Dear Anonymous Reader,


For one of my English papers this last semester, I was reading a book called Grammatical Man. In general, it's about information theory. More specifically, it's about how language is the best reflection of how information theory works in the real world. Even more specifically, it discusses (20 years ago) how the mind acquires, categorizes, and retains information. 

The end result

One of the interesting things I learned is that the brain needs context for all the information it acquires. It doesn't do so well remembering just random bits of info. It needs some framework to put it in. Even more interesting is learning that the brain can (and will) do this unconsciously. In fact, it'll discard or even ignore things that it deems insignificant or not applicable. 

Again, this book was published in the 80s, and I haven't studied any neural-biological updates just yet. 

Yup...the 80s

But just knowing that my brain doesn't acquire and store information directly from events as they actually occurr kinda creeps me out. We all have this unconscious filter. Some talk about seeing the world through rose colored glasses. Well, evidently, we all have 'em, and I'm pretty sure the colors range from black to white to turquoise all the way to poopy brown. 

As I look back on things that have happened, whether it's in my faith, in my relationships, or just in life in general, it forces me to take a second look at how I perceive those circumstances. 

As if I wasn't analytical enough already.

And on top of that, knowing that everyone around me is filtering everything I say and do, be it in front of them or to them, through this filter, is just as frustrating. 

But then again, looking back on everything (everything I remember, that is), it makes sense. Realizing how many people took what I said or how I acted the wrong way, realizing how I took things the wrong way, wondering if the boat was really red or was it green, it all explains why so many of us just can't get along. We've all got different filters. And knowing that there's no possible way we can ever come to see things eye to eye completely, thanks to distance, culture, language, religion (or lack thereof), upbringing, geography, and our own God-given sense of self worth (or worthlessness), simply sucks.

Or maybe that's just my pessimism seeping through.  

But at the same time (and on a brighter note), to see how people from different sides of the world can get along is just simply amazing. 

Almost miraculous.

Which is why, despite anyone's religious preference, 1 Corinthians 13 is so important. 

"If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing." 

As cheesy as it sounds (and yes, even I think it sounds cheesy, and I'm kind of surprised I'm going to even type it out), the only filter that can overcome all these barriers placed between different peoples and cultures is love.


Not that squishy, flowery, romancey, Hollywood-esque feel good and let's hug a tree, sit in the sun kind of love, although that's nice to have at times.

No offense intended

I'm talking about the kind of love that keeps a man caring for his wife as she succumbs to Alzheimer's. The kind of love that drives a group of Christians in Egypt to surround and protect a group of Muslims as they pray. The kind of love that encourages a man to give up his chair for someone else. The kind of love that drives one person to give up that last donut to someone else.


The kind of love that drives a man to give up his life for someone else, even when they don't deserve it.


Christ said:

"“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends." -John 15:12, 13

He didn't command us to love one another just for kicks and giggles or for a feel good moment. Sometimes loving a person can be the hardest, most uncomfortable, most agonizing thing to do. He commanded us to love one another because that's the only way to overcome those unconscious filters. It forces a person to make a choice: to see and adhere to life through their own tainted goggles, or to put them aside for the sake of someone else. 


We can point fingers, talk about whose fault it is, be silent, run away, blow things up, and gun people down until the world itself is consumed, but until someone puts what they think is right aside (regardless if they are or not) and pursues "a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person (hoorah, Webster)," then nothing can ever change.

1 Corinthians 13 has a lot to say about love. But the most important thing to remember from all the characteristics love exhibits is this:

"Love never fails." -1 Corinthians 13:8

I fail. My friends fail. My parents fail. My government fails. But the choice to overlook all those failures, to overlook wrongs, to overlook who's right or not, and to just pursue the person (even when you can't), that doesn't fail.  


That, of course, doesn't cancel out responsibility, but that's for another day.


I don't know much, and I understand even less, and I've had friends I've loved dearly fade away and leave me confused about a lot of things (and despite my best efforts, I've done the same to others), but for some reason, when I put all that aside, I know (or I at least believe) that something else is at work greater than myself or my situations.

My filters suck. But Christ, and the love He portrayed for a world lost, is forever clear to me.

Especially when I fail.

Sincerely,

-Sean