Reflection
There is a closed rigidity that lives in its own world. No matter what the factual evidence may be, a view based in one’s own perception or bias prevents openness to the surrounding reality. The facts are there but paying attention to them would be too problematic. It would require one to face reality and change. It would mean losing our comfortable illusions. It’s easier to ignore the facts and hold on to our own views. We can all recite the lengthy litany that excuses action.
Prayer
Lord, that I may see!
Action
Are you caught in this mind set? Are you closed to opposing view without evaluating their worth? How can you enable yourself to think freel and make positive choices?
Suggested Reading
If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.
Luke 16:31
You have seen many things, but you do not observe them; Your ears are open, but none hears.
Isaiah 42:20
The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.
Robert M. Hutchins
Apathy is a sort of living oblivion.
Horace Greeley
A closed mind is a dying mind.
Edna Ferber
You may live in an imperfect world but the frontiers are not closed and the doors are not all shut.
Maxwell Maltz
Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in.
Isaac Asimov
Every now and then a man’s mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
It’s amazing what ordinary people can do if they set out without preconceived notions.
Charles F. Kettering
Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
George Bernard Shaw