A Stumbling Block

A viral image of apparently bored school kids in front of Rembrandt’s most famous painting is being shared online for all the wrong reasons. The photo of the children looking down at their screens in front of ‘The Night Watch’ masterpiece has been described as a ‘metaphor for our age’ on social media…It turns out the children were actually researching a school assignment when the photo was taken.

Photographer Gijsbert van der Wal explained: “A small group of high school students were sitting on the benches in front of Rembrandt’s Nightwatch. Almost all of them were either looking at their own smartphones or their classmates’. I thought it was a curious sight and took a photograph. That same evening, I posted the photo on Facebook where, to my utter surprise, within a few days it was shared almost 9,500 times. The image was also reposted by others and shared on Twitter, Tumblr and Reddit. It went viral, with people often adding rather dispirited captions: today’s youth is more interested in Whatsapp than they are in Rembrandt. On the other hand there were people who warned not to be misled by the image: they asserted that the students were in fact attentive to the art works, using the museum’s freely downloadable multimedia tour. That seems a plausible explanation. However, I think a well-designed museum app should continuously direct the attention of the user from the phone to the actual objects on display.
(https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/12103150/Rembrandt-The-Night-Watch-The-real-story-behind-the-kids-on-phones-photo.html)

Someone else posted a picture of the same group of students.
They were sitting in front of another painting, completely mesmerized.
That picture did not have the same viral response as the first one.
The students did not have their phones in the second picture.

We live in a digital age.
We have information at our fingertips.
Moments are captured instantaneously on our phones.
That is both a blessing and a curse.

With the phone in our hands or in front of our eyes, how much are we missing?
How much are we actually seeing when we look at things through a camera lens?
We are chronicling but are we experiencing?
What suffers because we are always trying to capture the perfect moment or the perfect shot?

We think people are interested in all the details of our lives.
They may be curious for a while.
After that, we may actually be causing them to stumble.
We chronicle the edited version of our life, not the dailies.

Young moms feel inadequate compared to those moms who make everything seem perfect.
My windows had hand prints all over them when my children were young.
My floor was sticky with jelly.
My rug had toys and books strewn about.

It was wonderful.
If I took a picture of a perfectly clean house and well groomed children, would it have been true?
Is the search for perfection making someone else feel insecure?
Is that search for perfection a stumbling block for others?

In the presence of the beauty of the Rembrandt painting, the students were looking down.
Perhaps, they were on the museum’s app.
Would it not have been better to have them put their phones away?
Would it not have been better for the students to actually experience the beauty for themselves?

That photo caused many to assume they knew what the students were doing.
Since our culture is so obsessed with their phones, it was not a far fetched assumption.
If we are always looking down, we miss so much.
If we are always looking through a camera lens, we stage perfection when it is not there.

Our lives are not always as they appear on social media.
We would do well to realize that fact.
We would do well to ask ourselves if our posts are a stumbling block to others?
If the answer is, yes, then we need to make some adjustments.

Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister. (Romans 14:13)

Let’s put parameters on our phones and devices.
Let’s experience what is in front of us with our own two eyes and not through a camera lens.
Let’s be honest about the amount of time it took to get that perfect shot.
Let’s assess what is going by the wayside when we are trying to put our best face forward.

The assumptions about the students were not totally accurate.
The assumptions we make as we look at someone on social media can be inaccurate as well.
It is wise to pause both in our assessments and in our chronicling.
The question worth asking is: Is this causing someone else to stumble?

There is so much to see with our own two eyes.
Let’s put down the phone.
Let’s experience life without chronicling every detail.
God has give us so much beauty to actually see and experience.

Let’s not miss a minute of what He puts before us.