a question of perspective...

So lets try to spot the difference between these two shots...

Yes, the top one is darker.  It's the master bedroom window at our vacation house in Hilton Head S. Carolina.  It's raining outside and my wife is feeling crappy.

This one is the living room window, looking out onto a lovely pool, hot tub and golf course.  It's raining outside and my wife is feeling crappy.

The reason for this post is because of something my wife's been saying all day.

She'd walk to our bedroom at the front of the house--watching the sky, looking for some sign of it breaking up--and say, "Hey it looks like it's starting to turn..."  Then she'd walk down into the living room and do the same thing, except this time looking out the window on the back of the house.  "Oh man..." she'd moan "No it looks worse from here..."

Same house, same weather system, two different perspectives.

(and funnily enough on the screen here the effect is reversed with the bedroom shot looking gloomier than the living room one)

So why does she feel differently about the two views?

Here's my theory...

The front view is in our bedroom.  We sleep there together on a super comfy bed.  Our baby joins us halfway through the night.  In the morning we lay there snuggling and our kids come in and fill the bed with us.  We do our pushups and sit ups in that room each night after we come in from the hot tub.

We love each other in that room.

It makes her happy.

This morning, down in the living room, my wife's Dad was waiting grumpy as all get out.  He's grumpy 'cause it's raining and this is his one vacation this year and the first time he's seen our kids in nine months and he's the kind of guy who must be 'doing' things at all times and almost exclusively outdoors which is why he's chosen to live 1,100 km's away from us on a lake in North Carolina.

So for him, this rain is death.

Following me?

My wife wakes up with her husband who loves her, looks out at the same rainy sky and feels happy and hopeful.  Meanwhile, downstairs, her Dad is simmering.

She comes down, meets him, gets infected with his mood and--voila--the back room view suffers.

See?

Perspective.

This is important for a few reasons.

One, if you're a preacher, you must keep in mind that your perspective and possibly your exegetical and interpretive work is always impacted by your environment, your life, and the things you're dealing with at any given time.  It's not my suggestion that you try to mitigate against this as that would be impossible and much of the beauty of preaching is in that strange mix of dust and divinity that occurs as we bring all our baggage to the process and God enlivens it with His Spirit for the sake of (and usually tailor-made for) the audience.

I'm just suggesting that we should be aware that this is happening so that we can be sensitive to the process with the hope of working with it in as optimized a manner as possible.

Two, if you're a producer, you should keep in mind that your perspective as you come to developing a story for the screen is going to be impacted by your environment and the key thing to be aware of here is that the environment that influenced your 'take' on the story at the start of your process is--of necessity--going to shift and change over time as you work your way through the process of bringing that story to life which means that the 'first environmental experience' must be potent enough to last and stay with you over the course of the years that are to follow as you develop the story and long after the initial perspective-shaping experience has faded into memory.

Three, if you're neither a preacher nor a producer, you should still stay aware of the factors that are impacting how you feel about your life.  Once you recognize that--perhaps like my wife--your husband (or wife) makes you happy you should do what you can to stay with them most of the time and, when life takes you away and there's nothing you can do about it, remember that it's their absence that's making you feel so low and use that perspective to shape how you're feeling in the moment.

(it's not that you 'hate' Vancouver it's just that you're there alone...)

If you're aware of how your perspective is manipulated by the company you keep or the environment in which you're situated you should be able to 'take charge' of how you're feeling (to some degree) so that your rainy days start looking a little better.

You'll also get better at recognizing what's driving the way in which your audience is feeling and that'll help you craft stories that resonate and sermons that turn rainy days...

To lovely ones.

T