June 24, 2010
On the Record
Occasionally I have to talk to the media and the harder I try to choose my words the more I feel like I’m babbling. I learned quickly that when speaking to a reporter you have to be specific, ‘This is on the record; this is off the record’. You do become a person of fewer words when there is a possibility that what you say may wind up on tomorrow’s front page. As believers we often do something similar with one another by saying, ‘please don’t repeat this’. How bright is that? Even if the confidence is kept, God has heard every word we spoke…and it is on the record!
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----I think most people understand the value of information. Some information has an actual monetary value, especially in the business world. Trade secrets, formulae, and recipes lend to one company a competitive advantage over others in marketing, acquiring materials, and making stuff. And some information, or the lack of it, makes opportunities. The clearest examples of this value come from your world - politics. During the 2006 campaign season, the progressive news media made certain the whole nation knew the conservative candidate in Virginia’s gubernatorial race used the word “makaka” when addressing an Indian at a campaign rally. For weeks the nation was educated by these progressives concerning the evils of his using it. With that information they created an opportunity for his defeat in the primary, which importantly eliminated his opportunity for the presidential candidacy in 2008, and a probable win. How untransformed would be America but for the value of everyone intimately knowing every aspect of that one word? Yet the same attention to analysis was never given to one progressive president’s enactment of the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, which was used by another progressive president during the 1990’s for requiring loans being made to people who could not afford them, thus causing the collapse of the financial industry just in time to panic the people into electing another progressive president in 2008. The only reason money is the milk of politics is because some information and the lack of other information are the honey of it.
-----Aside form these values, information has an even higher value. An emotional value. Every human being is intimately tied to his past. Every human being has gaffed badly, and many have corrected their ways. Yet emotions still tie so substantively to those gaffs that even the individual seeks in his own mind a quarantined resting place for painful memories. The facts and information about such histories can be traumatizing when dumped into public view. But somehow we fail to realize the value of emotions, even though we all have them. We all fully realize the value of houses, cars, clothes, and money because these things can be seen and touched. Yet the only visible clue to another person’s emotions are the tears in a damaged person’s eyes and the smiles upon the faces of the impetuous poops who wronged him. We far too little realize the vast existence of emotions, because we empathize far too little with others. Dig to the bottom of the matter. What are houses, cars, clothes, money, and stuff about other than the very emotions of being able to survive? Therefore, since emotions are at the base of your value, information which effects them must be at the pinnacle of my value. It is about you.
-----Finally, the greatest value of information is that which allows emotions to be well in spite of survival. The first conscious awareness I had after slamming a deer with my motorcycle and sprawling out on the pavement was the peaceful beauty of the morning sky. I have been close to death enough times to note that between the fear of its approach and the doorway of its actuality is a peaceful acceptance coming only from the work of Jesus Christ. This information is eternally valuable to me. And like with emotions, I must be empathetic to realize the importance of making it public information for everyone. It is about them.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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