It is so hard to tell the difference between the things I believe and the things I was taught.
It is so hard to live in a "Bible Belt" and not wear a narrow belief set, as if it were an outfit which must be pressed and flaunted at any given opportunity.
It is so hard to tell the difference between the world we actually live in and the State I was raised in...
It is so hard to know the "truth" I am shown versus the current state of the worlds affairs.
it is so hard to challenge myself to invent or progress in a culture more in-tune to earning, routines and consumption.
It is so hard to know the difference between conservative thinking and actual morality.
Between continuing to simply learn about a religion versus practicing the very simple religious teachings and encouragements initially made available to me as a small child.
Sometime we have a knack when we live in a large (5 million +) populous to think we are "right" about our beliefs. That we are founded in our direction as a society. After all, look at the numbers we have on our side, merely in our own immediate vicinity; not to mention the vast population of our entire country.
Sometimes we actually feel we are sophisticated, simply because we carry a laptop in our briefcase that can perform unimaginable calculations; or a "smart phone" in our purse or pocket which can now retrieve and disseminate unimaginable amounts of instant information.
We pride ourselves in the decisions we have made that "feel" RIGHT and JUST. We gain strength in our ability to "hold" strong to our believes. We foster "pride" when we can gather in groups that agree with our positions, whether at the polls, in our church, on a blogosphere, or within our households.
We often see little problem with "taking a shot" at others who believe differently. In other words, we get very comfortable disliking those who take a different position in affairs we feel connected to or knowledgeable about. For after all... How can we be wrong? How could so many around us also be "wrong". We are confident! We are bold! We are patriotic! We have pride! We're carefully or morally conservative! We are educated! We are a world power! We are the best! We therefor must be right!
It is amazing to me just how easy it is to make a journey in one's life from infancy to righteousness. Form ignorance to empowered. From humble and only one individual to powerful and encouraged by what we see are vast numbers of other who are "smart" like you and me.
I find it interesting that due to the curvature of the earth one can't see greater than a distance of 12 miles away. yet the circumference of the earth is over 30,000 miles in distance. And even knowing those two simple numbers, related to my actual view of the world versus it's literal size I can still convince myself I have an understanding for the world; thanks in large part to technologies which use light, electricity and radio waves in a way which quite frankly I don't care to understand.
So is my ignorance about such things a matter of conveniences, necessity, capacity or choice.
Fact is, you are atoned for being ignorant and you are expected to love others. Any other prejudice, arguments, negative opinions, forth right marches and campaigns, are all just a matter of relevance to those whom you can assess and judge within your immediate surrounding. And the fact is there are far grater percentage of both intelligent and worthy people outside of your impact and assessment than there are within it.
I find it interesting that I could tune in to 2 or 3 various sources of news, based in a country of 360,000,000 people and feel I understand how decisions affecting those in over 180 countries encompassing over 6,775,235,000 (6 Billion) people should be influenced or made.
I find it disturbing the actual lack of humility and knowledge people find necessary before they identify with or back up a small set of beliefs and call them the truth and/or the solution. I find it disturbing that folks feel they can call their own position right and someone else wrong, when they truly know almost NOTHING of what issues are affecting the "others". We are content to understand little and trust few, while we spout off answers and accusation which merit little to know research or knowledge of the greater percentage of people in our own state, country and world.
Being narrow or shallow is no longer a fear people seem to have. But rather, it is perfectly suitable to feel decisive and bold about topics we possess almost no perspective or foreknowledge.
We are proud to have our vote, but unable to have a true understanding for the issues.
We are proud to be a part of our community, but rarely bother to look beyond the lives of these within our own 4 walls of household.
We feel patriotic about our country, and therefore think it is a duty to be against others' who were born elsewhere.
We often claim to have a religion that inspire us to love others, and not place ourselves in the position to judge others' transgressions, yet we have also contorted this religion into an opportunity to narrow our perspective of living and cultures to the point of justifying hatred and fear.
I am sometimes ashamed by the way I was educated... Embarrassed by the limited perspective my view of the world offers, and concerned my own faith or patriotism has often been used as a crutch to make me feel I was right without having an understanding of that which I considered wrong.
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