Face of God: Grandpa Bill

a portrait reflection on the Face of God.

With the debut of this new portrait series titled The Face of God, I wanted to explain in more detail what it is I hope to accomplish in this series. Simply put, I will endeavor to find the Face of God—that Face beyond all faces which became flesh uniquely in the single face of Jesus Christ, and yet is still reflected in the guise of every human face.

I took these portraits the other day with my Grandpa Bill and as I pulled out my camera, it sparked a conversation with him unlike any I’ve had with him for quite some time. He shared stories of the days when he too would carry his camera around and photograph ‘everything’ as he put it. He shared stories with me of his early adult life and the very laborious jobs he worked on the prairies of Southern Alberta. As ordinary as these stories may seem to some, they are truly the most beautiful to me. In a world that constantly emphasizes a life of excitement and constant pleasure or grand adventure, we have nearly lost all sight of the beauty of the ordinary and mundane moments of life, moments that fill the majority of our lives. It is often the most simple people who remind us of this fact, and it is a gift that they bring to the world.

Rather than analyzing moments and asking why something was, can we simply sit in peace and just absorb the beauty of that moment? In our world today, we tend to think that we must make something of everything. That we must have answers for everything, but it is in people like my grandpa who somehow are able to sit in peace with the seemingly ordinary things of life. They don’t need answers to everything, but simply cherish the gift of that present moment. Many times the value spent with my grandpa consists in things as simple as sitting together on the patio watching the grass grow, watching the clouds go by, sitting in silence, talking about old times, or watching an old movie in his room. It is not every day that he is well enough to speak all of these stories that he has treasured in his heart.

While he suffers from dementia, this conversation seemed to spark new life in him and he was radiant with joy. Even with his dementia, however, he has contentment and peace that expresses a long life well lived. A life of flavor and beauty.

The value of time spent with someone, especially the elderly, isn’t dependent on what they can offer or bring, but in the silence that their life speaks to us. It’s in those seemingly most ordinary moments and faces that speak to us of a seasoned life, full of simple adventure, even if that was simply grounded in the local life of their family and not spent traveling the world from end to end. 

The tender, gentle presence of my grandpa is quiet and simple, but so abundant with beauty.

My grandpa is a man of so much story and texture. From his many years working for the CP Railway, to his years raising my mom and uncle on the farm with his wife Angela. When I gaze into the face of my grandpa, I see a deep set of eyes that have seen so much, a pair of hands whose lines chiseled tell more of a story than words could ever tell, and a face that in moments like this, continues to be so full of life.

The Face of God is an endeavor I am undertaking to contemplate that most tender Face beyond all faces, which became flesh uniquely in the single face of Jesus Christ, and yet also reflected in the guise of every face since the dawn of Adam. There is no person better that I could begin with, than this man, my dear Grandpa Bill.

The Face of God is the Face that lights up every face, makes it radiant, full of life, hope, and vitality. It’s the face that directs ours to the horizon in search of the Beautiful, through all things which make it known.

For me, this is one of my greatest joys as a photographer. I get to look at the human person nearly every day, and not so much as make something of it, but to gaze upon it, love it, contemplate it, and allow it to lead me to God.