arning! Mathematics question ahead! This alert may
\W leave some with a feeling of mild panic. If that is
true, please don't despair. Why? Because you can
check your answer and your participation will be rewarded.
Here is the critical knowledge you need: the angular meas-
ure between the floor and a vertical wall is 90 degrees. Let's
begin: What is your estimate of the angle measure between
the two lines?
If your answer is about 45
degrees, you are correct. Well
done! Now, before revealing the
purpose of my question, | want to
tell you about Robert Adams!—a
photographer who documented
the American West in more than
50 books of pictures. Robert grew
up in Colorado and when his
family moved to California, he saw
a "landscape of mistakes”. He thought this must be the worst
place in the world, yet slowly he came to love the landscape
he earlier hated. What made the difference? He began taking
photos of the urban sprawl around him. Adams remarked,
"You could take pictures of suburban tract homes, which are in
many ways inhumane, but they were showered with high-al-
titude sunlight that transformed them in ways that | can't put
into words.” He used the frame of his camera lens to create
a coherent whole using the elements of the scene he was
viewing. For Adams, the resulting wholeness in his pictures
became a metaphor for wholeness in life.
Now | invite you to experience this process of reframing.
16 Adventist Record | December 23, 2023
Consider again the two
lines presented at the start
of this article. Let us add a
few additional lines to cre-
ate a new context. Do you
see a representation of a
three-dimensional box? If
so, what angle measure do
you now see between the
two original lines?
If your answer is 90
degrees, you are cor-
rect. But wait. What just
happened? How can the angle measure change from 45 to 90
degrees when the lines have not changed? Is maths always
this confusing? The truth is this is not really about mathemat-
ics at all. It is about the power of perspective. Nothing about
the two lines has changed except the context in which you
viewed them.
| wonder if we can use this process of reframing to help
perceive wholeness and beauty in life, just as Robert Adams
uses his camera lens to reframe his photographic subjects.
While pondering such ideas, | encountered two “re—"
words that gave me a powerful insight. Firstly, what do | mean
by “re-" words? Consider this joke to illustrate.
A couple is having a baby soon. After learning they're hav-
ing a boy, the husband says, "Let's name him Pete!” But the
wife says, "Honey, we're having twins.” The husband replies,
"Well, we can call the second RePete."?
The "re-" prefix adds the sense of "again”. So, the word