Miami through Rose Colored Glasses


Recently, I was asked off line whether I was viewing the ports of our travels through rose colored glasses. This question arose from my positive review of Miami. Well, strike the pose of Rodin’s Thinker, boys and girls (or click here for some mindless YouTube entertainment), we’re going in.

More tragic than a fallen angel, we are fallen bearers of the image of a glorious God. This is the dilemma of man as written about in Reinhold Niebuhr’s book, The Nature and Destiny of Man. Let us call this dilemma ‘ying.’ Where then is the ‘yang’? The yang is in the mystery of God’s judgment and grace. God judges evil and offers grace (through the life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ) to fallen image bearers.

This is the theological truth underlying the dark and glorious mystery of our world and our lives. Whether we look at history or the present day, there should be no doubt that evil is real: holocaust, hunger, pollution, oppression, repression, ignorance, hate, laziness, gluttony, insensitivity, selfishness. Why do our languages have words for these things? Because we needed to describe what we see outside ourselves. Perhaps even more depressing, is that we can see dark shadows in ourselves as well.

But there are other words: love, laughter, compassion, creativity, rescue, sacrifice, forgiveness, support, friendship, family. We need words like these because this, too, is a part of our experience.

Some of us, in the arc of our passage through temporal space, will focus on the world’s evil and/or God’s judgment. I have liberal friends who see the world as a bunch of haters seeking to bring pain into the lives of gays, illegal immigrants, AIDS victims, etc. I have conservative friends who see the world as a bunch of illegal immigrants taking their money, gays taking their institutions, and socialists seeking to change our form of government. I listened to a speech by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. this week. He sees the world as oppressed by evil tobacco and carbon fuel companies. If this is our focus, our passage will be marked with an angry pursuit of judgment on the evil observed.

Others of us, focus on the world’s glories and God’s grace. I have liberal friends who focus on positive service to the world’s oppressed and victimized. They find joy in partnering with persons and agencies who share their active compassionate perspective. Instead of focusing on evil over-consumers taking resources from the have-nots, they focus on serving the have-nots. I know conservatives who provide half way house services to girls seeking an alternative to abortion or ex-cons looking for a fresh start. They see the potential in people others are too busy judging.

Remember the story of the old man pulling weeds in the flower bed first seen as visitors entered his town? A family pulls up and the husband asks, “What kind of people are there in this town? My family is looking for a place to live.”

“What kind of people were there where you came from?”, the old man asked.

“A bunch of selfish, thieving bums,” said the visitor.

“That’s just the way we are here,” the old man replied and the family drove on.

A second family pulled up, and this time the wife asked, “What kind of people are there in this town? My family is looking for a place to live.”

“What kind of people were there where you came from?”, the old man asked.

“They were always complaining but never doing anything to make things better. That’s why we’re moving.”

“That’s just the way we are here,” the old man replied and the family drove on.

A third family pulled up. A little girl from the back seat asked the old man, “What kind of people are there in this town? My family is looking for a place to live.”

“What kind of people were there where you came from?”, the old man asked.

“They were the kindest,” said her brother. “Always willing to help out when we needed it”, said the mother. “Really hardworking and honest,” said the father.

“That’s just the way we are here,” the old man replied, “Welcome to your new home.”

The world is woven in fibers both dark and light. We cannot choose our world. Objectively, it is what it is. We are given a choice as to what aspect of our world will receive our focus. In choosing our focus, we choose our experience in this world. This is the power of subjectivity.

I remember the lecturer in my Introduction to Psychology course asking us all to be quiet and then describe what we heard. One of the things we heard was the traffic going by outside of Ogleby Hall. He then pointed out that the sound of traffic had been there while he was lecturing and asked whether we had noticed. We had not. He explained that this was an example of selectivity. The brain filters stimuli to enable it to optimize its processing of that upon which we are focused.

The nature of our focus in our travels will be the same as we have in our own neighborhoods. Of course I realize that our half full glass may at times appear to us to be half empty (or vice versa). There will be times in our lives when, objectively speaking, the glass is pretty low or is nearly so full that it overflows. But our focus over time becomes a characteristic of who we are.

The world is what the world is. The question is who we are and what we bring into the world. How we see things at home will set the tone for how we see things in our travels. Like those families looking for a home in the story above we take our subjective perspectives with us into the world.

I am not unaware of the dark shadows. But I try, as far I am able, to focus on the positive aspects of the people and places we visit. So, what color are your shades – and as Dr. Phil would say, “How’s that working for you?”

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