Random Ramblings from the Resident Raptor
By Allen Scott
As they came to Bethsaida, some people brought a blind man to Jesus. They begged Jesus to touch him. Jesus took the blind man’s hand and led him out of the village. He spit into the man’s eyes and placed his hands on him. Jesus asked him, “Can you see anything?” The man looked up and said, “I see people. They look like trees walking around.” Then Jesus placed his hands on the man’s eyes a second time, and the man saw clearly. His sight was normal again. He could see everything clearly even at a distance. Mark 8:22-25 (GW)
The box-type camera was developed in the late 19th century and marketed under many names, but most successfully by Eastman Kodak Co. as the "Brownie". George Eastman took the simple operation of the box camera, combined it with a name and an advertising campaign that would appeal to children, sold it for a dollar and made millions.
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These basic cameras where very simple to use and took surprisingly good pictures as can be seen in this picture taken in 1981 with a "Brownie" camera. Kodak was the leader in amateur photography for many years and basically controlled the market on film cameras.
Although film cameras were able to take excellent pictures and are still being used today one little girl who wished to see her vacation pictures sooner rather than later preyed on the mind of the girl’s father. Edwin Land pondered his daughter’s idea and started to work on a process to combine the film and the processing into one easy step. Eventually the Polaroid One Step camera came into existence and instant photography was birthed.
The process developed by Land required special film which contained the chemicals needed to develop the picture once it was pulled from the camera. Pinch rollers were placed in the base of the camera which would squeeze the chemicals out of its storage pouch and spread them evenly across the picture. During the development process the film could not be exposed to direct sunlight or the whole picture would turn black and become unusable.
Land’s instant picture camera became all the rage. Traditional film cameras where under heavy competition to give their users quicker results which led Kodak to introduce their own brand of instant cameras which later proved a violation of Polaroid’s patients and had to be discontinued. Later the one hour photo studios started to dot the landscape in attempts to get pictures into the hands of the consumer quicker. But nothing could compete with INSTANT.
Film cameras started to decline in use as the Digital Photography age started to advance. With the advent of digital imaging Land’s daughter’s original hope and desire to see her vacation pictures right away was finally realized. Photographers no longer had to wait and see what developed, they could see instantly what the camera saw. Instant cameras now meant just that instant pictures.
The operation of a camera can be likened to the operation of the human eye, with the camera lens resembling the eye’s lens, the shutter resembling the eyelid, and the film resembling the retina, and apertures can be likened to the iris of the eye, which controls the amount of light that transfers to the retina.
Our Mark passage paints a picture of Jesus healing a blind man. The narrative goes into great detail describing the process Jesus used to develop the picture we later see as a miracle. He starts off by spitting in the man’s face and places his hands on him and asked him if he could see anything.
The blind man responds back that yes indeed an image was starting to develop and it appeared to him like trees walking. The image was not yet clear, the development process had not yet been complete, but the blind man was able to see a fuzzy picture. So then Jesus placed his hands on the man’s eyes a second time and the blind man was able to see things clearly this time. The development process was complete. The picture was fully developed and the image could clearly be seen.
How might this same scene play out in a digital age? How do you suppose this miracle would be viewed in our age of instant results? How do you suppose the blind man would react in today’s hurry-up world? Do you suppose the blind man would have waited for the second touch or walked away in disgust because the first process did not work? Had it taken a week or more to see the final picture developed and it came out fuzzy how do you suppose the blind man would have felt? Even if it took an hour to develop the picture and it came out fuzzy do you suppose the blind man would have rejoiced in the finished product? Prior to digital cameras a bad picture or a poorly developed one would have had to be discarded it could not be retaken because by the time the picture came back from the lab the scene which it depicted was already past.
This is what made the Polaroid camera so appealing. The fact that you could get almost instant results and if the picture turned out to be bad you had another opportunity to retake the scene and try again. Not so with the "Brownie".
The blind man was not left with a fuzzy image he could not use but rather Jesus retook the picture and developed it into a fully functional, full color, completely clear image which was gladly received by the blind man. Jesus made sure the picture was clear before he left the blind man to continue his ministry. Can you imagine what kind of a testimony the blind man would have given Jesus if he was left with partial sight. Yes partial sight is better than no sight but how would the blind man relate the scene? Would others look at a fuzzy picture and praise the photographer? Would a developer of film win awards for fuzzy pictures coming out of his lab every day? I doubt that very much.
Jesus took his time and showed great love and compassion for the blind man by making sure that the picture he saw was the best it could be. I fear though that in today’s fast paced digital age we have lost our patience and require instantaneous results and instant gratification. We desire that all goes well and if we run into a problem we expect to get immediate answers to our problems. We do not desire to wait and see what develops.
Unfortunately that is not how things work in the kingdom of God. We read in 1 Cor 13:12 (AMP)
Continue reading “Wait and See What Develops” →
Filmmaker Stanley Nelson is in the process of producing Freedom Riders, a documentary about the 1961 Freedom Riders who brought public attention to the atrocities of segregation.
