Seeing Things Differently

If you think you are losing your mind, you still have hope! During this year, I have felt that the world has lost its mind.

Epidemic hysteria or mass hysteria refers to apparently contagious dissociative phenomena that take place in large groups of people or institutions under conditions of anxiety.
Neurotic, stress-related and somatoform disorders – ScienceDirect

A New Perspective

My attitude during 2023 has been this: It only takes a modicum of mental agility to recognize that intellectual elites have pressed into service governments, media sources, and social influencers after capturing them by the dredge nets of money, fame, and power.

Recently, however, I’ve begun to see things differently. No, elitism has not diminished, but my perspective has. This change in outlook came from the passing of a friend I’ve known for the better part of fifty years. My friend’s death was like an electric shock treatment to my soul, causing scales to fall from my eyes.

Finally, I see the transientness of this life. I’ve known this for ages, having taught and written about it innumerable times. But how different one’s journey to the grave becomes when the veil of life is lifted, and what is real, what is true, what is reality, is experienced, even for the briefest moments, when that incomprehensible profoundness of God immerses us.

Seeing as God Sees

So, how does the topic of intellectual elites align with my life’s optics? Let me quote a passage from God’s Word that expresses how I now perceive things.

3 You have come to the assembly of God’s firstborn children, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God himself, who is the judge over all things. You have come to the spirits of the righteous ones in heaven who have now been made perfect. 24 You have come to Jesus, the one who mediates the new covenant between God and people, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks of forgiveness instead of crying out for vengeance like the blood of Abel.
Hebrews 12:23-24 NLT

The event that caused God’s true change in me was this: I befriended a troubled man who began attending ‘my’ church. I have been attempting to write a new book, but I suddenly saw that I had to invest in this friendship ahead of my writing. God still wants me to write, but I now must live in a way where people come before projects.

Another manifestation of God’s change in me has to do with things. My wife and I came to the same conclusion: our kids don’t want our stuff. When we were growing up, she and I mentally picked out things our parents had that we wanted to hold onto once they passed: keepsakes that held memories. Our kids aren’t that way. Now we have boxes full of things we don’t need and our kids don’t want!

Freedom from Boxes Never Opened

We are now slowly disposing of boxes of stuff we’ve moved from house to house, many of which we’ve never opened. Until recently, I still desired a few of the objects we’ve moved, lots of my dad’s things that he inherited. Stuff no longer attracts me. I see things differently. I pray God enables you to see things differently, though not by the same means He used upon me.

Image by Paul Diaconu from Pixabay