Beyond Squinting in a Fog
“Share your dots, but don’t connect them.” Austin Kleon advises that in his book, Steal Like an Artist.
“People are going to draw their own conclusions anyway,” a leader told us at a preaching workshop when I was fresh out of seminary, “so let them. Don’t do it for them.”
A couple of years ago I had the chance to walk a labyrinth. Among the many lessons I learned through that simple experience is that we’re all at different points on our journeys, and that where we are affects our perspective.
We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist.
That’s 1st Corinthians 13:12, in The Message version.
It then promises, But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright!
Exhale.
The human mind craves clarity and order. We look for patterns in order to make sense of a world that is often chaotic and, at some level, threatening. All religions offer a sort of construct to help us “connect the dots.” Even atheistic scientists search for structure, order, and meaning. There may be a mist but I’ve turned on my fog lights. I still have to navigate day by day.
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