Too Big

The other night, my daughter and I were lucky enough to be able to be in the exact right spot at the exact right time to take in this sunset.  It was one of those sunsets where the colors spread far and wide in the sky and in the reflections in the lake.  It was just stunning.  But it was too big.  As I tried to take photos with my 18-135mm lens, I kept finding that if I wanted more of the sky, I had to sacrifice the reflection in the water or vice versa.  But what about the areas to the north and south that weren’t going to make it in?  It was too big.  

So, I attempted something that ended up working perfectly.  I took a grid panorama.  A normal panorama is just one row or column of photos stitched together.  A grid goes right to left to right to left to right until you have gotten the whole of the scene.  I have included some of the 28 photos that made up the grid.  And then with the wonders of Lightroom, it is stitched together into a gigantic panorama photo.  (The final version was about 400MB uncompressed).  

While each individual photo has some of the beauty, the full photo captures it even more so.  It captures the wide breadth of the beauty of that sunrise - to the sides and in the sky and in the water.  

But here’s the thing...even with those dozens of photos stitched together and even if I brought in dozens more, they still would not come close to the fullness of what we were taking in.  That’s how I feel about God - we can get glimpses and we can put different pieces together and see something bigger and more beautiful and more honest and more real than what we can see just on our own.  But we will never come close to capturing the fullness that is the divine.  

While Paul is writing about the things that God can do, I believe his words in Ephesians 3:20 can be modified a bit and still speak a faithful message...

Now to the One who by the power at work within us is abundantly far more than all we can comprehend or imagine, to that One be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Ephesians 3:20 (with my modifications)