So I get hold of this photo of my Grandad from the First World War. There he is, sitting in some lean-to affair in Northern France in his shirtsleeves. The guy next to him is in the full kit and looking very much the business. Grandad is 
pretty much as I remember him from childhood – wry smile, ears to die for, sleeves up and ready to work. Don’t get me wrong. He was very capable of an extremely smart turnout. His polished boots were something to write home about. But he was always, as far as I am concerned, a man of the soil. A real countryman. And years in the northeast of England never defeated his slow Norfolk drawl. 
Anyway. I have this picture and want to find out as much as possible about what is going on in it. What stories does it have to tell us of how these men lived and …? Obviously, I know that Rowland survived, but of the other man I know nothing personal at all about him. He remains a mystery.
Well, I scan in the snap and come up with a fairly hazy shot – two men, a field and a shed.
I scan it again and ask the scanner to give me more Dots per Inch.
Now I’ve got two men, a field, a shed and more detail than I had before.
At 4,800 dots per inch the scanner told me the computer couldn’t handle any more. But hey, now I’ve got a clear picture of the cap badge (8th Norfolk Regiment), the flash on the uniform sleeve (Regimental Signaller), Grandad’s rifle (definitely not the standard issue British Lee Enfield), the SA Tucker box in the corner, a card on top of the shed which seems to be French (“Haut…????????”) and what might be the field telephone on the side of the shed.
I scan it again and ask the scanner to give me more Dots per Inch.
Now I’ve got two men, a field, a shed and more detail than I had before.
At 4,800 dots per inch the scanner told me the computer couldn’t handle any more. But hey, now I’ve got a clear picture of the cap badge (8th Norfolk Regiment), the flash on the uniform sleeve (Regimental Signaller), Grandad’s rifle (definitely not the standard issue British Lee Enfield), the SA Tucker box in the corner, a card on top of the shed which seems to be French (“Haut…????????”) and what might be the field telephone on the side of the shed.
Oh, if they could only speak! Well the moral of this story is, the higher the resolution of the scanner, the clearer the picture becomes and each stage was accompanied by either laughter or tears or a mixture of both.
And so, for me, it has been with Jesus. Every situation along the way seems to have upped the resolution of my on-board scanner so that I find I can look at Him in a much more enlarged format than before. Instead of looking like a pixelated, cubist stippling of some vague character from history I find the picture tells a fuller, sweeter story.
There you go.
Thanks Grandad.
Much Love,
Pete
P.S. I love the ears.
1 comment:
Hey Mark's Dad,
I was at Mark & Bethany's wedding, and you said you were encouraged whenever our eyes met during your message. Don't know if you remember that, but anyay.
Mark sent a link here from his facebook and I figured your message at the wedding was very refreshing, so I thought I'd have a lookie.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts here. I really appreciate the wisdom you have to offer, and I'll be checking back here more often.
Ben "Pencil" Poulsen
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