Salt & Light

PENTAX MX + SMC PENTAX A 35-70/4 + KODAK GOLD 100
MADE THE PENTAX PHOTO GALLERY

 

So I finally started a blog. Some of the stuff here are old stuff that has been sitting since the beginning of my forays into the wild wild world of the net back in 1998. Back then the only thing my website contained were the Centennial fireworks photos. Because of the nuance of where I have been and what I am doing what better title for this blog than "Salt & Light"? It is a fitting metaphor for my blurbs and thoughts that combine both faith and photography. And yeah...it's Biblical too :-)



Salt represents faith

Faith is an intangible and can be, as it is usually, reduced to an abstract concept. It does not have to be that way--like salt it should:

  1. Stimulate the taste buds. It should excite and help an otherwise unsavory dish slide down easier.
  2. Sting the open sores. Whether they are cold sores in your mouth or cuts that stings in salt water.
  3. Stop decay. Act as a preservative as sprinkled on meat.
[That's 3 "St...s" hey! I'm a pastor and I preach right? And there's more to come]


Salt that fails its purpose is useless (Matthew 5:13). Faith that fails to stimulate, sting or stop decay might as well be an abstraction.


Light is ...well... photography :-)

Too obvious? Maybe not. Like of anything in this world, nothing is neutral and my photography is a result of 3 Graces:

  1. The grace of owning a camera (and lots of them).
  2. The grace of vision. What's the point of a camera if you are blind--both physically and artistically or even spiritually?
  3. The grace of revelation.
The last one is the most significant because it is encapsulated by the hymn "This is My Father's World." The beauty and the brokenness around is defined by that affirmation. God reveals his glory and at the same time God reveals his broken sacred heart. That is the starting point by which the world is to be viewed, whether one is into landscapes capturing the glory in creation or a journalist documenting the pain and suffering or the in-between where we celebrate life in the events that ranges from the mundane or scintillating.

Light is the language of the Kingdom of Light and what better medium is there than photography.


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