Vineri 
(While most religions have the purpose of preserving the system of beliefs, laws, customs, and ways of life which people have inherited, Christianity claimed from the beginning that life and the world as we know it is bankrupt and its purpose is precisely to radically change it in order to save it from the impending doom. This change in the world was going to occur not just after Jesus’ coming, but even in preparation for his coming, as John the Baptist, the forerunner of Jesus, proclaimed: “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord’” (John 1:23).
When it comes to roads, no one would argue that crooked roads are undesirable and straight ones are preferable. Whether roads change direction because they have to go up or down in order to cross deep valleys or high mountains, or have to go around in order to avoid bodies of water or other natural obstacles, crooked ways are always longer and harder to travel on. Because such roads change direction all the time, it makes it difficult to know where you are all the time, which direction you are going, or whether you are lost or are still on the right path. Moreover, on such roads is hard to anticipate what lies ahead and be prepared for what is coming next. By contrast, straight roads eliminate all worries and promise an easy travel and safe arrival at the destination.
When John the Baptist proclaimed that Christianity would involve making straight roads did not refer to physical roads on a landscape, but to the way in which we humans think and act accordingly. Our minds and beliefs have been compared even by psychologists with a landscape made up by different ideas connected by paths similar to roads which connect different geographical locations. Some even talk about “mapping the mind” just as one would “map” a territory and it is part of common language to refer to how people think as “ways” of thinking.
If this analogy is correct and Christianity claims to make our “ways of thinking” straight, no matter how desirable this may be when referring to the roads on which we drive our cars, “straight thinking” does not seem to be so desirable, particularly for modern people. When it comes to thinking and mind, “straight” and “simple” are not necessarily positive qualifications. Instead, the most desirable qualifications about our thinking seem to be: sophisticated, complicated, elaborated, refined, educated, multifaceted, deep, open minded, broad, high, etc. Someone who would want to see all things in the same way is looked down upon as being “simple minded” failing to see fine details and differences between things and consequently making different judgments.
One of the most emphatically proclaimed unquestionable truths is that all humans have been created equal and as a result should be treated in the same way. It is a truth affirmed by philosophers, constitutions, and it was the “dream” of the famous civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr., truth for which he paid with his life. In spite of this truth which is “self evident,” that is, no one can possible argue against, a “perceptive” mind would see many differences so that it applies differently to different people. For instance, while in a country people need to be guaranteed a minimal wadge, if other people are denied a living in their own country and move in another country, they would be labeled “economical refugees” and would be denied not only the right to a minimum salary, but even the right to earn a living even if they are willing to perform the most menial jobs which no one else would accept and would be willing to work for a salary way bellow the minimum wage. And because Martin Luther’s dream of mentioned, a simple mind would conclude that the fact that an Afro-American has been elected president of the United Sates his dream has been fulfilled, “sophisticated” minds even here see some details that prove quite de opposite. While a simple mind would think that since Barack Obama has an African father and an American mother, could most accurately be described as Afro-American, but even here, others, including scholars, point out that since he is not a descendent of the former slaves, he cannot be described as Afro-American because only descendants of the former slave can be accurately called Afro- even if they have never had anything to do with Africa. And so, even when we have a “truth which is self evident,” each one applies it according to the way it is convenient to themselves.
Although Christianity does not reject the need to pay attention to details, it does insist that when it comes to how we look upon one another, the same truth must be unquestionably the same regardless on who is making the judgment and about whom the judgment is. Here sophistication by making exceptions means simply to fail altogether to meet the standard. This is not a standard which applies only to all human beings without exception, but is a standard from which even God does not want to deviate even because of the smallest detail, although arguably God has the most sophisticated mind in the universe. The fact that Jesus was God’s Son did not make God to use any “affirmative action” or preferential treatment to him and therefore Jesus came as the most humble being. When Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness and promised to make him the ruler of the world he rejected the offer as incompatible with God’s way of thinking. Can we humans, possibly achieve that simplicity of mind to look upon one another without the slightest discriminations just as God does? Paradoxically, not only we can have such thinking, but we all had it naturally. Jesus made the following strange statement: “ "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3). One of the difficulties children have with adults is to discover that adults do not “mean” the same thing all the time when they say something. Eventually they grow and become “fit” for the real world, without realizing how much they have distanced themselves from God. Therefore, “straight roads” or “straight ways of thinking” is not something which we need to discover; it is something which we need to recover.”
Aurel Ionica - Majesty.ro
