PERCEPTIONS Part Four

The Emperor's New Clothes, a story we all know for the most part, has a simple lesson.

We are all naked. Naked we came, and naked we go.

In between we dress ourselves in various garbs, live many roles, and have many views which changes with time.

Meanwhile, naked is naked. Perception is a way of perceiving or covering such nakedness.

We view ourselves in the mirror most every day. It's truly amazing what we may see there depending upon our internal filters.

Then those filters are trained outward onto others.

The filters are useful to a certain point (without them we could not function) but they also clog and often have to be tossed.

My filters yesterday, as Sex pointed out, where turned a little too inward...perhaps defensive and narcissistic. So that implies degrees of filtration. I'll point you to her tight and direct reflection HERE.

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Because of my narcisscism yesterday some of my real point may have been muted or lost. Put simply, a metaphysical exploration was mired by my own stuff.

But I could not see that yesterday. Someone else had to point it out.

Which is a point about interdependence and also openess.

Anyway, I was grateful to my friend for suggesting I change my filters and also for suggesting it was also an object lesson at the same time.

Smart woman that Sex.

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Okay the Photo below. Have you seen it and thought about it?

Hope so, but either way I'll tell you the simple story.

It was taken in the elevator at the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco in 1992. On the ceiling there are these circular mirrors. The young folk in the picture looked up as the photographer shot their reflected images in the ceiling at MOMA.

It's interesting to look at their faces and places in the picture.

In the center is a young anarchist with a great sense of humor. On the outskirts a young woman who has a lot going on, but is on the outside.

The others seem (to me, it is only my perception) pretty amused by the whole exercise (as they were the exhibit, which I hear tell was Matisse and his infamous "cutouts").

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St. Paul, (who is grossly misunderstood and hardly ever read by the way) talks about perceiving reality as through "a glass darkly". He admits that despite his own revelations he only saw "in part". Other mystics say the same and they are far more adept than we are.

Under the banner of "modernity" we became use to Reason as the way of perception. That has not been unproductive, but has also become suspect as the end all and be-all. (Thus the rise of Post Modernism, which I applaud).

In a Post Modern context we can invite in a flexible web of lenses and find correlations.

What correlations?

Relevance and Resonance.

My friend's comments on Part Two this morning sang with resonance and relevance. It turned my vision.

It rebooted my perception, if that makes an sense.

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We perceive, through Quantum Theory, that the Universe is far more Relational than we ever guessed. Decades ago we might have talked about Eco-systems (and still may...it is helpful) and living systems.

Now we know more. Or, perceive more of what is.

For sure, it may be the tip of the iceberg. That is what Sex suggests in her essay. I have to agree. She says "we are pea-sized and pea-brained little bits of fluff in a giant, king-sized mattress".

Ya gotta love that.

It reminded me of Frederick Beauchner who says that God trying to describe his own nature to us is like our trying to describe being human to a "little-necked clam" on the beach.

We have some real limitations. Which is why arrogance is out of the question and humility is invited in to talk.

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