1. Remember when "they" promised there was no such thing as a slippery slope? Yeah, they were lying. Regardless, I am resolving, albeit slowly, to let things slide.
2. While using Facebook, I have contended with the nearly constant temptation to challenge every socio-political inanity posted there. However, I am, albeit slowly, resolving to let things slide.
3. While listening to Mr. Barack Obama speak (if one can call what I do "listening" and what he does "speaking"), I have contended with the impulse to smash sundry household items. However, I am resolving, albeit slowly, to let things slide.
4. When I read various columnists in The New York Times, the temptation to cry at the undeniable degradation of the American intellect waves over me. However, I am resolving, albeit slowly, to let things slide.
5. When I watch so-called "smart people" like Bill Maher, Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, Jon Stewart or Al Gore, I am left stunned, not just at their conceit, but at their obtund minds, as they cannot perceive the irony: if you are going to boast about your superior skills at spelling while mocking those who allegedly misspell every word, you better be the best orthographer in the room. However, I am resolving, albeit slowly, to let things slide.
The fact is that just because I've always known there is a moral slippery slope and that the human mind often boasts to itself about its allegedly un-benighted performance, it does not follow that I must slide down that slope, or darken my own mind, in order to be a member of the set of really cool people. Conceit IS blindness.
In short, I am resolving to let everything slide but my own mind and my own convictions. It is easy to drive oneself to insanity with others' inanities, but how does that help anyone?
I once heard a woman on NPR relate what her yoga instructor told her; the instructor was confronting the woman about comparing herself to other women in the class. The instructor said, "Husband your gaze."
In this age, that's sage advice.
"Keep your eye on the prize."
__________
6 comments:
I am hopelessly bad at letting things slide. I hope to improve on that before I die.
Dear Kim the Blessed,
I completely understand what you are saying.
The reality is that I can spend an inordinate amount of time contending with someone else's errors or (allegedly) wrong beliefs at the peril of missing out on my own life. It is not for me to go around contending with others, really. My battle is with myself. If I properly discern my way through a field of intellectual mines, my capacities improve, and I can direct others by showing them the route I took. But I waste my time focusing on why the mines were placed in the field to begin with; focusing on those who laid the mines is not as important as navigating my way through the mines that are laid.
Most importantly, not every minefield is mine to navigate. In fact, I often look for minefields that are not mine to navigate.
I recognize the need, even the demand, that is upon all Christians to bear witness to the truth. We are to be brilliant, or so our Lord exhorted us. But I can utterly waste my day, at least my day insofar as my interior life is concerned, by allowing other people's intellectual and spiritual missteps or struggles to set my inner agenda. To always be "open" to the ideas, even falsehoods, presented to us by others every second of every day can lead to a form of ADD, of acute and eventually chronic distractibility.
I am suggesting that God does not want us to allow these things to rob us of our lives. Yes, of course we must contend. But we can "husband our gaze" to those issues that are actually directly in front of us in our homes, our marriages; in our physically "real" relationships with those who ask of us.
I know, I know: even reading and reacting to this blog post allows someone else other than God to set your inner agenda or your inner dialogue. But that's the total extent of my appeal; hear the word of the Lord: "Keep your eye on the prize set before you."
Lastly, though this is to repeat myself, God wants me to focus on my feet, on where I tread, and not on the feet of my neighbors. Not every step I make, as you know, is true, right or perfect. But in watching where others step, or don't step, I run the risk of losing my leg -- or my life.
Peace.
Letting things slide is important if you tend to get lost in minefields, or if you tend to look for minefields to enter.
Minefields tend to multiply around you if you let the enemy slide in unchallenged too often. I was thinking that the apologetic tools need sharpening every now and then, and what better way to keep them sharp than to go out and be a sapper every now and then.
I like the image of being in the minefield. My husband calls it "riding the horse" when I start to get too concerned with things that are not my battles to fight.
I don't know how I missed this.
Trust me. I understand the sentiment, and it has been a temptation of mine for a long time now.
Yet, I think, what will happen to us if all of us just hunker down, and make no attempt, no matter how futile, to counter lies with truth; emotions with reason? How will the next generation's leaders be made.
The desire to not waste the strength and emotional energy to counter the countless inanities masquerading as the truth is the endgame of the progressive movement the last century. They have created a system which doesn't create men, but drones--in C.S. Lewis terms, "Men Without Chests."
Be well my friend, and don't stay away too long.
Cheers, and God's Peace upon you and yours.
I feel your pain. Re: item #2 -- remember that, if you argue with a fool, others might take you for one.
Uncle Rick
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