aliens among us

subtitle: the suddenness of arrogance.

avery commented on Part 2, and boy was I relieved! I was writing my response to him when i realized I was writing Part 3. So avery, sorry but you’ve just become famous. I’m turning my response to your comment into a Post! OK people, come on. By now you know what has to happen before you get to read anymore. After the break. (grin)

Hmm? It’s the first time you’ve read my blog? Oh! Sorry! It was the page break thingy that came next. That lil green (more…) linky type thingy that keeps you from reading all of my post in those rss reader thingys. I do that because otherwise my posts seem really really long. This way I trick my readers into thinking they are much shorter! What? It’s not a bad thing! Magicians use misdirection all the time! Get over it. (grin)

avery commented this to me: “Jimmy… You mean Jesus was sometimes, obscure… and not completely honest…? You mean sometimes he left people out on purpose? I like this topic… I make judgments all the time… yes I am judgmental… I judge how close to the lines in the center of the road I am while driving, and I also judge whether or not I have enough money to buy something etc… Can you imagine a world where no one exercised judgment… because someone else said it was arrogant… boy their would be some wrecks… I don’t think that is the same thing as condmening someone else though…I think it boils down to motive… Jesus left people out of “the loop” because he knew their hearts and loved them enough not to give them something they would have to be judged for later… Motive is everything… sometimes we do what seems judgmental, (for example calling out someones sin), because we love them… I can be jusgmental… mostly against ignorance… because there is no excuse for that in America… see I am judging already… Great topic!”

It’s a great comment! I like all the stuff about Jesus and knowing their hearts and love and stuff, but, I can’t relate. Not an alien. Anyway, let’s get on with the oh so clever response comment by me where I COMPLETELY explain how transparency SHOULD work. Cause I’m all so “wise” and impressive and stuff. Can I get an amen…oops…sorry. Couldn’t resist. (grin)

avery, Hya.
Nah, that’s not what I mean at all. From the created point of view, I think Jesus was completely obscure. (grin) I also think I try to be a little too obscure myself sometimes, and I don’t have His advantage of always only doing His Father’s will. I like playing with words, and if you dig a little at what I write, you’ll find that I sometimes intentionally misdirect to see if anyone will pick up on it. Sometimes I just come right out and say things like “secret hidden clue” and then put what the supposedly secret hidden clue is right there in the same sentence. Sometimes I’ll obfuscate things a bit more than that. All three of these definitions have other meanings. But I’m just a mere mortal playing word games. Jesus is the Christ. He laid out who He was and what we should all do in a few simple verses. And then He had to spoil it all by hanging around and saying and doing other stuff and getting arrested and tried and executed as a criminal. I guess that’s what happens when you wear out your welcome. (grin)

I’m having a big argumen…uh I mean “discussion” with someone on another blog about judgment. I think I’m right because of Matthew 7:1, which is interesting because so does he. I think I’m more right, or at least more arrogant, so I’m pretty sure I can win.(grin) I think you make an interesting point about motive. Calling out someone’s sin because you love them. He had a point I pretty much had to ignore because I didn’t have a good response to it. Judging those who wanted to go out with his daughter. When my granddaughter is old enough to date, my personal “judgment” tells me the best course of action would be to send her to an all girl’s school. Until she’s 30. On the moon.

It’s confession time. Believe it or not, sometimes I say something I think is really clever and on target in a comment on somebody else’s blog. Then I go back and read it later and to my horror I realize that I wrote that in a personal context, and with the emotions I was experiencing at the time. And that I probably hurt the blogger’s feelings. And that I meant to do so at the time. You usually can’t delete or edit a post you put on somebody else’s blog. I’ve been trying to figure out how to apologize, but what can I say? Sorry Anne, I was having a bad poetry day and decided to slice yer heart up into little pieces?

Here’s what I’m talking about: In a post she did called “my satanic friends” she stated: “i know i can still call or text some of them even today and they’d be on my doorstep as soon as they could if i needed them”. That’s all I needed to proceed to see if I could rip this young woman’s heart out, cut it up into little pieces, and serve it back to her with a nice side of fava beans. In other words, here’s my “brilliant” response: “The most amusing part of this was when you said they would rush to your aid if you “needed them”. Can you say the same?”

