{"id":2798,"date":"2012-07-04T06:47:49","date_gmt":"2012-07-04T10:47:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/simplelife\/?p=2798"},"modified":"2012-07-04T06:50:57","modified_gmt":"2012-07-04T10:50:57","slug":"misunderstandings-and-misstatements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/2012\/07\/misunderstandings-and-misstatements.html","title":{"rendered":"Misunderstandings and Misstatements"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"orator\"<\/p>\n

Several years ago, my friend who is a wonderful Catholic and an elder at Special Gathering, gave me a book.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure of the title or the author because as soon as I finished it, I lent the book to another\u00a0friend and it hasn\u2019t returned home.<\/p>\n

The book was written by a Quaker pastor, living in a small, upper New York State community.\u00a0 While my views of many things were radically different from his, I have no doubts that this pastor\u00a0is a deeply,\u00a0dedicated believer.\u00a0 As a Conservative, Evangelical Christian, I was fascinated by the characterization of my scriptural and traditional\u00a0viewpoints as seen through the eyes of this liberal pastor.<\/p>\n

While everything was crouched in delightfully, loving\u00a0humor, I was stung more than once to see how others view a presentation of truths\u00a0with which\u00a0I am quite comfortable.\u00a0 It was as though a light had been\u00a0beamed\u00a0on my attitudes and beliefs that exposed dimensions which were unattractive and downright ugly.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Having been raised in the South and because I lived through the 1960’s Civil Rights movement, I saw first hand the shock and wonder of many white Southerns who did not understand the discrimination that Black people had suffered under the Southern culture for two hundred years. \u00a0Looking back, there was little restraint from the “Ruling Class” of whites. \u00a0I believe that was mainly because the caucasion population was basically unaware of the awful discrimination under which the Blacks had suffered. \u00a0For generations, it was a way of life–not a mark of discrimination. \u00a0Those of us who were rising into adulthood during that decade embraced the changes.<\/p>\n

At The Special Gathering we function within\u00a0the cloistered, sub-culture of the mentally challenged community. We believe that we owe much to the Afro-American Civil Rights struggle. \u00a0 Living in this environment and without pointing fingers at anyone else, I cannot help but\u00a0wonder:<\/p>\n

How much of what I\u2019ve written and said\u00a0in regard to the discrimination foisted upon mentally challenged persons could be viewed as hateful, anti-social rhetoric?<\/p>\n

How loving am I in presenting my viewpoints regarding the hurts\u00a0leveled against the population I serve?<\/p>\n

Is it important to guard with our very lives the truths of the scriptures?\u00a0\u00a0Is making the\u00a0truths of scripture\u00a0real to our particular sub-culture ever an excuse for not being true to the text?<\/p>\n

When we are enveloped into a cloistered sub-culture such as the mentally challenged community, how often does group-think cause us to go places that do not make sense to other people?<\/p>\n

How different do things that are said within our\u00a0own sub-culture sound when heard by people not familiar\u00a0with that sub-culture?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several years ago, my friend who is a wonderful Catholic and an elder at Special Gathering, gave me a book.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure of the title or the author because as soon as I finished it, I lent the book to another\u00a0friend and it hasn\u2019t returned home. The book was written by a Quaker pastor,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":387,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,5,20,182,40,186,49,16,8,263,41],"tags":[690,21,688,420,419,699,715,701,694,689,6,700],"class_list":["post-2798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-autism-spectrum","category-christianity","category-church","category-disability","category-faith","category-hope","category-inspiration","category-intellectual-disability","category-mentally-challenged-community","category-redemption","category-spirituality","tag-autism-spectrum","tag-christian","tag-christianity","tag-civil-rights-movement","tag-cloistered-subculture","tag-faith","tag-hope","tag-inspiration","tag-intellectual-disability","tag-mentally-challenged-community","tag-simple-scriptural-truths","tag-spirituality"],"yoast_head":"\nMisunderstandings and Misstatements - A Simple Life, a Childlike Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/simplelife\/2012\/07\/misunderstandings-and-misstatements.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Misunderstandings and Misstatements - A Simple Life, a Childlike Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Several years ago, my friend who is a wonderful Catholic and an elder at Special Gathering, gave me a book.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure of the title or the author because as soon as I finished it, I lent the book to another\u00a0friend and it hasn\u2019t returned home. 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