Years ago when my son Kyle was just a little guy, I had a very enlightening moment while sitting with him on the back porch of our house. I had recently returned home after having been gone for over a month in Africa.  He was a bit confused as to exactly where I had been and how I had got there. It was a real challenge trying to explain to a two year old where Africa was and why it took so long to fly there and back. He was fascinated by the story though and was soon overcome with his own sense of adventure and inquired if he could go with me the next time. Just as he was in the middle of expressing his thoughts, a commercial airplane flew by. I pointed up at it and asked him if he’d like to go on a plane like that with Daddy? I was so surprised when he started to shake his head back and forth indicating that he wasn’t at all interested. Puzzled, I then asked him why and was really taken back by his answer. He said “Dad, I would have to get this wittle” as he held his chubby little fingers about a quarter inch apart. At first I didn’t get it and then started laughing once I realized that from his perspective the plane that just flew by was only an inch in length. Because he was so young, he had no perspective of the plane’s original size or the distance it was from us. From his perspective a one inch plane was simply too small to hold the two of us!

Perspective matters as it significantly influences how we see the world and interpret the things we hear and observe. Writers tend to use the words “point of view” while “perspective” is typically more of a sociological term.  In what has become a classic study, in 1977 James Pichert and Richard Anderson investigated whether a reader’s perspective could influence their determination of the significance of information and ideas presented in written texts. The results indicated that perspective influences what details readers decide are important, and that importance in turn affects learning and memory. So our perspective influences not only what details of an experience we notice, but also what details we remember later about the experience. These findings help explain why two people present at, for example, a family holiday celebration may years later tell quite different stories about the event. To understand each other’s interpretations, we must be willing to consider the other person’s perspective. Each individual’s point of view is unique, and that point of view shapes the stories people tell to themselves and to others about themselves and their relationships with their environment. The same event narrated from two different perspectives will produce two different stories.

Understanding individual perspective is crucial to understanding human relationships as everyone has one. It is one of the key ingredients that form our personal paradigms or the way we live our lives and the personal “rules or principles” that govern them. The problem with perspectives is that they are complicated as they are the sum total of many influences that a person experiences on the journey of life. It is one of the primary reasons why marriage is so complicated and becoming increasingly more difficult to succeed in. Two people, each with unique perspectives, influenced by the things they have individually experienced growing up, are trying to find a common ground to build a family on. As knowledge and understanding have increased, so have the variety of perspectives and influences. I tease my counseling friends that in many ways they are like a telecommunications tech repairing a bundle of cut phone lines. Have you ever seen a backhoe dig up a whole trunk of phone lines? It’s not a pretty sight! The poor tech has to sit there for hours splicing together hundreds of individually severed lines until service is fully restored. Human relationships are a lot like that as each of us is a trunk of hundreds of phones lines (perspectives) that somehow have to be spliced with others in order for a relationship to exist. The percentage of phone lines that one can splice with another human being determines how intimate a relationship becomes. Life is a daily struggle to connect, repair and maintain our interpersonal relational phone lines.

It’s hard to imagine but it wasn’t but a few hundred years ago that most people couldn’t read therefore their perspectives were severely limited. With the inability to research issues for themselves or expand their understanding, their perspectives were primarily influenced by their family, church and local community leaders.  Group-think was the all too common modus operandi as people were fearful of what they didn’t know. As knowledge and the access to knowledge have increased so has individual perspective. Attitudes towards issues like racism, women’s rights, ecology and health have all taken a dramatic change in the last fifty years.

The concept of perspective was so graphically demonstrated in the recent reaction of people to the election of Barak Obama as the next President of the United States. My dear Christian friends on the conservative right were in mourning, as from their perspective; the people of the United States had made a choice for someone that stood for principles and values contrary to their perspective. I feel for my Pro-life friends. I have a great deal of empathy for those who understand that the unborn child needs an advocate who will fight on their behalf. Their voices will now need to be louder and more powerful than ever before. May God’s grace guide them and may they find favor where none was thought possible.

For my dear Christian friends who voted for Barak Obama, they are ecstatic and I can understand why. From their perspective the people of America voted for change. For my many African-American friends I can’t help but be happy for you as I know how much this means. I must admit that I was deeply touched watching Jesse Jackson cry at Obama’s victory speech. It was 40 years ago this year that he stood over the dying body of his close friend and mentor Martin Luther King in Memphis, TN. The thought of an influential black man with power was a terrifying thought to many white Americans. My have things changed.

For those that have fought the long and perilous fight for civil rights, from their perspective the election of Barak Obama is the ultimate fulfillment of a dream never realized at the formation of the United States of America. For nearly the first 100 years of its history, black slaves waited on the white heads of state in the White House. In one of the sad ironies of history, it was black slaves that in fact built the White House, one of the great symbols of enduring freedom. It wasn’t until Abraham Lincoln’s administration that it changed when Lincoln signed the “Emancipation Proclamation” on January 1^st, 1862. It wasn’t until October 16^th 1901 that a free black man was invited to the White House for an official visit. That evening as Theodore Roosevelt and Booker T. Washington sat dining together, history was made. The next day when the press published the story people across the nation were enraged.

On January 20^th, 2009, when Barak & Michelle Obama walk through the doors of the White House to make it their residence for the next four years, it will be a profound moment not lost on the descendents of slavery not only in the US, but around the world. From their perspective, it will be a moment unlike any other.

I have always been fascinated by the Emmaus Road story in the 24^th Chapter of the Gospel of Luke as I think it sheds some light on the concept of perception.

After Jesus resurrection, there were two Jewish men traveling on a road that led to the village of Emmaus. While on their journey, they were discussing the events of the last few weeks concerning the death of Jesus. They were downcast and disillusioned about what had transpired and trying to figure what to do next. Their lives had been turned upside down as their perception of what they thought Jesus had come to accomplish had failed catastrophically.

While discussing between themselves, Jesus appears to them but they do not recognize him. Of course because of their perception that He was dead, they would have never even considered it was Him. In this case, their perception blinded them to the obvious truth. Over the course of the next few hours Jesus takes them on a journey through the “scriptures.” These of course are not the same scriptures we have today but limited to the first five books of the bible called “The Books of Moses.” These Jewish men had been trained since childhood on these books and in all likelihood had them memorized. They had an already established perspective put in place by their community that affected how they read and interpreted those writings.

As Jesus joined the discussion it says that He “explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” (Luke 24:27) In other words, He gave them a fresh perspective on something they had studied all their lives and never seen. After being persuaded to remain with them for a meal, during dinner after further discussion, “Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him.” Suddenly their perception changed and it’s recorded that they commented “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures.” There is something profoundly exhilarating and liberating by a fresh perspective that reveals new truths, for it is the truth and truth alone that can set us free.

I hope we all as a community can keep ourselves humble before God and never lose that passion to learn and the humility to be teachable.  The journey ahead of us is one of fresh perspectives not only about each other but how those outside our community perceive us.