A Haunting Image

Before getting ready to eat some breakfast and get ready for baseball this morning I decided to try demo some new software I downloaded last night. I needed a few images to play with and decided on this one and a few others.

We saw this beggar outside of a store that Vicki and Tina wanted to go into. There was something about him...his look...that really made me want to take a picture of him. Thanks to the 200mm range of my lens I thought I'd be able to fool him by backing way up and then acting as if I was taking a shot of Jerry, who was standing immediately left of the frame. It was later at the hotel, after loading my images onto the computer that I realized the guy was staring straight at me the entire time!

This image is somewhat haunting to me. After converting to black and white, even more so. It makes me think about something a very dear friend said about giving money to homeless people...that God doesn't call us to make him/her be accountable for what we give them...we're the ones accountable for giving in the first place.

Of course that doesn't mean we should give senselessly. Something that friend does often is give food since money can be used for many purposes, good or bad. You know, I didn't give that guy even one euro cent. I don't know why. I wish now that I would have. I don't know why instead of doing anything to help him I just looked at him and photographed him.

Maybe that haunting feeling is more the Holy Spirit speaking to me deep inside as I look at this image and feel the reality that my heart wasn't in the right place when I captured this moment. Maybe instead of an exposure depicting this beggar's struggle we're actually looking backwards into the soul of the one holding the camera. I am a follower of Jesus Christ. My mission is not to observe the condition of another...but to engage them with the love of my Savior.

I guess my point here today is just to give you some encouragement today...encouragement to make sure that you're not just observing the people around you. We need to follow in the footsteps of The One that touched us when everyone else was walking past. It's difficult and sometimes we don't even know what to do. Maybe the answer is found in a few cents or dollars, or in a hot cup of coffee and a sandwich, or in a conversation about one's life that could lend opportunity to speak of healing through faith in God's Son.