Wide-Eyed Angles

I remember being informed that a good motto in life is to ^‘kiss^’. As all well-informed Rotarians are aware, the motto stands for ‘Keep it simple, stupid!^’ Now, I'm no photographer, but once I wanted to buy a camera—an ordinary inexpensive one—which would take what I desired. ‘Keep it simple, stupid!^’ I was advised.

But it must have been a slow sales day in the camera shop, for I was having a hard time resisting the blandishments of the salesman. He tried in vain to flog me one that was digitalised, computerised and which would have left me marginalized. As I humoured him with a few dumb questions, he told me of the wonders of the wide-angle lens, by which I can sort of get the whole of the Olympic Park Site in Stratford in one shot—if that's what I wanted.

In the end, I didn't buy one. But thinking about it afterwards, it occurred to me that we should try to look at life with a wide-angle lens. Many people seem content to go through life with a narrow, blinkered view of the world and the people they meet. You know the sort I mean: the ones who insist that their viewpoint is the only sensible one. Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that we believe every last thing we've been told. Paul warned the Christians of his day against being whirled about by every fresh gust of teaching. We have to stand for something, otherwise we'll fall for anything. But we need to have a wide-angled view of life, and know that we don't have a monopoly of the truth. When opinions differ, we need to try and find solutions that, like the wide-angle lens, include more than just our own narrow view of things. God is the one who brings perspective into our lives and who listens, understands and can correct our distorted view of things.

So let's ‘kiss’, and let's journey on without the blinkers of prejudice and mistrust.