Well, we've talked about hoarding kindness, and hoarding mental garbage, and hoarding the past. There's not much left, is there? Or maybe there is.
Do you know someone who builds a fence around what they know to be true? They hoard what they know and refuse to let go of any of it, much less take on some new knowledge. One of the catalogues we get has a T-shirt in it that says, "When I was young, there were NINE planets". Our world changes moment by moment, and while there are certain bits of knowledge that are everlasting, most of the rest of what we learned as children, or even last year, is subject to change.
Some of it is fairly easy to adapt: we no longer use a rotary phone, so to even use the phrase "dial up" anything is out of date. Few of us need the knowledge to adjust the horizontal or vertical hold on our television screen. (I'll wait while many of you look up that reference.) We've let go of the knowledge needed to adjust our typing for footnotes, or the need to have phone numbers memorized.
But. Some of us hoard other knowledge that needs to be tossed. In fact, we hold on to that knowledge as if it were a definition of who we are. We will fight, to the death, to keep that knowledge. Even when it's no longer true. Or perhaps was never true, but just accepted and believed.
Behold, I tell you a truth: when we feel the most threatened by change, it is time to look at what we are holding onto with a death grip, to what we are hoarding. More often that we would like to think, that knowledge was given to us by someone we love. And we think that to jettison that knowledge means we are being unfaithful to that loved one.
Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. Because you do. Your grandfather told you that people shouldn't marry someone who is not of their race. Your grandmother told you women who work outside the home aren't good mothers. Your minister told you only certain people get God's love. Your civics teacher told you that to be an American meant you had to think just one certain way. Your uncle told you education would ruin your religion.
And worse.
Keep the love. But examine, with eyes of an adult, what knowledge you hold on to. If it no longer works, jettison it. If you have fewer answers than before, learn to live with the questions.
There is only one race - the human race. Every family has to figure out for itself what works and what doesn't. God's love is not parametered by anything we think or say. Some people who love this country very much find fault with it. Jesus came to take away your sins, not your mind. Not all churches are the same.
Do you know someone who builds a fence around what they know to be true? They hoard what they know and refuse to let go of any of it, much less take on some new knowledge. One of the catalogues we get has a T-shirt in it that says, "When I was young, there were NINE planets". Our world changes moment by moment, and while there are certain bits of knowledge that are everlasting, most of the rest of what we learned as children, or even last year, is subject to change.
Some of it is fairly easy to adapt: we no longer use a rotary phone, so to even use the phrase "dial up" anything is out of date. Few of us need the knowledge to adjust the horizontal or vertical hold on our television screen. (I'll wait while many of you look up that reference.) We've let go of the knowledge needed to adjust our typing for footnotes, or the need to have phone numbers memorized.
But. Some of us hoard other knowledge that needs to be tossed. In fact, we hold on to that knowledge as if it were a definition of who we are. We will fight, to the death, to keep that knowledge. Even when it's no longer true. Or perhaps was never true, but just accepted and believed.
Behold, I tell you a truth: when we feel the most threatened by change, it is time to look at what we are holding onto with a death grip, to what we are hoarding. More often that we would like to think, that knowledge was given to us by someone we love. And we think that to jettison that knowledge means we are being unfaithful to that loved one.
Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. Because you do. Your grandfather told you that people shouldn't marry someone who is not of their race. Your grandmother told you women who work outside the home aren't good mothers. Your minister told you only certain people get God's love. Your civics teacher told you that to be an American meant you had to think just one certain way. Your uncle told you education would ruin your religion.
And worse.
Keep the love. But examine, with eyes of an adult, what knowledge you hold on to. If it no longer works, jettison it. If you have fewer answers than before, learn to live with the questions.
There is only one race - the human race. Every family has to figure out for itself what works and what doesn't. God's love is not parametered by anything we think or say. Some people who love this country very much find fault with it. Jesus came to take away your sins, not your mind. Not all churches are the same.
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