"In the Kingdom of the blind, the One-eyed is King."

I'd never heard that maxim before last week. It's haunted me ever since. Probably because of a lot of "stuff" happening in my personal life and my "church" life. For instance, I had a conversation with an acquaintance the other night, and it got me thinking about self-perceptions and how easily we can be "blind" and settle following someone or something with only half vision because it's better than what we currently have.

I preface this conversation by saying that I have an occational habit of asking people in my life how they "see" me. I know that I'm not the "stereotypical" person that my resume of life might have made me. And, unless these folks are lying to my face, the feedback of these friends and acquaintances help me maintain a fairly accurate self-image.

The person I was talking to the other day said they see themselves as "cutting edge," too. But they base this perception solely on the fact that they listen to their children to keep current.

I echo that. I was raised believing that my parents were just totally of a different generation, and they showed very little interest in understanding what my culture beyond how it personally affected me and them. Me? I ask my kids constantly about their music, their vocabulary, what I see and hear from them and their friends.

But what my "friend" failed to realize is that listening to their children only gives them one piece of the puzzle. Their perspectives are still seen through the lens this person has created! Whether it be the "moral" thread they weave as a family, or the traditions they celebrate, the perspective they project, etc. Our kids (at their age) still reflect a lot of what we give them.

This person's vision is limited -- similar to what our church is going through right now -- and what most churches get caught in forever. We are "the one-eyed," but it's still settling for less than total vision. In the land of the blind, we are something. But it isn't what we were called to be.

Our measure must always be the the Father. Our cultural cues come from Yeshua -- how did He interact with His society, both religious and secular. Any other model we compare ourselves to is inappropriate.

I look at some of our cultural examples. Bono. Obama. People -- powerful people -- with a huge platform from which to speak. They don't hit people over the head with a belief system (John Mayer says belief is a beautiful armor, but a heavy sword to swing), but are so solid in what they believe that it infiltrates absolutely every statement, every thought, every action. Fully submerged in their "belief" that nothing is going to toss them into irrational fear.

We need to be people to where nothing we "believe" is beyond consideration or question. But also people who are not "blown and tossed" into abrupt change by every piece of new information we receive. And we need to be never swayed by what "someone else" says, regardless of who that someone is.

Open to new thought, yes. But we need to allow new information to be considered, washing over us, seeping into the empty cracks and crevices that occur in us as we change, grow and mature. Helping make us who G-d intends us to be as we grow in Him.

By living life this way, no philosophy or "theology" can throw us into fear or doubt. We are not at the whim of the next great, charismatic speaker or author. We can easily be "in the world and not of the world." We can be doers of the Word, and not hearers only!

I want to hang on to truth. I want my life to clearly reflect "what I know." But I also don't ever want to be the person that stops growing, changing, being chiseled into the image of the One I chose to follow. I don't want to be lead by one-eyed knowledge. I want to be lead by omniscience always.

Amen.