At my church St Matthews Asian Congregation (SMAC), we are starting a new series titled Ecclesiastes: The Search for Meaning. Ecclesiastes is a book of the bible that investigates the meaning of life! I put together this graphic in Photoshop for the printed outline and Facebook page.

To create the magnifying effect, I masked the inside content then applied a Spherize filter to achieve the warped convex effect, and a masked Gaussian Blur filter to bring focus to the centre of the glass. I then overlayed the original glass of the image on top using a Linear Burn blend mode. The font is Linowrite.

Ecclesiastes has been a major source of contemplation for me. I first encountered the book way back in Sunday School, my only memory of it being how to pronounce it properly haha. Then at Katoomba NextGen Conference 2012, we had the opportunity to delve into it, and the stark realisation of how everything was.. meaningless.. resonated so much in my mind. Such wisdom! Much wow. If everything was meaningless, then what was meaning? If everything in life would only lead to death, and account for nothing, then was there really any point? All was futile, fleeting, temporary, “like chasing the wind”. Well simply put, the author of Ecclesiastes “Qoheleth” (which literally means Teacher or Preacher) advises that we should fear God, for if all humanity faces futility of life in death and judgment of God, then we should live according to Him. In the end, only God gives life, not physical, but spiritual, through his Son Jesus Christ. Even though we may lose everything on earth, will will not lose what we have gained in Heaven.