SouthernFriedYanqui

Eyes

Have you ever considered that humans’ eyes sit side by side a few inches apart, rather than one over the other a few inches apart? Whether you believe in a divine creator or evolution, the placement of our eyes facilitates depth perception. I realized this when a corneal abrasion required me to wear a patch over one of my eyes for a short time. Fortunately, mild abrasions to a cornea heal quickly. During this short time, however, I found myself concerned that I was having difficulty judging distances while driving. It was then that I realized that understanding how far apart something is requires the ability to see it from a slightly different angle.

The Back of the Card

There’s a scene from the movie My Cousin Vinny in which Vinny is explaining the difference between what the prosecutor tells the jury and what is actually real. Vinny uses a playing card to illustrate that the prosecutor will show the card and try to convince the jury that it is a brick. He tells his young cousin that by showing only the front side of a very thin card, and nothing else, the prosecutor limits the amount of information that the jury has on which to pass judgment.  He will provide a very specific perception of what he calls the truth. Vinny then shows, by turning the card up, down, and side to side, that the “brick” that the prosecutor showed is not a brick at all. It’s his job, as a defender, to help the jury see the sides, the top, the bottom, and the back side of the “brick”.

Playing Card; photo by Pablo Bernardo

With only one eye, see only one side of an object, like the card that the prosecutor holds up. Our perception is severely limited. Two eyes at slightly different horizontal positions allow us to see an object from two slightly different angles at once, giving us a much better perception. We can gain more information about the object.  From seeing even a portion of a side of the object, we can see that it is not a flat object, but has depth. Taking a few steps to one side or the other gives us even more information about the sides of the object. Seeing it from above and below, and then from the back, we can discern pretty much everything about the outside of the object. But we cannot get that information from standing in one place and observing only one view of the object.

It should be pretty easy to see where I’m going with this.

Point of View Provides Depth

It is impossible to fully understand an issue if the only way you’ve examined it is from standing where you are right now. You must take at least a few steps to either side to understand that the issue has depth. But to fully understand it, you must see the front, both sides, the back, the top, and if possible, the bottom. And that takes effort.

It takes effort because we too easily dismiss some sources of information. We also default to believing that our social media news feeds are showing us things that will give us the full picture. Social media feeds can’t give you the full picture. Programmers designed the algorithms to keep you engaged by showing you things that are very similar to things you’ve interacted with before.

Consider the Source

If an unlikely news source suddenly shows up in your news feed, it’s probably providing a story that is more like what you usually “like” than what it usually shows. If you really want to know an issue, you’re going to have to actually walk around it, searching out people with viewpoints that are different from your own, and actually listening to them, and sincerely trying to understand why they feel the way they do.

What Do You Want From Your News?

There is danger in this. Most people are emotionally invested in believing that their playing card is a brick, and they really don’t want to find out that their emperor has no clothes. (Yes, I’ve mixed my metaphors. Sue me.) It can be satisfying to feel that the “other side” is wrong, but it’s a very shallow satisfaction.

Take off the eye patch, turn the card over, and walk around the object. The satisfaction in finding out you were wrong is much deeper.

first published the first week in September 2016 but somehow lost in my archives, so I’m republishing it from my RSS feed

This weekend and last weekend it was my privilege to experience a significant gift from God in answer to a prayer. When I saw the devastation and damage caused by the flooding in Louisiana, my heart broke for the residents. I wanted to do something. Yes, I knew I could contribute goods and money to assist in the relief effort, but I wanted to do something. I prayed to know how I could do something, what I could do that would answer the greatest need in the Lord’s way. I wanted to help.

Buildings nearly underwater in Louisiana

We Are The Body of Christ

Songwriter John Mark Hall wrote a song that was performed by Christian musicians Casting Crowns. The title of the song is “If We Are The Body,” and the chorus is this:

But if we are the body
Why aren’t His arms reaching?
Why aren’t His hands healing?
Why aren’t His words teaching?
And if we are the body
Why aren’t His feet going?
Why is His love not showing them there is a way?

