July 20, 2007
Tidy Up
Commenting on Christian fiction writers, novelist Flannery O’Connor wrote, “For [the author] to ‘tidy up reality’ is certainly to succumb to the sin of pride.’ I’m no fiction writer, but her words smarted when they penetrated my mind. I must confess I stand guilty of trying to tidy up reality. Wanting things to be seen in a good light, I help friends, family and yes, even the church, save face by making excuses for their attitude and behavior. I suppose covering up and making justifications began in my childhood while dealing with an alcoholic dad. I can now see how embarrassment for myself and for others would lead to the sin of pride. Ignorance was bliss…
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Gail;
-----Discerning right from wrong is far simpler than discerning how to apply principles to a situation. Although I like to allow words to have their meaning, I am guilty of rather hijacking the meaning of “reality” when I use that word technically. I emphasis the concept that “reality” refers to what is genuine rather than what is…“artificial, fraudulent, or illusory,” (Meriam-Webster on “real”.) I like to state that Jesus Christ is reality, or that all reality leads to Jesus, or that Heaven is more real than Earth. I cringe to refer to our physical universe and all of our situations in it as “reality” because, even though it is real in that we can see, hear, touch, and perceive it, it contains condemned effects counter to God‘s perfection. The taint of disobedience has rendered this current reality artificial, fraudulent, and illusory. And as such, its time for being vanquished is separated from the present by a mere ticking of the clock. That is reality.
-----Because of his own personal flaws, no person can directly touch reality. We are only able to touch reality through perception, as if our perceptions, knowledge, and understandings were stitched into gloves. Everything we sense through sight, hearing, touch, etc. and all ideas we read, see, or hear must be processed by the best understanding each of us have personally acquired. Our perception of reality, and reality itself, will never be the same things until Christ makes us perfect. Nor will the fact that one can give himself completely to the study of the Word by practicing it through godly living supply us with a direct touch upon reality. All perceptions are still merely personal reflections and representations of it.
-----Therefore when we approach the question of what is right or what is wrong in this or that situation, we must never forget that we are feeling and handling the situation through gloves. Some of our gloves have been refined to a silky smoothness which allows a decent grasp on reality. Others of us still wear mittens. But they are all gloves just the same. Humility must replace the perfect feel that is lost to the interference of the glove. And whenever another is involved in the same situation as ourselves, whether that person also wears mittens or silk gloves becomes relevant to how we do what we discern to do.
-----Speaking the truth in love must always be the objective. However, we all have experienced times in which the proper truth for the situation was more refined than for what our gloves would allow. Does one speak a soothing lie in those situations? I don’t think so. Love bids us to deliver the truth considerately, and humility bids us to deliver it no more perfectly than we are able to perceive. It is up to the Spirit to refine our understanding for a better solution later, or to bring someone along who can more accurately or considerately place it now. For a lie is always a misleading event giving some form of artificiality, fraud, or illusion for the other person’s perception. It will become stitched into that other person’s gloves. And whether or not that faulty stitch will ever have any real relevance in that other person’s decisions is in part a refined discernment only for very silky gloves, and in part an outright gamble.
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