The whole comment goes on with my oh so cleverness. When I read back over it, I realized that intentional or not, this was directed at Anne. Here’s where it gets fun. I’m not going to link to this post by Anne. If you do what I had to do to find it, you get to page back through post after post of this young woman in Uganda. Where she practically tears her own heart out herself, and offers it up to God. People often comment on Anne’s transparency, and with good reason.

I couldn’t figure how to apologize, especially since I thought my point was “right”. Big, huge freaking deal. My point was right. Well give me a brownie point and call me snazzy. I feel about two inches tall. Not only that, if I was her husband Chris, and somebody said something like this to my wife on her blog, my “judgment” would be less than “uneventful”.

It gets better. I’m all about trying to get local aliens to realize that the marginalized are all around them. I get to do that while sitting in my nice middle class house in the U.S. and complaining about the cracks we are slowly falling through. Naturally I have to write a post about how Anne blogs about Compassion International and sponsoring children overseas, and why can’t the local church do something like that here? Hey Anne, now that I’ve ripped your heart out on your blog, allow me to slap your face on mine! Isn’t getting to know me fun? Hey, I have valid points of view! So did the Pharisees.

Sin is sin, reality is reality, and arrogance is like stepping off a cliff you didn’t see into a really deep abyss. Have you ever come up with something you direct at someone or something else that you think is really clever, and then it haunts you? I came up with this one on Cindy Beall’s blog, and it’s been after me ever since. I seem to spend a lot of time in freefall lately.

Just a quick side note (and a transparent attempt at making up for some of this) Anne posted about another child that could use a sponsor here: how can you say no to this? Knowing how fast you aliens respond, this child is probably already sponsored, but if not, or if you are looking for another child to sponsor, Anne provided this link: http://www.compassion.com/sponsor_a_child/default.htm.

Anne and I are just online acquaintances. We “met” on swerve, and I’ve written some nice things to and about her. She’s never ever done anything but write nice things to me. And the above example is what I am capable of doing to my “acquaintances” with my “judgment” and “transparency”. Still wanna meet and have a cup of coffee? In case you haven’t figured it out by now, Anne is the Anne Jackson who writes the FlowerDust.net blog.

avery, I agree with you. I think when it comes to judgment and transparency, all I’ve been trying to say is it’s about motivation. Of course, it’s easier to talk about someone else’s motivation. There were all kinds of clever things I was going to write about personal transparency. I was going to quote a whole bunch of stuff I’ve seen on various blogs that I’ve shaken my head over with such arrogance. Instead, I get to examine my own personal motives. Gee this is fun.

Anne, the motivation behind my cleverness was to hurt your feelings with my clever use of your own words against you. Please forgive me.

Now for the really dark part of all this personal transparency. You see, I like and admire Anne, even though I’ve never met her. If she chooses not to forgive me, I’ll understand. I’m not an alien, and I don’t expect forgiveness since I don’t give a lot of it out. I get to pretty much assume she will forgive me because she’s an alien. It’s like a requirement for you guys. Matthew 7:1 is your get out of jail free card. You have to play it. (grin)

What if I don’t like you? What if I don’t know you? What if I don’t care what your opinion of me is? The better part of wisdom might be using some judgment before asking me to be transparent. I only do that with people I trust. And I’ve just given you an example of what I am capable of doing with that “trust” to just my online acquaintances. Meeting me in person, well, I’m just an old, out of shape, slightly balding grandfather who can fake normal better than most of you. It can be quite uneventful. Or you can try to get to know me. And I can try not to rip your heart out. Ever heard the one about the scorpion wanting to hitch a ride across the river? I like layers. Did you know that the facial expression we think of as a grin looks just like the ancient way of trying to frighten off an opponent by baring all your teeth?

(grin)

Oh and avery, thanks for commenting! You gave me the subtitle for Part 4. The Motive.