Perception, Truth, and Acceptance

There has got to be one truth, regardless of the limitless number of perceptions, and therefore interpretations, of it. Take yourself for example – unknown in truth by everyone, even your own self. Your spouse could be talking to you, telling you something very important, but in length, so your mind begins to wander. What appears to her as attentive listening (her perception) is actually a façade (an assumption of her mind), behind which is a mind trying to remember what you forgot to pick up at Home Depot. The perception is false, and whose fault is it? Is there any fault at all? Isn't it just 'nature'?

Words are a wildly creative and ingenious phenomena in our communication with other people. It’s amazing that 5 vowel sounds, and several other harder sounds created by buzzing vocal chords and the muscular shaping of the sound pipe, can be combined to make expression of our thoughts. Though ingenious and incredible to think about, words are not perfect; in fact, they fall far short of our intentions. Like the example with the wandering mind above, the words create the façade, or more adequately, the object which can be observed and interpreted by another. The object representing his present thoughts about Home Depot was a face expressing interest and attentiveness - or so it was perceived. The object, or manifestation, of his true self was falsely communicated or perceived, and most often this is the case with our words as well.

There are so many steps in communication – thought, expression, observation, interpretation. I think something, I create an object of it by speaking, the other party observes the object I created, and interprets it into thoughts of their own. The goal is to have my thoughts and your thoughts equal each other after the communication has happened. I’m sure this never happens perfectly. I think that is a truth we need to accept – it could help in our relationships.

There are so many ways we manifest ourselves and what is going on inside, and there are a million ways to interpret or perceive it. This is the case with Jesus too. No matter what his choices of words were (as one coming into the world of human interaction), it was open to interpretation and perception. Even words written, and the words of Paul and Peter and John, and all the prophets before Christ are just words, and are imperfect.

There is no wonder why there are 30,000 denominations then. I had always thought that there were this many interpretations because there were this many stages in the journey (of which the longest part is the learning of truth, the renewal of the mind). But I’ve come to understand that it is because of the interpretations, the perceptions, themselves. There are as many different perceptions of Christ as there have been people, and this is something we should also accept.

'Spirit and Truth' – this is something of a higher level of communication, and has to do with intimacy with God. Intimacy is the ultimate form of communication – it is the full knowing – it passes the communication, interpretation, perception stage, it passes words and comes to understanding. This knowledge in ‘spirit and in truth’ has surpassed communication of the minds, using words and objects and thoughts, and has gone from spirit to spirit, heart to heart.

Many people Jesus spoke to could not understand what the heck he was talking about with all his stories. Understanding this, Jesus would often wrap things up by saying ‘He who has ears let him hear’ (Matt. 13:9), which would probably cause further confusion. Noticing this lack of understanding in the people, ‘the disciples came to him and asked, "Why do you speak to the people in parables?"

He replied, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. This is why I speak to them in parables: "Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:

'You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
For this people's heart has become calloused;
they hardly hear with their ears,
and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts and turn,
and I would heal them.

But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.”’
Matthew 13:9-16

Understanding that the knowledge of Christ is acceptable to every human being – whether intelligent or thick, seeing or blind, hearing or deaf, even children, even those whose mental capacity is severely damaged – helps us to understand the way to knowing Christ. We’ve got to get to know the person of Christ, which has nothing to do with his outer expression – his words, his height, his clothes, his facial expressions, his diet, the way he walked. If knowing him meant knowing these things, salvation would only be for those alive in Israel 2000 years ago. Knowing the true Him, knowing Him in truth comes by heart language, by intimacy, not by head language. This is just something we need to accept in order to move forward.