Family photo 2013

Family photo 2013

Wednesday, July 02, 2014

A Yin for Every Yang

Just the other day, there I was, minding my own business lost in the luxurious leisure only the life of a stay at home woman can so lavishly provide when a child sauntered directly into the center of my zen like state and halted it with a scream. "MOM! We have mites in the chicken coop!"

No, no, no! Not the dreaded, next to impossible to eliminate, blood sucking, bird infesting mites. Say it isn't so.

I frantically consulted my dear friend, Internet to rid our sweet hens and their humble abode of the despicable tiny creatures who hold no apparent value on God's Bountiful Green Earth.

Not long into my search I found a sure fire solution to our creepy crawly problem. Yipidee! The item had rave reviews from a wide variety of people and promised to ease our mite contaminated pain. I placed an order on Amazon for The Product Sure To Cure What Ails and breathed a great big sigh of relief.

Until.

Later that evening when I decided to do a little further research. Where, to my dismay, I found equally compelling evidence that this particular solution, the one I placed such high expectations on for gleefully ridding us of the funky buglets who made our hens their home. Just as many as raved about it, ranted. They said it was dangerous and perhaps even deadly, not just for the mites, but for the birds. Boo. 

I cancelled my order. 

And so it goes. I stumbled upon the flip side of the coin.

I was then reminded, (again) for every ying, there is a yang. An alternate view point, a different vantage, a varied perspective, an opposing opinion. Maybe even equally as valid. 

I can't help but think of how true this is when we talk about matters of The Evangelical American Church. (Hobby Lobby, anyone? Ahem.) For each victory applauded, each perspective lauded as Most Righteous and Sincere and Godly, there is a different view. Perhaps not in complete opposition, maybe just a unique way of looking at things.

As I was reading some of the HL drama unfolding online to my husband last night, he asked, "I wonder if any of the merchandise manufactured in factories overseas for Hobby Lobby is produced through exploitation of its employees. Are they all being fairly compensated?"

The notion hadn't yet occurred to me. It was a great question. I couldn't stop thinking about it.

So, I looked it up. And lo and behold, there were others asking the very question. Posing the possibility of the slightest bit of hypocrisy when it comes to valuing life not only in the womb, but after people are born, actual, living, breathing, working and sweating and crying and laughing and laboring to supply a future for themselves and their loved ones, human beings.

Could those journalists reporting on the issue have a biased slant? Of course. Could those shouting victory over the SCOTUS ruling also have a partial point of view? You bet your birth control pills they do. Because we all do. Each and every one of us is guilty of forming an opinion and finding evidence to support it, while turning a blind eye to that which holds contrary. We all do it.

We are also all guilty of the wearing the Blind Hypocritical Badge of Superiority. (Never is this more true than in parenting. Have you ever yelled at your children to stop yelling? Yeah...me neither....)

At the end of the news day, when all the uproar dies down and our minds move on to The Next Big Thing, I am glad, so very grateful and honored and privileged and glad to live in a country where we are free. Free to choose our stances. Free to change our minds. Free to pursue the version of truth (because there will always, until the end of time, be conflicting views of how truth is portrayed) that makes the most sense to our brains, free to inform ourselves to the best of our abilities through various means of research, free to hear the words of others and still form our own opinions, free to develop and listen closely to how our conscience speaks to us, and act accordingly.

Free to ponder the yang beneath the yin.





2 comments:

Dontctrlme said...

I so wish we were neighbors. I just know we'd have some great chats over coffee (or tea, or tequila shots...).

maggie k said...

I love the way you write. Thanks so much!

Blog Archive