Time
for an Upgrade
“It's a
fact—everyone is ignorant in some way or another. And it's one of
the scariest things out there, because those of us who are most
ignorant are also the ones who often don't know it or don't want to
to admit it. Here's a quick test: If you have never changed your mind
about some tenet of your belief, if you have never questioned the
basics, and if you have no wish to do so, then you are likely
ignorant.”
Vera
Nazarian (The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration)
I am confronted by my
ignorance every day. I rode with my son, Ian, to Ft. Payne, Alabama
yesterday to deliver some things to an auction house. As we rode
there and back, his iPod played music in the car. Often he would say,
“Oh, remember this! This was THE grunge band of the nineties!”
No, sorry. I was around in the 90's (I think!), but I have no clue
what makes a band “grunge” and I don't remember the song.
Sometimes both sons engage deeply in conversations about technology
and, to my ears, they may as well be speaking Martian. I honestly
cannot do math beyond long division, and anything that has an
algorithm or a formula—well, forget it. I speak only English—some
would say, not even that very well. In short, there are huge, vast
expanses of ignorance within this one human being. I dare say, all of
us have them.
The danger lies in not
realizing that you have areas of ignorance. Or, in realizing that you
do, but acting as if you don't. For some of us, saying the words, “I
don't know.” is anathema. Either we are simply incapable of
uttering that short sentence, or we refuse to. The other possibility
is that our ego is so huge and bloated, that we honestly believe we
know everything there is to know, and therefore, never bother to
check out the facts.
I remember an incident
when I was a very young woman. One hot summer day, a group of us went
to one of the many white-water rivers in the mountains of North
Carolina to swim and ride the currents. One of the men with us was a
third-year medical student from South Africa, who was doing his
Psychiatry rotation at the local State Institution. We got into the
water and began swimming and body surfing, and at the point where the
water deepened and the current became swift, this young man, who was
much bigger than I, grabbed hold of me and pulled me under. I tried
to free myself, and we struggled for a while, with both of us gasping
and sputtering when our heads got above the water. With the help of
others, I was able to get him to a rock ledge and to pull myself,
bruised, battered and shaken, out of the river. There, he finally
admitted that he could not swim. My life might have ended that day at
the tender age of twenty-three, because someone else couldn't admit
that there was something he did not know.
It is extremely helpful
to have a curious mind. If you hold a set of ideas, no matter how
mainstream they may be, and you have never questioned the validity of
them, it may be wise to do so. The same is true with regard to your
spiritual beliefs. Southern people are fond of saying, “that's how
I was raised,” but if you've had the same belief system since
childhood, with every detail being exactly as your parents handed it
down to you, it may be time to dust it off and consider the
possibility of an upgrade. We human beings are constantly adding new
information to the vast collection of what is known and understood.
We don't have to stick with a 2000 year old text, or even a two
hundred year old one. There is nothing sacred about ignorance. We
don't need to enshrine it. God didn't stop communicating with
humanity in 100 CE. Spirit is alive and well, expanding and evolving,
and each of us can be part of that growth if we choose.
In the Spirit,
Jane
No comments:
Post a Comment