February 04, 2009
Potshot
Webster’s defines a potshot as: a shot taken from ambush or at a random or easy target. A critical remark made in a random or sporadic manner. Some of us have been on the receiving end of religious potshots. Of course we know Jesus says, ‘Turn the other cheek’, and to the Lord’s credit many of us are really good cheek turners. Nothing against the cheek turning, but I think we could sometimes avoid being hit by potshots if we weren’t such easy targets. I’ve found that the more faithful I am in Bible study, the less vulnerable I am…or maybe I just enjoy watching the return fire of Biblical ammunition hit its mark.
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4 comments:
Gail;
-----I hold up a front filter to potshots. It is the first filter incoming potshots encounter, and the last filter for my own outgoing potshots. It is a simple filter, a filter of relevancy. If a potshot is irrelevant it hangs up in the filter and gets brushed off into the trash can. But relevant potshots make it through. They are good, because they provide bits of useful information, sometimes about me, and sometimes about the other. Moreover, when well formed and placed amidst good information, they can cause a bit of movement.
-----No matter how obedient I am to the Word, potshots at me still happen. They are generated by human nature, so they do not necessarily obey patterns of true right and wrong. They emanate from perceived right and wrong. That is why I like to be receptive to potshots taken at me that are relevant. Those can be useful indicators of how effectively I am presenting myself to others, or may even indicate that one of my own perceptions is actually flawed.
-----Jesus’ turning the other cheek thing is more than just ignoring incoming fire and exposing more target. It is the psychology of not making belligerent response, but making useful response. Yesterday I was engaged on the phone with a client in Georgia. We talked taxes for a few moments, then the conversation wandered into economics, then politics, then religion. I could tell my client was acutely left leaning in his economic and political viewpoints by the potshots he was taking at my comments. But most of his potshots were relevant and helped me to know how to clarify statements I had carelessly made or expand upon others. I even sent a few potshots his way when I began realizing his cheek turning strategy was similar to mine, and those potshots proved most fruitful in prodding more ideas from him.
-----But I painstakingly filtered out all outgoing potshots when our conversation turned to religion. By this time he had demonstrated himself to be a much more careful and respectful thinker than I had previously thought him to be. I wanted to hear his ideas on how Revelation and Daniel were finding meaning in our current events without incurring any adulteration from my leading potshots. Although I could sense some of his basic perceptions were quite different or even very opposite mine, I gave him most of the floor because some of his core understandings were beginning to sound remarkably similar to mine. What made me more curious was that I had not received my core understandings about these matters from teachers, preachers, or authors. I had mostly concluded them from careful study of the Word, history, and science. And here he was paralleling many of them so closely it was almost like hearing myself talking to me. I had never heard anyone talk that closely on these matters. So even though I could sense many potshots being taken at the church in general, I filtered them all out and focused on what he was trying to get across.
-----Finally, when I couldn’t hold my curiosity anymore, I asked him if he had concluded these viewpoints himself, or if he had been taught them. I was twice surprised by his answer, first a little, then greatly. He was taught them. Great! By turning the other cheek to potshots I had found a jewel I have been long watching for - a small degree of validation that these particular conclusions of mine are not totally off track, since somewhere out there they are being taught. But now for the big surprise. He was a Jehovah’s witness! Oh God help me! Some of my ideas are in line with those of the Jehovah’s Witnesses!
-----It was interesting how the conversation turned after that. I continued to be receptive to what he was saying, not to learn, but mostly to regain assurance about myself as the rest of the JW ideas started pouring out and drawing their sharp lines of distinction between mine and themselves. That felt better than potshotting him into silence. And as he walked deeper into the JW stuff, sensing my receptive atmosphere, he began launching barrages of potshots at “Christendom.” That’s when my mind started moving back to its usual, watchful study of human nature. He sensed he had an ally, and therefore, he did not realize his potshots were bursting in my filter. He finally ran out of mental gas two hours and fifty minutes into the call.
-----Turning the other cheek is not a passive action of sheepishness. It is a powerful tool for examination of the battlefield, or for rope-a-doping your foe into a fall. Nor are potshots simply pins and needles of torture. They are strategic tools for maneuvering your nemesis into divulging useful information, or when the time is just right and the Lord is willing, maneuvering him into the middle of I-70 just before the peace of yonder hill explodes full of Mack truck. That’s how Jesus did it to Satan with the cross. And that’s how I did it to a Jehovah’s Witness with his phone bill.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
My question is this: do you mean less venerable, meaning adoration, honor, respect of do you mean vulnerable, meaning capable of receiving wounds??? Just me, Betty
Betty,
Good eye. I stand corrected…I hate it when that happens.
Gail
Gail;
-----Venerable has two shades of meaning. One shade can be seen in the veneration of saints as held by the Catholics. That veneration approaches worship. The other is more in line with the Bible’s call to follow the examples of people truly devoted to the Lord. It is a respect for character and accomplishments built through age. I suppose that is why the leaders are called “elders“. I certainly would not want my Bible study, or anything else, to result in the veneration of the first sense. And the only way I would want veneration of the second sense is if my study were indeed careful and humble enough to produce in me the real characteristics of godliness rather than merely the apparent characteristics of a religious life.
-----Vulnerable also has two shades of meaning. One shade is simply the capability of being injured. We are all vulnerable to the gunshot wound; it has nothing to do with who we are or how we act. It is just the nature of our soft bodies. The other is about the open opportunity to be assailed. The soldier on the beaches of Normandy during D-Day was much more vulnerable to receiving the gunshot wound than I am here at my computer. It has everything to do with who you are and how you do things.
-----In this twisted world anything straight becomes a target. Therefore Bible study makes you less venerable and more vulnerable. But those who are humble and call out for knowledge will increase in wisdom and their feet will be directed in the ways of righteousness making them more venerable and less vulnerable. Both words would fit your statement if it were standing alone, although what you would be meaning by the word “venerable” would be more obscure. But “vulnerable” seems to have a natural fit with the context of your whole piece.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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