Old-Fashioned Projectors

 

Those of a certain vintage will remember the reel-to-reel projectors which ran the movies at the cinemas. Dad had a home projector when we were growing up, and Don had one as our children were going up. There was a clickity clackity noise as the tape fed through the projector and the image appeared on the wobbly screen on the other side of the room. We laughed to see each other, and ourselves, actually moving.

Occasionally, the tape would jam, its threading through the projector having been faulty or loose. If not dealt with immediately, the film itself would begin to disintegrate, the heat of the lamp melting the fragile tape. When that happened, a new connection had to be made to splice the broken tape together, causing the action to jump from one thing to another.

Up praying in the night, I sensed God making a link between that image, and the tired old narrative that plays through my mind. A narrative that casts me in a certain position of responsibility, which makes me anxious, which makes me sad, which makes me intervene when I shouldn’t. I found myself asking God to let the light of Jesus burn a hole in that tape, breaking it off, so that he, the Great Projectionist, can set me free of false expectations and responsibilities. He can splice a new vision into my psyche, a new narrative which will shine through me and project Him wherever I go. I want to be out of the picture. I want him to be the one everyone sees.

God can renew our minds; he can heal our spirits; he can make us new. To him I surrender. I surrender to his will, to his purpose in me, to his Holy Spirit.

As lockdown lifts and we begin to gather again, may I walk to a different drum, may I live out a new narrative, may there be more of Him, and less of me.