When I was growing up, I was taught that after we died there would be a time when we would experience bodily resurrection.
Fine idea, but . . .
At that time at my small town church, we had not yet entered the "donuts and coffee" era. So after church, folks would gather at the base of the church steps and chat. Catching up on all the gossip and the like. There was an old fellow (really old) who would shuffle down the steps and make his way to his car parked along the curb. His clothes were dull beige - and his car a dull beige. The conversation would stop and all eyes turned toward him. Since he was hard of hearing, he had no idea everyone had become silent.
He would hoist himself into the driver's seat, hold down both the brake pedal and the accelerator, and start his car. Slowly he would inch out onto Main Street and head for home - the car roaring away. Of course no one wanted to be anywhere near him - in case his foot slipped off the brake and he and his car would go full-tilt ahead.
My teenage conclusion. This man already had a decrepit body and he was still among the living. Who in their right mind would want to be raised from the dead with such a body! I decided that the adults somehow got this bodily resurrection idea all wrong.
I imagine all of you can relate similar conclusions that you made as you were growing up - and like me never shared them with The Grown-ups.
As an adult I have gathered to myself many opinions about a whole host of things. Hopefully I have been wise enough to have based those opinions on real life data - not on childish assumptions. And hopefully, I also am wise enough to change my mind when I discover my conclusions no longer hold.
This presidential election has raised the question in bold letters: why do people ascribe to such and such assertions made by various candidates. What if one candidate said the world is actually flat and not round, would this candidate's supporters nod their heads in agreement?
News analysts have been trying hard to figure out why some of the fervently-held beliefs have captured the minds of so many people. Especially when many of those beliefs and opinions fly in the face of reason. Real-world data doesn't seem to matter. Rather there is a "I want to believe this about the world" mentality operating.
We live in a time when the amount of existing data is overwhelming. Our personal filters help us screen out this overabundance until it feels manageable to us. I have been surprised at the number of friends who have said that they no longer watch the news at all - because it is simply too much, depressing, or raises their blood pressure.
Fact-check was invented to sort out exaggerations, distortions, and downright non-truths. I imagine the idea of fact-checking would have been puzzling to the grown-ups when I was a child. But it certainly would not have been helpful to me when I watched that very elderly man fire up his car and roar down the street.
We ask ourselves where did that idea come from anyway? Why do I ascribe to it?
How does it help me cope (or not cope) with a rapidly changing world?
How do I know who I can trust?
What do I do with the opinions I form?
Sometimes it feels like walking into a very noisy restaurant and having to shout to be heard by one's companions. The poet Wendell Berry writes about when he feels overwhelmed:
I go among trees and sit still . . . what I am afraid of comes . . . and the fear leaves me . . .Perhaps we all need more still places and trees in our lives.
