#41 Learning How to See 👀

The Importance of Self-Examination in a World Hellbent on Denying Reality

Photo by Austrian National Library on Unsplash

The above title came to me a few months ago. It sums up so much of my life and learning to this point. Not only is it fantastic and timely, but I thought maybe one day it could be a book. I kept it a secret because I didn’t want my ADHD brain to be rewarded too soon and stop working. I took (am taking) copious notes and I have lots of ideas mapped out, but I knew it wasn’t the right time.

Then today, I knew it was.¹

This morning I went looking for a banana bread recipe and found an old blog post instead. It was titled #REPENT, and I published it on January 6, 2021, the day of the insurrection. Here’s some of what I wrote:

It’s become way too easy to reduce someone to a label or category and demonize the whole group. Not only that, but it’s encouraged, even celebrated! We’ve forgotten how to listen to each other and that there’s a whole life story that lies behind held values and conclusions. What’s “right” is processed and packaged and fed to the blind and starving masses, but we seem to have lost the ability, the humanity and humility, to admit we could be wrong. We’ve exchanged the hard work of love for quick, cheap judgement and heap copious amounts of shame on one another instead of extending a handful of grace….

For all the hateful, condemning rants I’ve seen from fellow Christians on the internet, for all the tone deaf posturing and pompous self-righteousness expressed in their “anointed” opinions, horrifically, I can look at my own reflection in the mirror and see that same unspoken bent within me. The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? [Jeremiah 17:9]

Repent.

I’ve heard it for months now. A steadfast, subversive battle cry. A revolutionary whisper. And I’ve tried to ignore it for just as long. Surely, there has to be another way, God—ANY other way…

It’s at the exact point that makes us squirm and want to run away that we need to, in fact, press in. With a great deal of reluctance and ever so begrudgingly, of this I am sure. That’s where the good stuff is. The Life. The freedom. Even if we don’t know what we’ll find in the unknown. Even if we’re scared.

I’ve thought for a long time that love will be what stitches this broken world back together, scrap by swatch by frayed and tattered piece, but I realize now that repentance is the needle through which the love of God is thread. Repentance must go first. It needs to pierce our hearts and make room—a small hole for love to slip through, and for the long thread of everything else love tends to bring with it—compassion, forgiveness, unity, justice. Lasting, radical change.

You know the verse that says, “God is doing a new thing! Now it springs up, do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” [Isaiah 43:19]?

This is how He does it.

Repent.

Find a mirror and look at your own reflection. Let’s start there.

This still rings true today.

What we think is what we feel is what we believe is ultimately, what we see. Outwardly, this becomes who we are. They are all deeply interconnected. The problem is, what we see might not be true. If our thoughts, beliefs, or feelings are wrong or misinformed at any point in the process (and they are), it will distort what we see.

We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us! (1 Cor. 13:12)

How can you tell if what you see is real or if you’ve been deceived? The answer is probably nuanced and multifaceted, but for the sake of this conversation, we can reduce it to “humility,” as this is the answer to most contentious things. Admitting you have no special importance that makes you any better than others is the necessary first step.

Are you willing to see?

If you’re not willing to repent or examine or learn or hear another point of view, then you will forever be saddled with tunnel vision. You will continue to live in an echo chamber reverberating the idea of right-ness until you can no longer hear where you’re wrong. And this is only slightly beside the point, but this also makes you incredibly susceptible to manipulation and radicalization.

Lest you make the mistake that because you’re a Christian or a Christ-follower you don’t need to repent, keep in mind that Revelation is chuck full of exhortations to repent addressed to Churches full of Church people.

We are all wrong on some level. There is no political party or person that has it all right. There is no “Christian” party, no “Christian” vote, no “Christian” ticket. A friend of mine said years ago that, “they are all wrong, all the time,” and it has stuck with me.

Voting is not a moral issue. It’s a civic issue, one which is informed by our faith. And by very nature of our individuality, history, and experience with God and the world, our faith informs us differently. And that’s okay.

I’m going to share something you might not know about me.

I am left-leaning.

I voted for Harris/Walz.

Maybe that surprises you, or maybe that explains everything. Maybe you’ll unsubscribe, and while that’s certainly your prerogative, I do hope you’ll stay.

I hope you can still see me for me through any fog of disagreement that exists here. I would hope if you’ve stuck around this long, that on some level, you know me. I would hope you know the vile ways people describe those who vote Democratic are not me.² I hope this creates some cognitive dissonance you need to reconcile.

I normally shy away from talking about politics. It’s bad for business. It’s bad for relationships. But I think we’ve arrived at a time where the only people who benefit from staying silent are people who look like me, and we are called to lay down our lives for our neighbor — The “other.” The “enemy.” The “bad guy.” (see the Parable of the Good Samaritan)

‼️ I do not say this to sow more division. I do not say this to cause more strife. In fact, my hope would be the exact opposite.

I’m not here to convince or convert anyone. In fact, I anticipate talking very little about politics, as this is merely a symptom. It’s really about the stories, beliefs, patterns, biases, assumptions, and conclusions that run in the background of our lives, directing our thoughts, feelings, actions, and next steps without our conscious awareness. It’s about the fear that holds us captive as we live into lies and falsehoods; it’s about the Love that has come to set us all free.

I certainly don’t have all the answers or the cornerstone on righteousness. All I plan on doing is all I’ve ever done — share what I experience, what I learn, and ask questions. It’s still me, after all. 😉

What’s the goal of all of this anyway, you might ask?

To listen to each other.

To respect each other.

To hear each other’s stories.

To offer dignity and withhold judgment.

To truly see each other and refuse to look away.

To find, in our shared humanity, some common ground.

To experience our feelings, examine our thoughts, and excavate our beliefs.

To bring the unconscious forces that drive us to the conscious surface for the greater good of us all. ➡️ Because if we can’t see ourselves, then we can’t see at all. ⬅️ If there was a central thesis to this work, y’all, this would be it.

So, I’ll ask you again. Are you willing to see? Are you willing to maybe, just maybe, be wrong about what you “know”? Are you willing to exchange certainty for curiosity? Dogma for freedom? (I’ll go first 🙋‍♀️)

I hope so, and I hope you will stick around for a thoughtful discourse on the importance of self-examination. I can’t do this without you. I need to be held accountable to neutrality as much as the next guy, and I hope you will hold me to that, especially if you disagree with me. None of us are immune to biases and deceit.

Could it be true that Satan’s favorite hiding place is right behind the human face?

Erika Morrison

Above all things, I believe we are called to unity in Christ. We are called to love God and love our neighbor, and the divisive rhetoric is not it. The dehumanizing and demonizing and demeaning is not it. The distillation of complex, nuanced issues and beings into black and white with no tolerance for grey is not it.

On both sides.

If you can’t see where your preferred political party/party-goers are guilty of that, then, my friend, you can’t see. Or you’re seeing something other than the human face in front of you. It’s a kindness to point this out, and it’s the same kindness that will lead us to repentance.

I hope it does. For me, for you, for all of us. We are in this together, like it or not, and our collective flourishing is bound up in one another. We are not delivered until all of us are delivered. We are not free until all of us are free.

“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.” (Luke 10:36-37)

As long as we exist in a world of us vs. them, there will be no unity. To the Christians in the room: WE ARE CALLED TO DO BETTER. We can do better. I hope we will.

May your enemy become your neighbor and your neighbor, a friend.

Cheering you on with hope and perseverance,

1. And I thought, why not here? Why not now? I write regularly anyway, and since seeing has everything to do with believing and who we become, it’s a match made in heaven!

2. The same can be said for those on the other side of the isle, too, of course.