Usually when I write one of these articles, I focus on something about music or art. But there was a little bit of Pastor Corey's sermon that stuck with me on Sunday and I thought I might write about the path my mind took with it this week. His message was full of assurance that despite some terrible things that happen in our world, God is there to walk along the path with us. If you didn't get to hear the sermon, or if you need a reminder, you can check it out on our website under the "Listen" heading. Toward the middle of the reflection, he reminded us of the free will we were given at creation. This called back to Pastor Lowell's message the week before, in which we heard about the abundance of temptation in our lives. It all swirled around in my head to made me think, "what is my role in all of it? What is my responsibility when bad things are going on around us? What can I do better?"
I love the phrase "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." I'm pretty sure it was written to apply specifically to me. I consider myself a jack of all trades and truly a master of none. I know just enough to be able to muddle my way through home renovations, art projects, audio/video wiring, and sometimes even blog posts about theological topics. I tend to be pretty fearless to start a project, and YouTube is a great resource when I get stuck. I'm usually elbow deep in something messy before I realize I don't know what I'm doing. I knew enough to get myself started, but I didn't realize I was going to get hung up on some details that a "professional" would have easily anticipated. I knew a little bit, but I didn't know enough to know what I didn't know.
This applies to more than just projects and tasks. We glean a little information from the news, from TV, from past experiences, from our parents and family. We see other people and we apply the little bit of knowledge we have to help us draw conclusions about them before we've gotten to know them. We judge them. Sometimes we fear them. We put them in a box labeled "other" so that we can stay safely on the side of the fence labeled "us," which protects us from the other side of the fence labeled "them."
I grew up Roman Catholic, so I was steeped in the idea of original sin, which, in the Roman Catholic tradition, has pervaded since Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate the apple from the tree of knowledge. Here's what they don't do a great job explaining: the sin that cast us from Eden wasn't eating the apple. It was taking this knowledge that we thought would make us equal with God. The truth is, it was just enough knowledge to make us dangerous. Ignorance really is bliss and instead of keeping our minds open and blissful, we have the audacity to think we know enough to set ourselves apart from other people. We draw our lines in the sand and cast judgement on a person we see or on a group of people we've never even seen in person. This mindset affects us personally, as a community, as a country, and as a world.
Some might say that the solution would be that we gain a lot more knowledge before we draw conclusions. I think the solution I'm going to try for myself is to not draw conclusions at all. If I can approach people, groups, and situations with the honest assessment that I don't know what I don't know, I'd bet I can alleviate a lot of the judgement and frustration that comes with thinking I know something because I have a little information. Maybe this is a better position from which to get through all the other things happening in the world.
In blissful ignorance,
John Johns