And I Thought That Was Beautiful

If man's first problem is being sinful, his second is ignorance. Being intentional is the art of seeing. There are so many levels of awareness beyond just opening your eyes to the world. Today, I walked down the streets of Manhattan and even though my eyes were open, most of the actual picture was filtered out automatically. I have no idea what I missed. But I did see the canopy of all-black umbrellas—their pointed spokes are always at head level. I saw the white umbrella. I saw a woman who was crying as she walked in her husband’s arms, because she was old and still vulnerable, and I thought that was beautiful.

Do you ever wonder what you’re not seeing? I’m especially afraid of what everyone else sees in me that I am blind to. Watching the early auditions of American Idol has been the greatest motivator towards seeing myself accurately, because the show exposes the levels of self deception a person can sink to. Some of the contestants couldn’t accept the truth of how terrible their voices were, even when credible judges were all telling them not to ever come back, or quit their day jobs. Somewhere they must have made the choice to actively lie to themselves and only listen to people who said what they wanted to hear. That is frightening... on so many levels. Firstly, because this type of lying is usually not isolated to one talent (or lack thereof), and secondly, because they may never realize how distorted their self perception is.

Then again, maybe we’re all more like these poster children then we think we are. After all, actively lying to yourself and simply not pursuing truth brings you to the same place. Ignorance is Deception’s brother. Both are exposed through living with your eyes wide to the world and a mind that loves the truth rather than just being right and comfortable. I see in my own life, that when I am not walking in love or discipline, my problem always stems from the fact that my thinking is wrong. If I don't believe and recieve truth about an area, I certainly cannot walk in it. But so often, the cause of sin and problems in my life, is not the active acceptance of untruth, but the lack of discipline to stir up and remind myself of what I believe. This is all just a long-winded version of my mother's belief that if we were to live out of even 10 percent of what we already know, we would be saints. Being intentional is asking what characteristics are defining to your identity and purpose, and then being moved by truth and conviction.

My prayer for us all is that we would step outside of
our normal thoughts,
our schedules,
our familiar places,

And be willing to see.