"Don't Confuse Me with the Facts"

I don't know who said it first. The old saw has been around for a long time: "My mind is made up—don't confuse me with the facts."

I was pointedly reminded of that again a few days ago. Every year for ten years or so, family members and I searched unsuccessfully for the River Festival medallion. This is a blue and gold disk—plastic, I think—which was hidden somewhere in a public place in our city, usually a park. During the annual River Festival in May, clues to its whereabouts were published daily in the newspaper until it was located by someone who had figured out the meaning of the obscure references to historical events, literature and art, contemporary entertainment, and local trivia, both past and present. The clues might be straightforward, or they might be nonsense unless arranged as an anagram or an acrostic, or read backwards, or interpreted by the letters on the telephone dial. You just never knew!

Always the clues have been ambiguous. Once—only once—we were actually in the right park, although we didn't locate the medallion. We usually decided fairly early where we should look, and after that we related the clues to that place, "squeezing" them into meaning something significant. Finally, as the end of the hunt neared, we would have to conclude that we just couldn't make sense of them, and that we were not at the right place after all.

After a hiatus of several years, the Medallion Hunt was returned this year as part of the Festival, a "virtual" hunt this time, and once again I joined the search. Since there was not an actual object to find, I didn't know until the contest ended that I was mistaken once again. I was so sure I knew where it was! When the hiding place was announced, I was truly amazed! Why, this time every clue definitely pointed to the place I had chosen! Yes, I could see how the real place was described by the clues, but my choice was actually better! In other words, "My mind is made up—don't confuse me with the facts."

This is a small and perhaps foolish example of a closed mind! It made clear to me once again how easy it is to determine how things are—or how they should be—and simply not consider any other possibilities. Social issues, politics, interpretation of others' words and actions, even religion—all of these tend to get trapped by an opinion beyond which we simply cannot see any alternative. The closed mind is especially dangerous when it insists on that view only and cannot allow others to think differently.

Jesus did not scold question-askers unless they had ulterior motives; He Himself was a questioner by the time He was twelve years old. It doesn't hurt to admit that we just don't have all the answers! Even though we can rightly claim to have "renewed minds" through Christ, none of us have all the facts all the time. "Examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good." (I Thessalonians 5:21)

MaryMartha

Scripture is from the New American Standard Bible, used by permission of The Lockman Foundation, www.lockman.org