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33 One day some people said to Jesus, “John the Baptist’s disciples fast and pray regularly, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees. Why are your disciples always eating and drinking?”
34 Jesus responded, “Do wedding guests fast while celebrating with the groom? Of course not. 35 But someday the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.”
36 Then Jesus gave them this illustration: “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and uses it to patch an old garment. For then the new garment would be ruined, and the new patch wouldn’t even match the old garment.
37 “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the new wine would burst the wineskins, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. 38 New wine must be stored in new wineskins. 39 But no one who drinks the old wine seems to want the new wine. ‘The old is just fine,’ they say.”
A paradox is like two one-way streets heading at each other. When two truths conflict, how I view the world starts to evolve. Paradoxes can feel agonizing in the moments I walk through them because I'm lost trying to figure out what to do. Still, they are a critical element to growth. As Jesus said, new situations that don't fit our philosophy are like putting new wine into an old wineskin. Often, the weaknesses of the old wineskin are exposed, and there are cracks or leaks so a new wineskin is required.
Reflecting back on my life, I adopted worldviews that best served me to survive. At one stage in my life, it was based on pleasing authority. In another phase, it was pushing away authority and wanting to take responsibility myself. During certain stages, I would be ashamed at how I used to see the world and how dumb or naive I was, but now I realize I simply had a particular observation point that has changed. I wasn't wrong; I did the best with the information I had. When the truth came into conflict with another truth, it was a sign of how I view the world needed to be upgraded.
As these upgrades start to happen more and more, I begin to appreciate paradigms of old and how they laid the foundations for the new. I still agree with much of what I did in the past, just with different light and more layers. My situational capacity starts to grow with each new philosophical adoption.
One of the core elements of my personal growth has been freeing myself from holding too tightly onto any one philosophy. My world has become much less black and white and a lot more shades of grey. Wrestling with my philosophy and judgment is scary, but I genuinely believe I am better for it.
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