A Different Vantage Point

Sometimes I seem to have such random thoughts that even I wonder where they come from and today was one of those days.  For some reason on the way to church the movie Vantage Point came to mind.  I believe it was a combination of events of the past week, reading material, conversations and life in general that seemed to randomly produce the thought process that included this particular movie. 

It was a movie that I enjoyed the first time I watched it because of its interesting twist.  Without giving away too much of the storyline, the thing I liked about it was the fact that the same events were shown through the eyes of different people and each time you got another person's perspective the storyline was given a deeper dimension.  The interesting thing with Vantage Point is that you get to the end of the movie and realize that in the end the reality everyone thought was true as viewed from their personal perspective actually changed when you put together all of the different perspectives that surrounded one 15 minute slice of time. 

I think especially a couple of conversations I've had this week have shown me how one dimensional my view of life can be.  It's almost like I recognize and acknowledge on some level that other people exist and matter and even have different perspectives, but it's a little harder to add their dimension to the storyline of my life.  To do that means I must make myself vulnerable.  I am required to share parts of myself that I would rather keep hidden or at the very least acknowledge to others that those fears and insecurities exist in me.  It means I'm exposed in some way and once that happens the person I've shared a part of myself with becomes a part of my story and in doing so has the potential to affect my perspective.

Think about it though.  How would our lives and relationships change if we could find a way to step away from ourselves and add the dimension of someone else's perspective to our world? It doesn't mean we have to agree 100% with their viewpoint, but sometimes in just hearing someone's perspective we can better relate to that person on other levels and makes us more conscience of the different levels that exist in the bigger story God has in which we play a part.  After all as much as I like to think it some days my story is not the biggest, most important one in the world.  It is only a small part of God's bigger story in which every one has their 15 minute segment that corresponds with mine, but involves their perspective and in putting those perspectives together the bigger picture starts to evolve.  Of course it evolves whether I put those perspectives together or not, but how much more effective could I be if I saw even one other person's perspective on my 15 minute segment of life?