Cut A Thread

One of the best things I ever learned from someone was the technique of cutting a thread rather than pulling it. Rather elementary advice of course, something that I should have been able to find out on my own. Don't live in a town where scholars rule...

Cutting a thread has a much wider and wiser application to life in general.

The general set-up for the application of this principle goes like this:

Is there something you can't change? An issue that is dangling and if you pull it, all that is going to happen is further problems, a constriction of the problem and an unraveling of the fabric? Well, time to pull out the scissors and cut the thread.

That can be a toxic relationship that shows zero promise of improvement, a church where chronic problems are not dealt with, a dead-end job that de-animates the soul, a car that is hemorrhaging cash due to its poor quality and or age, etc. Cut the thread and move on. I know that in a consumer society it is often too easy to jettison hassles. Wisdom has to inform us as to what causes can be won, which have to be tolerated, and which ones we need to get away from because all they are is an energy suck.

Me quitting basketball because of my bum knee allowed me to escape the school and sport industrial complex at an early age. It became a blessing in disguise. I am all for high school sports if they are kept in their proper place. But, it that is the main and only source of school pride, it has become an idol.

One of the volunteer duties I  have assumed these days is challenging both the crass and crude on the Left and Right online on social media. I tend to stick to the facts and present counter-points in a civil manner. The vipers of course retaliate with the venom of insult and insinuation. It is amazing how much people think they can deduce from one tweet about me.

A thankless cause indeed. 

I question the crudeness of our dear leader? I must be an Obama supporter and voted for HRC. And homeless, a drug addict, living under a bridge. I question a statement that "Religion is the bane of humanity" and I shouldn't be a public school educator. One person asked if I was delusional. I asked back if he was a psychiatrist. I mean, c'mon. I took a Logic class in college. Argumentation must be based on what is known and not fabricated.

It is very tempting to retaliate to the poor level of thinking by just getting ugly and poisonous back. To get my pound of social media flesh. The problem is that I have now decided to use the same tactics that have been unjustly employed on me. It doesn't make it right. If it was wrong at the start, it stays wrong throughout. Who did it first does have some merit but it doesn't provide cover as the conflict escalates into a scorched earth. So, I pick up the scissors and just cut the thread.

I think the reason for me stepping into the fray, thankless as it is, is because that lies that are not brought to light tend to grow. So, either we draw the line when the discussion starts or let it grow to monstrous levels and then attempt to slay it. I would rather cut the snake in two rather than try to behead a dragon. When the thread of the back and forth shows signs of turning non-constructive and downright nasty I endeavor to stick to my points, not take the bait to take the insult-spewing personally, and trust that God is the great judge who will deal with that person both now and on that Great Day of Judgment.

I was in a discussion recently online about the "Religion is the bane of humanity" comments.

One individual and I continued back and forth. He started out abusive but as the conversation continued, he showed signs of becoming more conciliatory. So, I stuck with it. He admitted at the end, in a purely material universe, morality is just a social construct and not one with any eternal consequences. When our sun dies, and our little sliver of the universe collapses, what did it matter if all it was is matter? So, don't bother me with your questions of morality.  He agreed that this was only possible conclusion considering his beliefs.

Of course, I hold a different set of suppositions about the universe. C.S. Lewis does a masterful job in explaining it in his essay 'The Weight of Glory." 

"For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.....Almost our whole education has been directed to silencing this shy, persistent, inner voice; almost all our modem philosophies have been devised to convince us that the good of man is to be found on this earth."