February 20, 2015
Accuracy
With the articles I’ve written
on churches I’ve had very little response from the pastors. One pastor thanked
me profusely and even posted the article on the church bulletin board. However,
two others emailed me and simply stated that I had reported on the visits accurately.
I suspect the lack of response from pastors may have more to do with wishing I
would write through rose colored glasses, rather than reporting accurately. Speaking
to the disciples of John the Baptist, Jesus said, “Go
back and report to John what you hear and see …” (Matt 11:4 NIV).
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----At least on a personal level, maybe not involving giant discrepancies, but certainly involving relevant issues, people have always been amicable to favorable inaccuracies. Some wouldn’t invent them, but neither would they interfere with confusion’s growing them. Others are all too happy to be inventers. And at some level of detail, every one of us become inaccurate about facts and circumstances and even ideas and events. Yet, for the necessity of carrying on, somewhat inaccurate facts are allowed to form into our perceptions as we mentally close one eye to what of them might benefit our cause at hand, letting the mind flow with them. This, of course, is called personal bias. And everyone has it. Some are possessed by it.
-----Therefore, the quest for truth travels two roads. One is the road into the facts of reality around us, both past and present. Some people travel for it. Others read. TV has brought a universe of facts right into our living room, if we don’t mind analyzing information for its genuineness. But then, that has to be done to all information no matter how its discovered, if you love the truth. And it is the same process which must be taken down the other road necessary to travel for truth.
-----This road extends into your perceptions. The quest here is not for the perceptions themselves (that quest is called memory,) but it is for bias in those perceptions, and especially for processes of bias. To receive truth into your perceptions, this inner quest is necessary before accepting each memory found. Moreover, it is one thing to find a twist in a perception. It is far more useful to find a process making twists in perceptions. But by the nature of this physical life and how our bodies are constructed in it, bias thrives.
-----Humility becomes the great hunter within, and the careful hunter without. It brings together the prey of both hunts to more accurately form a perception of the truth. So, when I was yet in High School I coined a saying I’ve used in my thinking like an inscription above a city gate, “If you’re biased towards anything, then let it be towards the truth.” The Preacher had a better way of putting it, “A wise man’s heart inclines him toward the right, but a fool’s heart toward the left.” (Eccl 10:2)
-----Now, it is interesting that at least in small circles of thinking the terms “right” and “left” have been given to describe the most basic concepts of religious substance. The Right-hand Path is used to connote beliefs that religious cause seeks beneficial effects towards others. The Left-hand Path connotes the opposite, religious cause seeking beneficial effects towards the self. The one equates well with humility and the search for truth, the other with arrogance and pragmatism. The one feels the walls of reality’s constraint to be a fortress of truth, with Christ having been the most real, while the other feels them to be a prison.
-----Every thought and feeling and action we do is another brick in the walls of our lives. It behooves us to become great hunters of the truth, both inside and out. For if we hunt well and wisely, the Truth Himself will set the bricks in your walls to fashion a fortress. But hunt like a fool, and you’ll build your own prison.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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