Beware the Expert! Facebook Post 2020 06 10
Beware of the experts! There is at least one on the wrong side of every debate.
I am waiting for an epiphany.
The only time I am exposed to the word “epiphany” is regarding the Christian story of the Magi travelling for months from the east to arrive to worship the new born child beneath the star foretold in the writings of their ancestor Daniel.
Apparently, seeing this child was an epiphany as the obvious became visible to them: that love is the beginning and the end of all things.
The COVID and the George Floyd protests/riots are symptoms, and they are linked by the same cause.
I am waiting for an epiphany on the virus to reach the health experts, just as I am waiting for an epiphany on the protests to reach the political experts.
The Christian story is that a person came to save people. He did this by showing individuals what love, the kingdom of heaven, is like.
Rather than work endlessly on the symptoms of disease and conflict in the world, he worked on the cause.
He did heal some diseases of the body and the mind. These diseases were metaphors for the disease of the spirit, the disease that prevents us from seeing, hearing, walking, and thinking in the truth of love.
He did not tell people to go and stay in their homes until it was safe to come into the world. The world is an unavoidably dangerous place, and it will never be safe as long as there are those people who violate the law of love.
He did not try to protect anyone from themselves. No one can effectively legislate health or love.
We Americans have become very good at addressing symptoms. This is much easier than addressing the causes. When we address causes, we will have to change. No one likes change. Even babies with wet diapers protest both their condition and the process of change.
Perhaps it is a sign of wealth and power that we can waste our resources on symptoms rather than causes.
This is our medical approach: Throw drugs (legal or illegal is sometimes an arbitrary distinction) at the symptom.
This is our social approach: Throw money (a payoff for the neglect) at the symptom.
But symptoms are not causes, and the health of individuals and the health of society does not improve.
So what is the cause linking the COVID and the unrest in American cities?
A great many religions would identify a lack of love as the cause, but few practitioners of those religions appear to operate on this principle. I know that love is often not my first reaction.
What if it was simply a matter of recognizing that we are all in this life together, not simply together in factions addressing a symptom like the COVID or racism, but actually on the same side facing the common issues of life – education, employment, housing, nutrition, and such?
The COVID is most deadly for fringe people: the aged, often tucked away in nursing homes, and the poor, those who live in urban or rural food deserts where meals come from a Quick Market or Dollar General Store.
The Kerner Report after the Detroit riots of 1967 stated: “This is our basic conclusion: Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.”
This report identified racism, discrimination, and poverty among the causes of the Detroit 1967 riots.
These, too, are symptoms. What has changed in the intervening 50 years? What must change if we are to survive the next 50 years?
Do we need to eliminate the words “they” and “them” from our vocabularies? “They” are “we,” because “they” and “we” are the same, inseparable except on a symptomatic level.
Watch Pastor Ivor Myers’ The Hidden Agenda behind Racism for an excellent understanding of the issues.
Next Chronicle
Beware of the experts! There is at least one on the wrong side of every debate.
I am waiting for an epiphany.
The only time I am exposed to the word “epiphany” is regarding the Christian story of the Magi travelling for months from the east to arrive to worship the new born child beneath the star foretold in the writings of their ancestor Daniel.
Apparently, seeing this child was an epiphany as the obvious became visible to them: that love is the beginning and the end of all things.
The COVID and the George Floyd protests/riots are symptoms, and they are linked by the same cause.
I am waiting for an epiphany on the virus to reach the health experts, just as I am waiting for an epiphany on the protests to reach the political experts.
The Christian story is that a person came to save people. He did this by showing individuals what love, the kingdom of heaven, is like.
Rather than work endlessly on the symptoms of disease and conflict in the world, he worked on the cause.
He did heal some diseases of the body and the mind. These diseases were metaphors for the disease of the spirit, the disease that prevents us from seeing, hearing, walking, and thinking in the truth of love.
He did not tell people to go and stay in their homes until it was safe to come into the world. The world is an unavoidably dangerous place, and it will never be safe as long as there are those people who violate the law of love.
He did not try to protect anyone from themselves. No one can effectively legislate health or love.
We Americans have become very good at addressing symptoms. This is much easier than addressing the causes. When we address causes, we will have to change. No one likes change. Even babies with wet diapers protest both their condition and the process of change.
Perhaps it is a sign of wealth and power that we can waste our resources on symptoms rather than causes.
This is our medical approach: Throw drugs (legal or illegal is sometimes an arbitrary distinction) at the symptom.
This is our social approach: Throw money (a payoff for the neglect) at the symptom.
But symptoms are not causes, and the health of individuals and the health of society does not improve.
So what is the cause linking the COVID and the unrest in American cities?
A great many religions would identify a lack of love as the cause, but few practitioners of those religions appear to operate on this principle. I know that love is often not my first reaction.
What if it was simply a matter of recognizing that we are all in this life together, not simply together in factions addressing a symptom like the COVID or racism, but actually on the same side facing the common issues of life – education, employment, housing, nutrition, and such?
The COVID is most deadly for fringe people: the aged, often tucked away in nursing homes, and the poor, those who live in urban or rural food deserts where meals come from a Quick Market or Dollar General Store.
The Kerner Report after the Detroit riots of 1967 stated: “This is our basic conclusion: Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.”
This report identified racism, discrimination, and poverty among the causes of the Detroit 1967 riots.
These, too, are symptoms. What has changed in the intervening 50 years? What must change if we are to survive the next 50 years?
Do we need to eliminate the words “they” and “them” from our vocabularies? “They” are “we,” because “they” and “we” are the same, inseparable except on a symptomatic level.
Watch Pastor Ivor Myers’ The Hidden Agenda behind Racism for an excellent understanding of the issues.
Next Chronicle
