A month or so ago I was getting ready to go out for Third Thursday, our local art walk, and snapped this photo quickly to post as a promo on Facebook. It was something along the lines of, “I’m breaking out the fun glasses for Third Thursday. See you downtown.” I took it with my phone, sitting in my home office, very quickly, just to have a graphic for the event I wasn’t yet at.
To me, it’s a poor photograph – you can see my computer screen reflected in the lenses, I’m looking up at an odd angle to see where to hit the phone screen to take the photo since I was using it in a way I ordinarily don’t, and the lighting is very odd. I posted it with Instagram (you can see the border around it here) and didn’t give it a second thought.
When I posted it, people started commenting how much they liked it. To other people it captured something of “me” that I don’t necessarily see. This caused me to look at the photo in a different way, and I see the appeal – at least to some degree. I’m thankful to have friends who help me look at things with new eyes, which happen to be blue and not green, as one might think from this picture.
Within a day or two it was my profile photo on Facebook, and it has continued to grow on me. I wouldn’t have thought twice about it if it weren’t for other people’s comments.
It gives me reason to think about how much what we say, and what we don’t say, to people matters. Another’s words may lead to something fun like a new profile photo, or they may touch people on a deeper level than we could ever understand. We often don’t understand our own power to impact people. And we have the chance every day to do good and to do evil. I pray we err on the side of good.
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