Hidden Treasures

A few months ago, I was sitting in a workshop class for photographers. The local PPA guild had invited a successful photographer to talk about how to become a successful photographer. To be honest, he didn’t really share any information I hadn’t heard yet and I left feeling a little discouraged and deflated. But, he did share one thing that was new. He suggested going through images, past and present, and writing about them. Telling the story around the image. He suggested that doing so will not only inform others about the image but might even inform yourself about the image; reminding (or revealing) to you what draws you to the image, why you created the image, how you feel about the image or any number of other discoveries about the work you do as a photographer.

Like I said, that was a few months ago now. And I haven’t done it yet. But, I have thought about it often. There are a few images that immediately come to mind when I do think about it and then I wonder if I could ever come up with enough words to justify writing about any others; past, present or future.

In the spirit of actually acting on something that I think about doing often, though, I’m writing about the image today. Or, maybe the more accurate thing to say is that I’m sharing about the image because I actually wrote about the image long ago, when I first took the photograph in Guatemala. I was a participant in The World Race and was required to blog about what we were doing as the year progressed. Below is the blog I posted on October 21, 2010.

It smells like fire.  It would almost be a pleasant smell if it weren’t for the distinct stench of decayed food, wet paper and rotten liquid all wrapped up in the burning smoke. We walk along a narrow road. 

On our left, there are homes. On our right, lies the city’s garbage. 
Tons of it. 

There are flies everywhere and vulture-like birds bounce through the mounds of trash picking whatever they can find to eat out of the muck. The heat on my face intensifies as I look to my right to see fire burning on top of the trash; ashes rain down from above. And not ten feet away, a young boy wearing a tattered pair of underwear and a tank top, probably four or five years of age, plays with his sister. Their mother looks on from the hut along the road. 

I cannot process anything I am seeing. My mind is cloudy like the smoke filled sky around me. My breathing is interrupted periodically by that smoke catching in my throat, causing me to cough. These people LIVE here! This is their life. My little group of six Americans stop at the end of the road and look back. Where do we even start, Lord? What can we do? We don’t speak Spanish and we can’t fix this.

“I did not die for this. I died for them.”

We decide to head back along the road and see if anyone would be open to us praying for them. We find a few along the way and, through broken Spanish and (hopefully) warm gestures, we successfully pray – primarily in English – for them. They all seem grateful, but, unfortunately, I feel as if we aren’t really making a difference. 

My group of six eventually meets back up with the other seven doing ministry that day in the middle of the road. They have a rope that we used the day before at the orphanage for limbo and jump rope. Before long, we have attracted the attention of several of the children living in the area. And, after some coaxing and modeling, we manage to get a handful of them in on the action. In the meantime, a couple of other teammates have begun to help a man search for plastic bottles, containers, whatever that can be re-sold (via recycling) in the piles of rubbish that lie beneath him. His two young children had been helping while watching the other kids jump. 

As I sit here processing through all of this, I can’t help but think about how that man (unknowingly, perhaps) portrays Jesus each day to his children as he searches through all of the rubbish to find the jewels that can be redeemed; redemption due to the choosing of one who sees a quality worth restoring. We saw all kinds of stuff in that trash – some of it not so bad, some of it downright nasty – but, none of it was gross enough to keep us from reaching through to grab the just visible piece of plastic, pull it out and toss it into the bag to be recycled. 

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” 1 Pet. 2:9 (emphasis mine)

I think of this image (among others) often. Maybe that’s because it’s one of the images on the travel wall we have in the house and I pass by it every day. This travel wall isn’t finished yet, obviously, but it’s where we plan to hang images we’ve taken during vacations, as well as, the missions or service trips we do. It’s been a bigger part of our lives than we anticipated and, though we’re both photographers, we get trapped in the same dungeon that many people find themselves in: we rarely, if ever, actually print any of the hundreds of thousands of digital images we create each year. This wall is an attempt to fix (some of) that.

But I think it’s also because of the message that the image reminds me of; a message of redemption. That, regardless of what others may think of us, regardless of how others may treat us or the words they speak over us, regardless of how we may even think, treat or speak about ourselves, the Lord sees beyond it all. He sees a treasure that is worth redeeming and He is willing to reach through the dirt and grime, the stench and the stigmas, the lies and the deceit to reveal the truth: your value is not determined by who, what or where you are nor is it determined by what you’ve done or haven’t done or what you’ve said or haven’t said.

Your value is determined by Whose you are. Period.

You are His. A beautiful, complicated, chaotic mess, maybe, but His mess regardless. A mess that He actively searches out and one that is worth the love and redemption that He offers freely to all. You need only to accept it.