When I was a teen, one of Dad's most often quips was: "Believe nothing you hear or read and only half of what you see." But Dad, I would protest. As my reasoning and 'horse sense' kicked in, I learned Dad knew of which he quipped. Even more since the information age advanced faster to what I consider time warping spin. I had to laugh at myself the other night after Bettyann and I had watched, the newly found, Netflix series entitled Sherlock Holmes and opened my laptop to investigate whether Sherlock Holmes was a real or fictional person. Yep, Dad's truth of the matter: "you can’t believe everything you hear and read" on the 'tley' (as one might say in England) or on the internet, for that matter. Sherlock's “biography” is as easy to find as Winston Churchill’s (and there seems to be some fact/fiction confusion on both counts). Between the years of 1887 and 1927, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote prolifically of the famous detective known for his heightened skills of observation and eccentric personality. Holmes was both memorable and beloved—and entirely fictional. It is a strange irony indeed that there are a great number of people who would claim the clues suggest otherwise. As Holmes himself once said, “The temptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the bane of our profession.”
I am getting more and more weary of the process of gathering and interpreting information. Nearing the end of my seventy-fourth year it's seemingly never ending and over loading my mind's breaker. Have I become accustomed to the patterns of life around me and created, even cynically, theories on how it all works and how I must live? Is it that I've become 'age wise' in knowing whether it is insufficient data or fast truth, that readily form my theories? I have more suspicions than I can ever remember having before, don't I? My desire is to hold an unconscious acknowledgment that my theories are the means to understanding and relating to the world. I'm going to have to give intentionality to not theorizing the end I want, need, or hope to be true.
Strangely, the temptation Sherlock Holmes speaks of—forming theories upon insufficient data—seems to grow with age. And I know this; having worked with elders for two decades. But I've filed and forgot about it in mind, until recently. Now, as I think about it, since budding into blooming eldership a decade ago, I realize and confess, when seeking answers to questions, it has become more difficult the older I get. This, needless to say, has raised the ante for interpreting accurately. And yet, thank You Lord, I am finding a desire to be willing to adjust my theories. Isn't it the biases I've brought into the investigation which often prevents me from recognizing data as insufficient or tampered with? Then there's the fact of remembering the sting of being burnt; holding on to the old interpretation, causing a response with predisposed theories. Rationally, how might I respond to a child who insisted that if broccoli were good for him, it would taste like candy?
I like what F.W. Boreham writes in one of his essays, telling of his grade school difficulties with geography class. When the teacher spoke of life in a far-off land, he found himself drifting off to scenes in that land and remaining there long after they had switched to another destination. One day, catching him in the midst of a daydream, the teacher called on Boreham and asked, “What part of the world are we studying?” Recognizing a fellow student in distress, a friend scribbled the correct rejoinder on the paper beside them. ”Java is the answer,” said Boreham. “Good,” the teacher noted, “Now tell me, what was the question?”
I've been reminded in the last few days that when the theories I hold as answers become the end and not the means to understanding, I eventually lose sight of the question. “If God exists,” someone might essentially ask, “why wouldn’t God be like the God I want to believe in?” or “why wouldn’t God be revealed in the way that I need God to be revealed?” I would be unreasonably holding the answers without realizing the questions I am even asking. “I maintained that God did not exist,” noted C.S. Lewis of his years as an atheist, “I was also very angry with God for not existing.” I'm glad to learn that great people, also, have had answers they clung to without admitting the question they have asked is faulty.
I believe the clues of a creative and personal God are all around me. I am convinced that Christ’s vicarious humanity is unique in its ability to change and transform mine and every person's life. I also know the desperation of clinging to the answers that has keep me from really seeing the evidence. But this is not seeing. I really appreciate the admonition of Romans 1:20: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that we are without excuse.”
Father, God, I thank You for the ability given to investigate You with a rational thinking to see what is really there? I believe here is indeed something to the call of Jesus to receive the kingdom of God like a little child. Amen
