Just the Facts?

"Just the facts, ma'am. Just the facts," Sergeant Jack Webb would say to a witness at a potential crime scene. 

Well, there are facts, and then, there are facts. We often have a tendency to think that just the facts reveal the truth, but sometimes facts can be used or arranged in such a way as to create a different perception of reality, maybe even a lie. Even how we see what we see is managed by our a priori assumptions. We cannot see what we cannot imagine seeing. We cannot hear what we are not prepared to hear. Or maybe a better way of saying that is that we cannot understand or organize what we see and hear if we have no categories or criteria for it.

It might seem easier if we all perceived things in the same way, and made judgments on the same criteria. Then "just the facts" would be the way of all the world, but think of the nuances that would be lost. Think of the shadings in a sunset sky that would be lost if we just saw it all as red. My camera is not able to catch the subtle differences in intensities and hues as is my eye. What pulls at my heart strings with beauty would be lost.

The same is true with all of our human differences. Each of us brings our own experiences and abilities to the table and we are better for them all. I am richer for each of you in my life. I may be annoyed sometimes that someone cannot see as I see, or easily get what I am saying, but when I have the opportunity to explore with you, greater beauty and possibility blossoms because it is so much more than what I can conceive just by myself.

This is the Creation as I see it with wonderful, mysterious layers each suffused with the deepest grace of our triune God. I invite you, and myself, this week to experience the depth possible with one person with whom we do not always see to eye, and give thanks to God in the midst of it all that here is beauty.


John 21:5-6
Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.” He said to them, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish.