Looking in the Mirror

When I learned to drive, my driving instructor spent some time telling me how to make those little adjustments that help driving feel natural: getting the seat in the right position; if possible setting the driving wheel at the right distance; and moving the mirror so that I could see behind without having to move my head. He then spent some time telling me how important it was in practice to move my head when looking behind. For as he explained: it isn’t how effortlessly you look in the mirror that’ll help pass a driving test. It matters that the examiner sees the look behind, and she’ll never notice an expertly casual flick of the eyes.

Put this idea together with the suggestion that people have an innate bias towards prior held beliefs, such as ‘young driver: he’ll not be used to checking behind him’, and one can see how important it is to be obvious in how one does the things that matter (for more about bias, see Ben Goldacre’s book Bad Science, especially the chapter Why Clever People Believe Stupid Things). When the driving test is passed, there’ll be a different set of biases to work against, especially if one drives a white van or has a Christian ‘fish’ sticker on the back window. But each moment has its own challenges to which one needs to adjust.

Like the recent accusation made against me that I didn’t turn up to church often enough (important if you happen to training to be a priest). People will tend to believe someone in authority who makes an accusation like that, and mere facts won’t make a bit of difference when held up against an inner ‘reality’. No signed entry in the register for the services at which you officiated or preached, and no tax return from the gift aid envelope you filled in as a member of the congregation will ever matter, for no-one - including me, if I'm honest - will wish to test their own assumptions for fear of finding them wanting.

Perception is all, and anyway most of us each in our own ways are "... foolish and senseless people, who have eyes but do not see, who have ears but do not hear." (Jeremiah 5.21, NRSV). So I am resolved to "prepare my baggage and carry it by day and night" (Ezekiel 12), which is I think the nearest God gets to saying "be seen to look in the mirror". For all that I am disappointed that for now my journey towards ordination is curtailed, there is still a need to prepare for the Kingdom journey and perhaps to start digging at the city ramparts.