A pale cat has decided it likes to spend the day under the laurel hedge. I don’t know where it has come from or where it goes in the evening but I get a sense that it likes to roam. I wonder what it thinks about its territory and how different are the places – the yards – the neighbourhood visited. Our front yard is more a building site as it recovers from all the blocked drainage work that was done recently. The yard looks different to me but what does the cat think since its eyeline and sense of smell are much closer to the terrain? What do the birds think from their perspective? What do the worms think? I know they are pretty random questions with no definitive answers but it does remind me of perspective.

I remember at school doing technical drawing (as it was called) and art (less so!) and learning how to draw perspective. It just made things look that bit ‘more real’ – very often a ground level point of view on paper. It was only when I flew in an aeroplane and more so when I saw the photos from the Apollo missions (some of which I would collect) that I had a perspective that wasn’t on ground level – I could imagine standing on the moon with super powered binoculars 🙂 scanning Australia and zooming in and zooming in and finding my backyard and spotting a young boy looking up at the moon!

I think this type of up and down perspective is basic to how many people think of God. God is ‘up there’ (and far away) and we are ‘down here’ (pretty much by ourselves). That’s the ‘geography’ so to speak. But there are other perspectives too – if God is holy – if God is a judge – if God is an accountant tallying up our good and bad whatever – then people can have a wide range of perspectives too – terror, fear, resentment. These versions of God give us a big picture perspective in which we are tiny and susceptible to all sorts of control. Yes, that’s the big perspective that the world has about God and religion – that it is a means of control and not in our best interests. (I am surprised at the increasing number of people I hear saying that they are offended by God and his cruel and horrible world – how dare he exist?! Which, from my perspective, is a specious argument and poor logic if they don’t believe gods exist, how can they blame him? It also reveals no hope for the cruel and horrible world that exists which they are complaining about!)

When people encounter Jesus their perspective of God is challenged. No longer ‘up there’ Jesus is face to face with us whether we are sitting, standing, or kneeling, Jesus doesn’t lord himself over us but comes close – sometimes uncomfortably close (when we are ashamed or guilty), sometimes especially close (when we seek forgiveness or blessing), sometimes personally, almost intimately, close (as we receive Holy Communion) – and he is always seeking what is best for us. It is this perspective – that Jesus always is doing what is best for us – that can be both comforting and also drive us up the wall (when he’s not doing what we want when we want it). But when we have the perspective of seeing Jesus on the cross, we are reminded that God will bring good from everything, that we are always in God’s perspective with his grace and mercy. This truth, this faith, then helps us live and gives us the perspective that whatever is happening in the world and in our lives, God is with us, close, not far away, and helping us each day.

GS