. Joy. Light. As we drove away, we encountered piercing, sharp stares from the eyes of village men. Fear. Darkness.
The brightest light I saw in India was in an orphanage. Hope! Joy! Games, hot chai, the blessing of homework and an education. Songs, dances, "Jesus, You're my superhero," sung just like in the U.S., but with a most wonderful Indian accent in the children's voices. I loved our time there!
What does any of this mean back in the U.S.? Does it mean anything for me or the people I meet who have never been to India? As I think about my memories, especially compared with friends' photos, I still think about light. Extremes of light and darkness. Whichever I saw in India, the intensity of the light and of the shadows were most evident not on roads, water trucks, or walls of buildings, but on the people. Street scenes and life viewed through a car window can change based on perspective or photo lens. The right camera can also work miracles on our appearance as people, of course, but what kind of light or darkness do others see on me? Or on you? Do people see beauty in the way we live our lives, or do they see something that causes them to fear? I love that Jesus takes away the dark. In my life, in hopeless situations, in an orphanage, in anything. Light.
John 8:12 says "When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, 'I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.'"
Light. It's all a matter of light.
*Photo by Kristen
