“Oh, I didn’t know that.”
Back in the late 20th Century at that pivotal transitional stage of life when I was a child legally, but got the feeling I’m not the child I was, there were several sources of information: television news, radio news, newspapers and magazines, the local library, my parents and the friends of my parents and then my friends.
I didn;t make it a point of duty to be informed about everything, but it was odd when something significant happened in an area I found interesting and I didn’t find out about it until a lot later on. It was odd because I expected to have found out about it rhrough the information sources I relied on.
Even at that stage there was a lot of information that came my way. For some reason I felt it was important to retain as much of the information I received as possible. That certainly helped for the television quiz shows I watched – because the sheer volume of trivia I had collated came in handy for that. Beyond that, however, there was something about the information which remained largely redundant.
By the time the turn of the century came around, I was well into the internet. I thought it was the best thing since baked beans. (I loved baked beans back in the day. I appreciate it a lot today, but it’s not the same. Not like those glorious days of love …) Those helpful web-sites and the greater range of sources of information from it was like someone had opened up a sweet shop with most of the goods avaialable for free. A sweet shop or a shop dedicated to baked beans. Either way, I did the signing up to email subscriptions of a large number of web-sites to keep informed. I did that, only to discover that my inbox swould be full of emails with lots and lots of information that I would never get the chance to digest properly, however helpful the emails were with all their images and graphs and sub-headings and hyperlinks.
That led to the challenge of wondering what did I need to know. The big thing that helped with answering that question was the question before that – why do I need to know it. That’s a great question start with. My mind is not an exhaustive container ever ready to take on more and more information of limitless quantity. No. I”m a finite guy with a finite mind and certainly a finite capacity. So the purpose of knowing has to be predominantly beneficial.
My Dad was a great influence in this regard when I reflected on his practice. My Dad was not a widely read man. I don’t recall my Dad buying books at all. (I certainly purchased a fair number of books … and might continue that.) He did, however, invest time every day reading his Bible and not large sections of it as though he was in a race to finish it all quickly. He took his time to read sections of it and study it carefully to get the understanding of it. As well as that every week my Dad purchased the weekly newspaper from his homeland, Jamaica. He purchased it and read it. He evidently knew what he needed to know and how it would be of benefit of him. It would benefit him to know more about the wisdom and knowledge of God that he could apply to his every day life. He could also get to know perspectives on how the land of his birth was engaging with its issues. Those were the primary things he needed to know to be of benefit to his life and engagement with others. That worked very well for my Dad especially when he got rount to settling back in the land of his birth. Grounded and settled spiritually and not completely out of touch with what was going on politically, culturally and socially.
He needed to know anything that would help him be of benefit spiritually to himself and others as well to keep in touch to be of service to others culturally. He didn’t need to know everything, he wasn’t fussed with the trivia that consument my earlier years.
Knowing Jesus helps a lot to discover what’s important in life and how to be of benefit to others. Knowing Jesus doesn’t discount knowing other things. It is useful, however, to help discern what else there is to know and how to handle the information, rather than get overwhelmed by it or preferring ignorance.
It’s easy to look disparagingly at those who ‘don’t know’ certain things, but it’s always worth exploring what they have found to be important to know and why. It’s important to be aware of that and then gently explore if there’s more to know to be of benefit.
That’s worth knowing.
(Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash)
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
C. L. J. Dryden
Life With CD 