The Body of Christ

Faith and Works

The Apostle James wrote: “Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.” (James 2:17-18) While we can’t “work” our way into heaven, James was reminding us that our faith in Christ should be driving us to action. Around 124 B.C., somewhere here on the Americas landmass, the prophet-king Benjamin reminded his subjects of one simple truth: “And behold, I tell you these things that you may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when you are in the service of your fellow beings you are only in the service of your God.” (Mosiah 2:17)

Church Service

I knew that our Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, would be organizing a relief effort as soon as conditions permitted. I knew that units would be collecting materials, sending them, and distributing them. Following Hurricane Ivan’s rush through our part of the country, trainloads of goods were sent in from Salt Lake City, and work crews arrived to camp out on the lawn of our meetinghouse and help us get our lives back to normal. After Hurricane Katrina the Church organized work details dispatched from centralized locations in the areas that needed assistance. Workers drove in from unaffected regions and went to work cleaning out houses in preparation for repairs. My husband was a part of that effort, but my children were quite young and I couldn’t participate in that action.

This time was different. My girls are all grown and flown, and my sons are 17 and 15, nearly men. This time, when the call for action went out, we answered immediately. I don’t recall women working on the Katrina cleanup, but the invitation for this project included our entire family. I saw kids probably 9 or 10 years old participating. The organization was conducted at a level higher than myself, so I don’t know what the age limits were, or if it was left to the discretion of the family how to help.

The Setup

The Church headquarters worked with local Church leadership to establish relief effort centers in several locations. Salt Lake sent loads of goods and materials to use and distribute: sleds to haul debris, drywall saws, short knives, prybars, masks, eye protection, gloves and more. Boxes of non-perishable food items. Bottled water. 5-gallon buckets filled with cleaning supplies. The work centers served as distribution points for the tools, relief donations, and work orders, as well as a camp for workers. Women had indoor showers and men had outdoor showers, and a line of portable toilets prevented constant traffic in and out of the buildings, as well as an impossible strain on plumbing. Some meals were provided for the workers.

The Church worked with other local relief centers to coordinate work parties and dispatch them to homes. Each local ward or branch had a crew leader who was responsible for receiving the work orders, scheduling the arrival of the crew, and assessing the necessary work onsite. Then we got to work.

Our Portion

We removed carpet, drywall, furniture (in one case, pews from a church), appliances, insulation. We hauled, swept, hauled some more, swept some more. We hugged homeowners and listened to their stories. We worked alongside people who had lost everything, or nearly everything, in their homes. My heart is still full, thinking about the humility and gratitude we saw. We didn’t do it for the gratitude. We did it because we couldn’t take back that feeling of walking into a home for the first time since the flood waters forced them out, of looking around and just not knowing where to begin. Not knowing how to begin. Not knowing when to expect to get started. Not knowing how high the damage would continue to spread if it wasn’t stopped. We did it because we all thought about how we would feel walking into that. And we did it because we could.

My sons–I am so proud of them. They worked like men. Both weekends, they put aside the things they had wanted to do and dug in and worked. They gained skills in the process of serving others, skills that will serve them in the future. They learned the value of stepping up to help.

The experience was not without light moments. The members of our crew all know each other well and we know what we can get away with.  We will always remember the running line about Jimmy’s Beanie Weenies, and the coinage of the term “Swamp Donkey.”

The Takeaway

It was something of a miracle that I never saw a single mosquito during the entirety of either weekend. The entire experience is something of a miracle, in many ways. The efforts of our crew were multiplied by hundreds of other hands throughout the area. At each home where we served, for that portion of a day, we made a friend, we shared a laugh, a cold bottle of water or three, a hug, and a prayer. It was something of another miracle that somehow I think I received more help than I gave.