Today, in the absence of my Senior Pastor, who is on a
Mission Trip, Jason, my Executive Pastor for Equipping, made a statement prior
to launching into his message. His statement
converged on internet images I’ve seen this past week: a pink and white trailer in an overgrown
weedy yard, and a gold and white dress. On the surface the three are unrelated.
But in reality, they deal with the same issue: Our plumb-line, or point of
reference.
Just as a level is a horizontal reference, a plumb-line (aka
a plummet or plumb-bob) is a vertical reference. They both are reference tools.
But they perform different jobs. Jason started off by saying something to the
effect that, “The problem with a perceived lack of Spiritual Growth is that
we don’t use the correct measurement tool.” Tools are only as good as they are
correctly used. A level doesn’t measure depth any more than a plumb-line,
levels a photo. That resonated with me, but not only for the spiritual application,
but for everyday applications.
The images joined with this statement via Facebook. One image
is the infamous dress of changing colors. I see it as Gold and White. Neuro
Science and the Science of Color Perception both tell me I’m wrong, that the
dress is actually Black and Blue. It has something to do with the way each of us
perceives the lighting around an object. The questions many scientists are now asking
are, “Why are so many people seeing it differently? What has triggered so many
of us to see the surrounding light differently?” (Incidentally, my first
inclination was to wonder if this is all a social experiment to see how many
people will have a change in perception once they read about the science proof—how
many people who originally saw it as gold and white, can be swayed to believing
it is actually black and blue. I still,
even after reading the scientific proof, see it as gold and white—even when I
see the original, alongside the other two.)
Here’s an article about the neuroscience behind our perception
of color (and a side-by-side comparison of the original dress, and the two ways
we perceive it):
I’ll get back to this in a while.
The other image I’ve seen recently is the one of the pink
and white trailer in the overgrown, weedy yard proclaiming, “50 shades is only
romantic because he is a billionaire. If he was living in a trailer, it would
be a ‘Criminal Minds’ episode.” Another perception issue you might think. At
first I thought so as well. But then I realized the insidiousness of what it
was actually saying.
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the pink trailer—I want a retro travel
trailer to paint like that for my retirement trips. However, I HATE, HATE, HATE
the sentiment expressed. On the surface it appears to denounce
disrespect. But reread it...especially
this one phrase...
"...is only romantic..."
Only romantic? Really?!
That phrase lends credibility to the notion that the exploitation of another
person can be "romantic."
It's not. Ever.
Love and romance stem from mutual respect. Mutually placing
the others needs before your own. Protecting each other. There is no protection in an abusive relationship. No
romance. No mutual give and take. There
is no mutual anything. There is a giver (the abused by choice or by
circumstance) and there is a taker (the abuser). And don’t even get me started about consenting
adults.
"Consent" is nothing. People consent all the time to horrendous
situations in order to gain acceptance or "love.” But a “consenting” under aged person is still considered statutorily raped.
And so it is with abuse.
Abuse is not an optical illusion or a color perception issue like The
Color Changing Dress. When it comes to abuse, there is no grey—fifty shades or
otherwise. Abuse is a black or white
issue.
Abuse is wrong. Always.
Coming back to what Jason said this morning, I realized the
reason some of my friends see “Fifty Shades” as romantic is the same as the
color perception of The Dress. We are using a different measurement tool—we are
looking at it with a different light source. And therein lies the problem. We are
measuring love and romance by the wrong plumb-line. If I try to measure my weight with a ruler it
will come out wrong. If I try to measure my height with a scale. It will come
out wrong.
And so it is with love and romance, if we try to measure
love or romance by eroticism, it will never be right.
So what can we measure love by? I’m glad you asked.
1 John 3:16 tells us how
we can know what love is—Jesus Christ is our example.
He laid down His life for us. Our soldiers know this. They are ready to lay
down their life and fight wars to ensure the people they love (and the rest of
us) will live in freedom.
But that’s just war and God, you might say. What about romantic
love? What is that? Again, I’m glad you asked.
1 Corinthians 13, the “Love Chapter” paints a beautiful
picture of what love is and what love
isn’t. Especially verses 4-8a.
“Love is patient,
love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not
proud. It does not dishonor
others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always
hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” (Italics
and bolding are mine to visually represent
the differences between what love is not
and what love is.)
I encourage you to question your perceptions and find the
Correct Tool with which to measure everything.
No comments:
Post a Comment