February 15, 2012
Registering
I’m a member of a class that asks participants to fill out an
evaluation form following each session. After one exceptional class I gave the
instructors and the material presented very high marks. However in the comment
section of, “What can we do better?”
I noted that the instructor used a couple of swear words during his
presentation, which were completely unnecessary. A couple weeks later I ran
into one of the class organizers, so ask if they received and read the
evaluations. Through our conversation and then a follow-up call I learned that
the evaluations are indeed read. However the facilitator’s critiquing eye was
focused on the good parts of the evaluation – the high marks and the positive
feedback. My comments about the swear words simply didn’t register and were
overlooked. Spiritually speaking I think many of us can relate. It’s easier to
read the good news in Scripture and overlook the parts of correction. After
all, if it registers with us we then have a responsibility to do something
about it.
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----I recently learned from a basic psychology book that research has discovered the area of the brain handling memory is different in adults than in children. This isn’t the rather common hocus-pocus and ya-ya stuff that usually drifts through psychology topics like diffusing odors through the air. Actual MRI analysis shows that the predominant memory process in the adult brain occurs in a different physical area from that of the child’s brain. The child’s memory processes predominantly occur in an area of the brain which deals with facts and information. The memory area of the adult brain is one which deals with meaning and understanding. It doesn’t take much thought to see why God made us this way. But neither does it take much thought to notice the dangers of the arrangement.
-----Personal meaning becomes a very big thing to us as we arrive into adulthood. And we get extremely defensive about those meanings. There are a variety of defense mechanisms commonly used by people. They really are things of human nature. And deception of one degree or another is a common process all those usual mechanisms engage. Avoidance is one of those mechanisms, and one way it simply occurs is by the failure to consciously assign any meaning to personal negatives. Oh, certainly the facts and information registers and probably can even be remembered. But they are not assigned meaning, that is, given awareness and thought process enough to perceive their interrelationships with the rest of what has acquired meaning and understanding to the individual. Until they are assigned meaning, they remain lodged in factual/informational part of the memory which usually has much less effect upon conscious decisions and perceptions.
-----Understanding this was an absolute Aha! experience for me. Jesus said that anyone coming to Him needed to come like children. Truth indeed has meaning, but the meaning of truth is the meaning it has in God’s mind. That would be Jesus’ mind, too, folks! God love Him. And Jesus was so pithy and wise because He attended the facts and information around Him without the usual, deceptive sorting we humans allow our personal meanings to make. Then those facts and information entering the more meaningful areas of the memory carry effects there, too, causing change, growth, and the development of spiritual truth. God has given us an unlimited library of facts and information for such effects, if our empirical observations of the universe are received without screening. And the clue as to when we are enjoying such lack of bias is when we recognize the Word of God as the source of relevant facts and information, the check-off for testing the validity of conclusions, and the pattern for the true meaning of all there is, while casting a slightly suspicious eye towards our own personal meanings and the way they play with the facts.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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