When my youngest son isn’t making rocket fuel in the kitchen or gunpowder in the garage, he turns to his favourite non-explosive activity, origami. It never ceases to amaze me that a child who loves things that go “bang” can also love the introverted and careful art of paper folding. Yet he’s been at it for years now and is something of an expert. He takes a small square of paper in a short period of time turns it into something that is not only intricate, but also delicate and beautiful.
When I worked for the railways, one of my instructors, a large burly bloke with huge hands and language that could strip paint from a car, did flower arrangement as a hobby. I always found this hard to comprehend. I wasn’t alone.
First impressions are always problematic. We see, perceive, interpret, evaluate, and then make judgements about what people are like. More often than not we’re wrong. I’m always staggered by how far off the mark I am when it comes to what people are really like. Our perceptions are based on what we see and hear on first impressions.
Like road maps we all have social maps, maps that have been written over many years and handed down to us from parents, caregivers or certain extreme experiences. More often than not we are unaware that the map even exists, but it does. These maps are what we use to categorise people on a daily basis.
I have a map to Auckland city that’s about 4 years old. It leads me astray every time I go there. Reality and the map no longer match so I need a new one. In the same way we have to alter our “perception” maps from time to time, especially in our evaluation of people. Despite all the external signs, there are aspects of beauty that our judgments cause us to miss.
Over my years in ministry I have met thousands of people from all manner of backgrounds: violent offenders, compulsive liars, sex offenders, white-collar criminals and the ordinary citizens who never cross the law. Of all these people, only two struck me as being truly evil. Neither had a criminal history!
There’s no denying that our initial observations and intuitions can be right, but they don’t tell us the whole truth. And it’s the whole truth about a people that that really matters. The problem is, it takes too long to discover so we rely on our mapped assumptions.
The Bible informs us that all people are made in God’s image. Who we are as people in some way provides a glimpse of God. It goes on to point out that though the image is somewhat distorted it is still there – we just have to look harder to see it. Once found we can be quite surprised at the beauty that resides in the least expected people. We then discover our assumption maps need changing.
If you presume less, you’ll see things in others that will constantly astound you.
Digby Wilkinson © 2008