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Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Hide-And-Seek


When you were a kid playing hide-and-seek, did you prefer being the hider or the seeker? Where was a favorite hiding place? (Serendipity Bible 10th anniversary edition, page 1051).





I don't know the answer to this question because it is difficult to remember many years ago when I played hide-and-seek. But certainly the question has much relevance. Perhaps you have watched an interview program on the television in which the guests seemed more interested in hiding from questions rather than answering them. They hedge, they circumnavigate, they obfuscate, they answer questions that they would have liked to have received rather than the one asked. The one thing they don't do is simply answer the question. These are people that much prefer playing the hiding role rather than the seeking role. They seem to get an ego boost from being sophisticated in this way, from possessing what they see no doubt as skill in avoidance of simple facts. They like to play the role of the wily fox. This is a skill I do not admire but instead arouses distrusts within me. 

So it is a simple fact that I admire skilled seekers rather than hiders. But as it applies to me personally I must admit that more often than I'm proud of and in more ways than I can count I am a hider. I, for example, sometimes don't wish to think about consequences. I'd rather not think about the pounds eating bowls of ice cream can put on. I rather not think about the consequences of not having daily exercise. Sometimes it can be a very serious matter. Once I had termites in my home and put off for a long time thinking about the consequences of not effectively dealing with the problem. Seeking is not always fun, but it is always requires effort. I'd much rather seek exclusively when it's fun. Unfortunately, life does not always accommodate this preference.

Afflicting mankind from the beginning has been the desire to escape simple truth. We will be much better off when we learn to seek it and see the search for truth as an adventure and a duty that redounds in fresh actualizations of self-worth. Even in the garden of Eden abject hiding was a shameful and depressing exercise.







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