May 15, 2013
Righteousness
Recently a recycling
advocate was quoted in the newspaper, “I
recycle my toothbrush – only the handles, of course….I also recycle dryer lint.
That can actually go into compost.” I had to laugh when I imagined her
garden plants strangling on lint compost permeated with fabric softener. It’s
interesting that we are all vulnerable to self-righteousness when it comes to
our personal activities or interests. Jesus pointed out that the Pharisees even
took tithing to a whole new level by applying the practice to their spices. “Woe to you, teachers of the law and
Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin.
But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and
faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the
former.” (Matt 23:23 NIV)
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----I find reality to be a most interesting concept. Merriam-Webster offers, “2a) not artificial, fraudulent, or illusory, GENUINE; and c) having objective, independent existence.” The word has been seized to express many particular characteristics pertaining to different narrow, and often technical situations, like real numbers, a real gas (which means one thing in chemistry, another thing of a truly funny person, and another yet about a bean burrito.) It even paradoxically must mean much of its opposite in saying, “the real world.” We know a lot of things about the real world are not very real. My interest in the concept centers around the more basic ideas expressed in Merriam-Webster 2a and c.
-----2a is a negative way of stating a meaning, but it works. I think it quite well defines a most important fundamental nature about God. He is what He is and He gives no misimpressions. We know that we can drill as far into everything He states and into what can truly be concluded from it without finding artificial, fraudulent illusions. He is objective in that He is, and He is independent in that He needs no other in order to be what He is. One of my favorite sayings is that God is more real than anything we’ve experienced.
-----For we, on the other hand, are not too real. Oh for sure our bodies are; pinch one, preferably your own, and see. But as soon as our attention crosses the boundary of the skull into what lies within, we notice more representations than knowledge, conjectures than conclusions, and a few misgivings and distortions for getting past what we don‘t know how to deal with outright. We all look at the same things and hold fundamentally different perceptions about them. And to each perception each of us ascribes the term, “reality.” Ha. Ha.
-----So I love righteousness and desire to have it completely, because it is the true perspective God perceives when He looks at a thing. It isn’t that I do not want perceptions of my own, it is that I know there are limitations to our perceptions within which they are real, and outside of which they are artificial and illusory, if not downright fraudulent. Within those boundaries each individual can hold a different perspective because he is a different set of complexities with which the thing must mingle properly. On earth, folks such as this recycling advocate are a real gas to others who work harder at locating the real limitations for sorting misperceptions from perceptions. In the honesty and sincerity of this recycler’s mind, recycling lint probably is a big must. Though we can giggle at its physical absurdity, a little pondering suggests a truism in its sentimentality towards the responsibility God gave man regarding the earth. Recycling the lint has an utility for representing that truism to the truly curious, as long as she dries her clothes softner-free (as you pointed out.) About the Pharisees, Jesus added, “…without neglecting the former.” The tithes of the spices were actually important, though minuscule. Righteousness is like the scales on a butterfly’s wing, just twenty-ten-thousandths of a millimeter across and set to exactly the appropriate angles for reflecting only one color and making pretty patterns. It exacts its full tribute from the realities of even the most small or inconsequential matters.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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