Wednesday, May 31, 2006

 

On Taming The Intellect

Let's face it, as bloggers, we are a pretty smart bunch of people. It simply comes with the territory. I like being smart, I really do, but it has also has been a huge burden in my life.

Burden? How could a gift like that be a burden? It's simple, I, and I think other smart people share this tendency, am prone to submmersing humanity with intellectual activity. What do I mean by this? I tend to analyze people instead of simply listen to them. I tend to categorize people instead of simply experience them.

This problem is at its absolute worse when I express something that from my perspetive is just a bit of thought, some piece of analysis, carefully couched; I tend to completely ignore the emotional and spiritual impact.

One of the things I have had to learn is that, much as I would like to consider myself and the rest of the world as Vulcans, creatures of pure logic, thought and emotion are not really separable. How I think about things radically affects how I feel about things, and vice versa.

It's no secret I have been pretty upset with some of the "truly reformed" crowd lately, at least if you have read this blog at all in the last two weeks. I have been upset because I think they are wrong. But my reaction has been far more visceral than merely wishing to refute their contentions. I've been angry!

You see, my thoughts have affected my emotions. Interestingly, I have had such an emotional reaction because I think they have failed to understand the emotional impact of their assertions. They have split hairs and parsed language and drawn distinctions - they have attempted to make it intellectually "OK' to be bigoted, rather than understand that no amount of intellectual activity can change the emotional, and spiritual impact of what was said. They think it about ideas, when it is really about people.

God tried it by words on a page and found it wanting. He found it necessary to incarnate, to take on flesh, in part to emphasize that His intentions are not mere words or ideas - His intentions are people! We forget that at our peril.

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