Saints
02/11/14 04:31
When we were in college, we put together a promotion for our church camp that involved a camp simulation. We constructed a room-sized bubble out of clear plastic by taping the seams. Then we inflated the bubble using a common box fan. Once it was inflated, we could turn the fan to its lowest speed and it would keep the bubble inflated. We invited “campers” to go inside of the bubble. I would then project images of camp on the bubble using a simple slide projector. We didn’t have the fancy equipment and video projectors that are now common. The slides changed with a second of darkness between each slide. But the experience was, for the time, unique and our project was successful. To add a bit to the simulation, I would spray a few bursts of pine-scented air freshener into the fan filling the bubble with an aroma what was vaguely reminiscent of camp.
That experience began a career of using projection in a wide variety of ways. My first rear-projection screen was a white bedsheet on a frame made out of PVC pipe. I would construct the frame, stretch the cloth, and set it up. I had to remember to load slides into the projector backwards in order to have them display correctly. I also used an overhead projector for titles and words, reversing the transparencies as well.
We’ve come a long ways in projector and screen technology since those days. We now have commercially-produced rear-projection screens, but they have been rendered obsolete by the many different options in very thin, very large television displays. The use of computers enables the use of multiple displays and putting together a program of still and video projection with a wide variety of music can be done with off-the-shelf software that makes all of the things we used to do seem primitive by comparison.
Learning about the technology of rear projection, however, gave me a good way to think about some very important concepts. To understand those ideas requires a different story.
Recently, I was planning a funeral with the daughter of a woman who had passed away. Another member of our congregation had suggested some hymns for the service, but they weren’t connecting with the grieving daughter. One of the suggested hymns didn’t make any sense at all to her. The hymn, “For All the Saints” is a favorite of mine and one that we have used for funerals of family members. The woman planning the funeral, however, had just returned from one of many trips that she has taken to Greece, where she has spent some time viewing Orthodox churches and learning about traditional Orthodox iconography. She had an image of saints in her mind that was inspired by ancient icons. Those images and the ideas she had about saints had no connection with the experience of having her mother die. She new that the icons were meaningful to the faithful, but they had no connection to her life or the experience of the death of her mother and the grief through which she was traveling. Of course we considered other musical options and planned a service that was meaningful to the daughter.
Later I got to thinking about icons and idols. I’ve blogged on the topic several times. The power of an icon is its ability to direct your attention to the transcendent. It isn’t the icon, but rather the deeper truth that it symbolizes, that is the reason for the icon. Icons exist not to bring attention to themselves, but to direct attention beyond themselves to the transcendent reality. When icons fail to do so, they become idols - objects that fall short of the glory and reality of God. When people worship idols, they miss the deepest truths of faith.
There are, in this life, some people who have that ability to show the light of the love of Christ in their lives. Since we are made in the image of God, each of us carries a spark of the divine. When we allow that light to show - when we live lives of love - people can look beyond us to the love of God that shines in our lives.
It is like a projection. The screen isn’t the source of the light. It either reflects the light or allows the light to pass through it, depending on which type of projection is being used. The image that we see with our eyes is not the reality. When we set up our bubble, the people inside knew that they weren’t at camp. They were participating in a way of thinking about the camp experience. They knew it was a simulation.
The saints in our lives are not God. But they live their lives in such a way that we are able to know a little bit more about the nature of God because we have had the experience of knowing that person.
Today we celebrate all saints. In our tradition those saints aren’t just people who have been recognized by official church structures. They are everyday people who by the living of their everyday lives have allowed the light of God’s love to shine in their relationships with others. We celebrate the contributions they have made to our understanding of the nature of God. We understand that we all live in the midst of a network of relationships and that those relationships help us to be the people that we have become.
We have learned about love by being loved. And God is love. Those who have loved have shown God in very real and practical ways. So when we sing “For All the Saints,” and “Gather with the saints by the river,” and “I sing a song of the saints of God” today, we are singing about the people who have helped us learn the nature of God.
We also recognize that we have the power to allow the light of God’s love to become real for others. As the hymn concludes, “And I mean to be one too.”
That experience began a career of using projection in a wide variety of ways. My first rear-projection screen was a white bedsheet on a frame made out of PVC pipe. I would construct the frame, stretch the cloth, and set it up. I had to remember to load slides into the projector backwards in order to have them display correctly. I also used an overhead projector for titles and words, reversing the transparencies as well.
We’ve come a long ways in projector and screen technology since those days. We now have commercially-produced rear-projection screens, but they have been rendered obsolete by the many different options in very thin, very large television displays. The use of computers enables the use of multiple displays and putting together a program of still and video projection with a wide variety of music can be done with off-the-shelf software that makes all of the things we used to do seem primitive by comparison.
Learning about the technology of rear projection, however, gave me a good way to think about some very important concepts. To understand those ideas requires a different story.
Recently, I was planning a funeral with the daughter of a woman who had passed away. Another member of our congregation had suggested some hymns for the service, but they weren’t connecting with the grieving daughter. One of the suggested hymns didn’t make any sense at all to her. The hymn, “For All the Saints” is a favorite of mine and one that we have used for funerals of family members. The woman planning the funeral, however, had just returned from one of many trips that she has taken to Greece, where she has spent some time viewing Orthodox churches and learning about traditional Orthodox iconography. She had an image of saints in her mind that was inspired by ancient icons. Those images and the ideas she had about saints had no connection with the experience of having her mother die. She new that the icons were meaningful to the faithful, but they had no connection to her life or the experience of the death of her mother and the grief through which she was traveling. Of course we considered other musical options and planned a service that was meaningful to the daughter.
Later I got to thinking about icons and idols. I’ve blogged on the topic several times. The power of an icon is its ability to direct your attention to the transcendent. It isn’t the icon, but rather the deeper truth that it symbolizes, that is the reason for the icon. Icons exist not to bring attention to themselves, but to direct attention beyond themselves to the transcendent reality. When icons fail to do so, they become idols - objects that fall short of the glory and reality of God. When people worship idols, they miss the deepest truths of faith.
There are, in this life, some people who have that ability to show the light of the love of Christ in their lives. Since we are made in the image of God, each of us carries a spark of the divine. When we allow that light to show - when we live lives of love - people can look beyond us to the love of God that shines in our lives.
It is like a projection. The screen isn’t the source of the light. It either reflects the light or allows the light to pass through it, depending on which type of projection is being used. The image that we see with our eyes is not the reality. When we set up our bubble, the people inside knew that they weren’t at camp. They were participating in a way of thinking about the camp experience. They knew it was a simulation.
The saints in our lives are not God. But they live their lives in such a way that we are able to know a little bit more about the nature of God because we have had the experience of knowing that person.
Today we celebrate all saints. In our tradition those saints aren’t just people who have been recognized by official church structures. They are everyday people who by the living of their everyday lives have allowed the light of God’s love to shine in their relationships with others. We celebrate the contributions they have made to our understanding of the nature of God. We understand that we all live in the midst of a network of relationships and that those relationships help us to be the people that we have become.
We have learned about love by being loved. And God is love. Those who have loved have shown God in very real and practical ways. So when we sing “For All the Saints,” and “Gather with the saints by the river,” and “I sing a song of the saints of God” today, we are singing about the people who have helped us learn the nature of God.
We also recognize that we have the power to allow the light of God’s love to become real for others. As the hymn concludes, “And I mean to be one too.”