A Spark of Positive Exposure

When I fire up my PC at home each day it opens to the USA Today homepage. The supposedly “important” news of the moment is highlighted in a string of titles in bold font. This morning I was greeted by the following choices for my reading enjoyment and personal enhancement:

§ Israel strike kills 56; at least 34 children
§ UN calls emergency meeting
§ Secretary Rice postpones peacekeeping trip
§ Car bomb explodes near Kirkuk consulate
§ More troops to Baghdad
§ Colorado mass killer case
§ Drought and heat plagues Midwest
§ Cruise passenger missing
§ Homes destroyed in Nebraska
§ Six gunned down in New Orleans
§ Seattle on edge after shootings
§ Phoenix residents seek killers
§ Maryland man sets girlfriend on fire

Ah, yes, learning opportunities abound in that list of offerings from my world on this 30th day of July, 2006. Dropping down on the USA Today homepage, I was allowed to pick from lighter fare from the world of entertainment and sports. Those choices were:

§ Mel Gibson arrested for DUI
§ Lindsay Lohan slammed for unprofessional acts
§ Too much ‘Vice’ and not enough ‘Miami’
§ Justin Gatlin fails drug test
§ Floyd Landis asserts innocence
§ Reggie Bush signs deal with Saints

Only the last item on that list seemed relatively benign. Of course, when you discover that it’s a deal for somewhere between $50 and 60 million, for one man to play football for a few years for a woe-begotten team, then you know that it, too, is filled with its own special brand of insanity. That kind of money could help more than a few big boatloads of woeful people in New Orleans.

Sensing the need for an immediate antidote for the infusion of poison that had been dumped in my head and heart by nothing more than the headlines, I turned to a counterculture source that rarely disappoints – Spirituality & Health, a monthly magazine I’ve been getting for a few years. I opened the June issue randomly to an article entitled, “See Beauty Everywhere”, which is great way to balance a news day that offers the exact opposite – “Beauty Nowhere to be Found”. Immediately, there’s a flash of light, a spark of hope in a story about fashion photographer, Rick Guidotti. “Huh,” you say? Stick with me on this one.

In 1997 Guidotti happened upon a 12-year old girl waiting for a bus and what he felt at first glance he describes as “the elation of pure beauty.” His second thought immediately took the air out of that elation as he realized, “This glorious girl is never going to be included in our culture’s definition of beauty.” He believes his life changed in that moment of realization.

The girl in his glance has no pigmentation in her hair, skin or eyes, and yet he found her “stunning”. He decided to do something about the gap between how he experienced this girl and how he believed others in our culture were likely to experience her, and countless others like her. The result is the Positive Exposure organization and the related photography project that can be found and enjoyed at http://www.positiveexposure.org/. I invite everyone who reads this to take a few minutes to discover the beauty captured by Guidotti’s redirected lens.

Over the years I’ve reiterated one of my principle beliefs – we are all more alike than we are different. That belief is captured in this project. While the external differences in people seen in this project are obvious, the underlying and much deeper commonality we all share is also captured – it’s in the eyes; it’s in the laughter and the smiles; it’s in the hand gestures – it’s in the spirit that emanates from the array of fellow sojourners who are introduced to us through this project. Once that commonality is grasped, then a door opens to a much-needed celebration of our differences and a redefining of beauty in people. We can come to a point where uniqueness becomes a hallmark of beauty and the idea of a stigmatic appearance becomes unthinkable.

Put down the newspaper; turn off the news shows; close the Internet offerings of gloom and doom, and take some time to enjoy a few other people who share far more with us than we might assume at first glance at a bus stop. One of them may change your life, or at least redirect your lens.