Contrast

A daily devotional I read for today contained this:

“...Teach me the value of my thorns. Show me how I have climbed to You through the path of pain. Show me it is through my tears I have seen my rainbows.”

“Alas for him who never sees
the stars shine through the cypress trees.”

I just had an email exchange with an old friend who had a big role in getting me involved with photography back when we were in high school. Among other things we were discussing picture contrast. I was talking about how much I love snappy, contrasty images and how much I like digital photography because it gives such good control of it. Ansel Adams was a master of exposure and contrast control using very large format cameras and his exacting “zone system” in his darkroom. His Yosemite images are the quintessential examples of photography as art. The contrast they display is a big part of that. Its difficult to get good contrast in landscape. Moisture and particulate matter in the air, like dust, tend to diffuse the light over great distances and flatten everything out. From far away, lots of contrast looks good. Early morning or late afternoon sun causes longer shadows and increases contrast in these situations. On the other hand, close images, especially of faces, have the exact opposite needs. Flatter light is much more pleasing, more subtle, and shows more detail in a face.

Well I could go on about photographic contrast, but I'm afraid the metaphor will just get more obscure. Contrast is what gives meaning. Hardship, suffering, trauma, disaster, loss, heartache, and pain are not things I like to think of as “good.” But the fact is that nothing in life that is good has much meaning without the context of the contrast with them. White next to very light grey is quite uninteresting. But white against dark black is striking. We could get into the whole eastern yin yang thing, but you don't need to go all the way there to see that there is good in what is bad. Isaiah 61 speaks of “beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.” Then it contrasts those who experience these things with the sinful, fallen creatures that they are; “They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor.” This has been said so many times it's like I'm busy here manning the wag's “department of redundancy department.” But it's the bad stuff that gives the good stuff it's value. It's the agony of what has gone on before that gives the relief its richness. The trick isn't in appreciating the good after the bad is over. That is natural. One can look back and be thankful for the dark before the dawn and benefit from the contrast in terms of being able to appreciate the good. The big challenge is to appreciate the hard times while they are still going on, looking forward to the good that will be in such stark contrast to the present. That is called hope. The assurance that it will happen is what is called faith. They are fruits of the work of the Holy Spirit of God that are brilliantly spectacular against a backdrop of black. They are of most value when the contrast is cranked up.

Much has been said of God “allowing” bad things to happen. Almost like God uses Satan in a kind of tacit way for his ends. Steve Saint speaks these days of the death of his father and his four friends as not a tragedy that God merely allowed to happen. He looks at all that has come of that momentous event in 1956 and sees God's hand in it so powerfully, as even those of us far removed from it can also see, that he now says he believes God planned it that way from the beginning precisely for his purposes. I am coming to believe that about my own trials. I believe they are precisely what God planned for me because of the great value that will one day come from them. He loves me so much that he will not let me miss that which only suffering can enable.