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Wednesday 20 September 2017

Reel to Real



I am of the era when a movie meant a reel-to-reel projection onto a screen. Intermissions at the cinema enabled the projectionist to change to the next reel. As our family grew, we used to take quite a bit of ‘cine’ film, and nothing delighted the children more than to have a movie night where we would sit and watch their antics, the way they were in times gone by. 

The images travelled visibly between the projector and the screen, spooky holographs of people and events. A side view revealed a sort of tunnel of light in which these images were captured until they were displayed on a flat surface.

As Don threaded the film into the projector, the kids loved nothing better than to cavort in front of the light so that their shadows were dancing on the empty screen. When the movie started, the images wrapped over their bodies, which continued to cast dancing shadows on the screen and interrupted the viewing of the film. Everyone else would call out, ‘Sit down!’ and finally we would settle to watch a short film depicting the way we were. 

The kids in the present moment could not see themselves as they were in the present, except as outline shadows on an empty screen, or interrupting a film of the past. 

It’s so much easier to see ourselves, the way we were, than to see ourselves as we are now. Whatever our antics, past or present, when God looks at us he sees his daughters and sons.

When Jesus was asked who he was, he replied with the extremely loaded phrase, ‘I am’, signifying his understanding that he and the Father are one, and have been one from the beginning and until the end. 

It would be very healing and encouraging if we could see ourselves as he sees us, and that when we are asked who we are, our first thought would be ‘a daughter/son of the King’. Reel to Real.

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