Shifting Shadows & Dusty Mirrors

My daughter has already surpassed me in height, but judging by the shadow, you’d probably come up with a different conclusion. The most interesting thing about shadows is that it can make the smallest thing look grand depending on where the object stands. We know not to rely on shadows to give us an accurate depiction of something.

Skinny mirrors… Who doesn’t love them? I haven’t fact-checked if most department stores have them as a standard in their dressing rooms, but it would be a market strategy to have them since it shows people a perceived favorable image of themselves. When they like what the mirror shows, they end up buying the stuff. It’s the same with dusty mirrors. If we look at ourselves using a dusty mirror, what we see is an image projected that incurs the mirror’s dirt. We can never see a clear and truthful reflection of ourselves.

“We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.”

Isaiah 64:6

“The fool has said in his heart,
“There is no God.”
They are corrupt,
They have done abominable works,
There is none who does good.

2 The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men,
To see if there are any who understand, who seek God.

3 They have all turned aside,
They have together become corrupt;
There is none who does good,
No, not one.“

Psalm 14:1-3

God considers David to be a man after His own heart (Acts 13:22, 1 Samuel 13:14) who interestingly lived a life suited for a telenovela and here we see the Holy Spirit use David for the generations of the world to reveal the reality of the human condition. Jesus substantiates David’s psalm by saying in Mark 10:18,

“No one is good except God alone.”

This verse tells us that anyone who makes the assertion that people are inherently good is going against the revelation of God. They may reject the authority of Scripture, but their rejection doesn’t in any way make the universal reality null and void. They may continue living their lives holding to their subjective reality, but life’s evils continue to prove them otherwise.

“For what if some did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect? 4 Certainly not! Indeed, let God be true but every man a liar.”

Romans 3:3-4

Both shifting shadows and dusty mirror perfectly illustrate the faulty premise of atheistic and humanist ideologies. The relative basis of their non-standard shows us that evil can be good and good can be evil depending on who holds the authority. Most people used to think that Communism/Socialism is the epitome of dystopia, but apparently not in this day and age.

Related read: On The Golden Rule