June 26, 2015
Heart Change
During a portion of Sunday
school class the discussion turned to the recent South Carolina church killings
and the man responsible, who purportedly went from being normal to becoming raciest
in a relatively short time. One man in the group said, “It’s scary that people
can change so fast.” I recalled Saul’s conversion on the road to Damascus and
I can imagine Ananias had a similar thought. One minute Saul was persecuting
the saints in Jerusalem and the next minute both Ananias and Saul had a change
of heart. Ananias said, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on
the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be
filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 9:17 NIV).
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----Mind and emotions really are amazing. Their substance is the interconnections of neurons, the encoding of information within carbon molecules inside the neuron cell bodies, and the chemical baths released into the blood and fluids of the brain. If all its parts were ordered to respond according to a specific point of input, like a computer responds to its user, the brain would sit useless without something else stirring it. But the brain is marvelously made such that it responds to its own self as well as to input from the body’s other five senses. So to speak, its “keyboard” is inside its own head.
-----The brain brings to consciousness both general perception and particular perception. It is interesting to note that general perception arises from the brain’s correlating volumes of past particular perceptions. Particular perceptions are created by individual experiences. They are a thought, a memory, a sensation, or one of those attached to an emotion forming a meaning. If a particular perception were an individual person, general perception would be a roomful of people, like at Christ’s Church of the Valley on a Sunday morning, or like a packed house at the Fox Theatre. And general perceptions function like particular perceptions, like Christ’s Church of the Valley, a packed out Fox Theatre, a City Market full of shoppers, a crowded main street on a Summer’s Thursday evening, and all the other gatherings of Montrose form the attitude of Montrose generally, and like other gatherings altogether form that of Seattle, of Boulder, of Houston, Baltimore, Ferguson, or Charleston. And all the cities across this land form a very, overarching perception we call the American culture. Likewise, inside the individual person, all of his particular perceptions are rationally correlated and irrationally interrelated into personality and character. Isn’t it a bit amazing both society and the mind do not just fly apart into their multitudes of pieces?
-----The very insightful Tom Morris, PhD introduces an idea in “Philosophy for Dummies” that he calls conservation of belief. The consciousness works to interpret new information in such manners which maintain the essential aspects of an individuals personality and character, the way he sees things, the ways he approaches things, etc. If this same function were put to work at Fox Theatre, City Market, Seattle, Houston, Ferguson, or Henderson, it would be called “bias” or “discrimination“. Like all things of this life, bias and discrimination are important because they have this necessary, belief conserving function, while they are also critically dysfunctional in brewing such affairs as the Ferguson and Baltimore riots and the Charleston massacre. Nothing in this world is good only or bad only. Everything is a mixture. Everything is tricky.
-----Whether it be within the individual or within the society in general, when the impact of a new experience carries more import than the intensity of belief’s conservation, belief gets altered, and sometimes, as in Paul’s case and the cases of many millions of Christians, the alteration is a one-hundred-eighty degree change.
-----Therefore, trouble brews when either the mind or the culture fails to vet for truth and righteousness either the influences of change or the beliefs for conserving. Such discernment failure causes an individual to rob a store, or a community to riot at the robber’s demise. I believe the media’s failure to recognize and report the truths about Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Freddie Grey, and the truth about the black community’s biased reactions to those events effected Dylann Roof’s conserved beliefs.
-----”Keep your heart with all vigilance; for from it flow the springs of life.” (Prov 4:23)
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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