Fragments

The other day, I received a strong lesson about fragmentation and it’s relationship to misperception. Of all things it revolved around the Barack Obama / Rev. Wright issue that had been playing out in the press. It was a two minute clip here basically he “obviously” said the things very disparaging of America. I thought “holy crap, this guy is an outrageous jerk.” I was totally disgusted. But then I got pointed to a video displaying not only the 2 minutes ceaselessly played on TV and YouTube but the entire 30 minute sermon.

What happened? I got schooled pretty hard. It turns out that he was not himself saying “It was our chickens coming home to roost.” He was actually quoting an American Ambassador (interviewed on Fox Noise no less) and Rev. Wright made some very different points of his own. If you ever see it, you’ll have to make your own conclusions or learn your own lessons. I’d like to elaborate on mine.

Something that did not occur to me sooner, I find myself embarrassed about is that there have been times that I made (sometimes lasting) judgments on people, while only looking at a very thin sliver or fragment of a picture. With only a fraction of an image, say 1/8 of an inch, we have the capacity to make vast and wide ranging judgments, that may be based on nothing more than a glimpse.

Reflecting back, I could clearly see times that I had done just that. I now remember that there is something that I used to call the “Paul Harvey,” or “The rest of the story.” One of my friends expresses it as “condemnation prior to investigation usually leaves us dimwitted.”

We tend to not see, feel or hear the entire story. There is no real context. Sometimes it’s because we don’t want to know the truth, we just want to know so-called “our version” of what we see. We just want to know the fragment because it seems to compassionate, weak or foolish.

When interacting with people, I can make the effort (if I want) to consider and learn the wider circumstances, before “jumping to conclusions” and making decisions about what situations mean (especially when I am feeling negative about it). That leaves me a window of possibility as to how I may react and feel. Living this way embraces the opportunity to be the fullness of our experience, rather than just fragmented, disconnected parts.

Namaste’

Jaye Morris, Curator
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