Portrait of Alicia

Untitled

Your teachers offer you nothing
Bringing empty and powerless words
Speaking much, but not the one thing
That could help these wandering herds

Woe to the blind and confused ones
And Woe to the hungry who leave
But fire and death on the chief ones
Who see, and while knowing, bereave

There is no love in a leader deceiving
There is no hope if the end is not told
There is no faith in all of this scheming
We're offered nothing to which we can hold

Now they are ready and ripe for deception
Lacking wisdom or tools to discern
Having been gutted by their own election
They'll fall away, and so they shall burn

Portrait of Daniel

Portrait of Christine

Our Own Lens

Each of us views everything we read, see, think, and feel through our own lens.

You can no more escape this fact, than you can escape your own self.

However, there is much to be said for becoming aware of the tint of your own lens, and the lenses of others.

What do I mean by “lens”? I’m talking about the particular way each person views the world. Every person interprets and processes information in a unique way determined by their training, worldview, beliefs, life experience, personality, class, ethnicity, cultural background etc. Everyone comes with their own lens. Almost all of the various lenses can see at least a piece of the truth accurately. The goal is to have the best one possible, to see the truth as clearly, and completely as possible.

Writings transferred from one group to another leave the context of their birth, and enter a realm where a completely different context, or lens, may be applied to the same words, resulting in radically different meaning than the author who wrote the words intended.

This is why there are so many different interpretations of the messages in the bible out there.

As a generalization, all of us who read the words said in the Bible today, have a distinctly “Westernized” lens through which we filter the meaning. However, the writers and readers at the time the Bible was written did not share this same cultural background.

This disparity means that all or most of the cultural context of the words and messages the authors wrote have been lost in orthodox interpretation. This loss of the original lens can greatly muddy the message the author intended to convey.

But despite this difficulty, the message is not lost. We have simply to reconstruct, as best we can, the original lens through which the words were meant to be viewed. The true interpretation is what the author meant by what they wrote.

Much as it would simplify things, no words are absolute. What with translations between multiple languages, cultural attitude, expectations, and history of the time, it is not as simple as just “believing what it says”.

It requires a larger overview to attain a balanced and cohesive perspective. The words in the bible are true, and they have been given to us that we may know and understand them.

But you cannot take the belief that the bible is true to the point of thinking the meaning of individual verses should transcend the lens you cannot remove from over your own eyes.

If you do not gain the context of the rest of the scripture in interpreting individual verses, you add the coloring of your own lens as a substitute.

There is a right way, and it is reading searching for what the apostle believed and taught, you are not free to “take your own interpretation” of the words.

If you go the wrong way, you suffer the consequences of believing lies. Which is an entire other discussion by itself.

However, attaining the correct lens, or even any lens different than your inherent one may be more difficult than it at first seems.

You must comprehend a fundamentally different way of looking at things. And then actually be able to imagine that you believe them, and process material in that way.

This takes maturity, practice, and substantial research to build for yourself a complete and realistic foreign lens. And there are additional barriers to transcending your own lens than the difficulty in the process itself.

Few people stand on their own two feet when it comes to what they believe to the point where they have overcome the human desire for belonging, and trusted entirely to God and the truth he has revealed. It is most common to rely on the sense of security that can be gained from belonging in groups like church, their family, or another social circle. This is a phenomenon to be aware of, as it means that the average person stands to lose something, should they change their beliefs to anything not congruent with the group-think.

This is the most natural thing in the world, but it is also immature. If we are ever to grow beyond the point of children, we must become self aware. And take conscious responsibility for our lens, regardless of the consequences.

Matthew 10:34-36

34 “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn

a man against his father,

 a daughter against her mother,

a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—

36     a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.

You must believe what the apostles believed.

Do the work to view the words of the author through the lens they intended.

Victorious

Pencil sketch from a while ago.

Doodle

Doodle in pencil.