Viewing life upside down

 

Whether we like to admit it or not, every one of us has a world view. That personal perspective on life flows from beliefs and values that have been inbred or imbibed from influences all about us. Our world view becomes the window through which we look and through which we interpret or create our own reality.

Many people believe that they can separate their beliefs from their actions. Leaders continue to say that their privately held beliefs will not interfere with their ability to function and perform. Remember President Bill Clinton trying to impress us that his personal moral failure would not affect his public capability? He felt that he could still perform as a good leader even though his private world was a mess. It didn’t fly then, and it hasn’t developed wings since.

The facts say something else: actions follow beliefs; we do what we believe.

Belief systems are important because they will ultimately emerge as behaviour. The belief systems of businessmen will eventually create economies of integrity or deception. The belief systems of judges will eventually influence the creation of laws. The belief systems of educators will eventually be lived out in the careers of their students.

When belief systems are compromised in a culture, like a person facing a compromised immune system, the future is jeopardized. We can judge the health of belief systems by looking at what those beliefs have produced within a society. Have they benefited community or have they undermined the strength and resilience of a culture? Is the fruit of the tree robust and sweet, or is it wormy and rotten at the core?

Many of my generation are deeply concerned with the seismic re-conceptualization of almost every historically held belief system: ie. the redefinition of marriage, the growing confusion over sexuality, the de-humanizing of the unborn, the loss of religious freedom and the severe restriction on freedom of speech. Something’s wrong somewhere, and if we don’t fix it quickly, it may be too late.

Recently I read a poem written by Russ Lee. He wrote:

“John has a new way of looking at life. He’s tired of his job, his kids and his wife.

He says the secret to his success was in leaving and finding himself.

Now, he’s someone to somebody else….

We’ve got a program for saving the earth

While unborn children are denied their right to birth.

One baby’s blessed, another cursed.

Have we made this world better or worse now that the life of a tree comes first?”

 

I have felt as if someone has gone into the mall of our heart and mischievously played a game on all of us. They switched all of the prices, making that which is precious cheap and that which is cheap priceless. We seem to have lost our sense of what is really valuable, and are struggling to know the difference between the real and the false.

History demonstrates that world views can shift radically in a moment of time. 9/11 proved that point. Our lives were altered: security was challenged. Our way of life was under attack. One event created a different perspective on life, and we have been wearing new lenses ever since.

Lee goes on to ask three sobering questions:

“What if we have fallen to the bottom of the well,

 Thinking that we’ve risen to the top of the mountain?

What if we’re knocking at the gates of hell, thinking that we’re heaven bound?

What if we reach up and touch the ground to find that we’ve been living life upside down?”

Time will tell.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.