Four filters

    Imagine how things appear to a newborn baby. The world he knew before was confined, ordered, peaceful. Then, in a matter of a few moments or hours everything familiar was lost. After the trauma of birth, a confusing complexity awaits his relatively untested mind and senses: loud sounds, strange colours and shapes, smells both pleasant and unpleasant... The task ahead is to bring order out of the chaos. It is a tribute to how "fearfully and wonderfully made" we are, that even before we are fully able to speak our world is mostly ordered.

    One of the most useful tools for finding order is the use of filters. In the technological field, a filter serves to make distinctions. Filters are used to sort by size. They are used to let the coffee out, while holding the grounds back. When I clean my room, I use filters such as "What is now, where it doesn't belong?" 

    Filters carry with them an inherent danger: if they are not well chosen, they may filter out something that would be important for us, or allow in something that would be harmful to us. Over forty years of ministry I've seen a number of marriages fail because, when the wife says "We have a problem," the husband filters the words out. Only when she says, "I've filed for a divorce" does he hear her; but by then it's usually too late. Likewise, when someone we value says something harsh or cutting, and we do not filter it out, words thrown out casually or in passing can do lasting damage to our self-understanding. The "narrative fallacy," in which people accept information that fits what they already believe, and reject information that goes against it, is another example of a filtering problem.

    Everybody has filters. It would be impossible to live without them. The only question is, which filters best help us navigate this brief time we have in the light?

    Here are four filters I try to use, as I approach life. Perhaps they may be of use to others.

(1) The Stoic filter: I make a sharp distinction between things that are under my control, and things that are not under my control. When I encounter a situation, I ask myself, "What, in this situation, is something under my control, and what is not?" I have no control over the words or actions of others. I only have control over my own choices. So I ask myself, "What can I do?" If there is something I can do, that will improve the situation, I will do it. If there is not, well, one can always pray. I don't dwell on things that I can do nothing about, because there's no point to dwelling on those things. I always have a choice before me--even if that choice is to die with courage.

(2) The Coolidge filter: Calvin Coolidge is famous for his taciturnity. Once when a woman told him, "My husband bet me I couldn't make you say more than two words the whole night," he responded, "You lose." Coolidge famously said that he never had to apologise for words he didn't speak. When I encounter a situation, I ask myself, "Is my input needed?" If the answer is "no," I try to keep silent. (I find this very difficult.) If the answer is "yes," I strive to say what needs to be said, as briefly as possible. (When I was confirmed in the Lutheran church, my memory verse was these words from James: "Be quick to listen, but slow to speak, and slow to become angry; for man's anger does not accomplish God's righteousness.")

(3) The Publican filter: We waste a lot of time trying to justify ourselves, which inevitably involves comparing ourselves to others. The biblical story of the Pharisee and publican is instructive. The Pharisee, in praying, compares himself to the publican (tax collector). When he leaves the Temple, the Pharisee has justified himself. The publican says, in his prayer, only these words: "God, be merciful to me, a sinner." He does not compare himself to others. He does not seek justice from God--only mercy. And Jesus comments, "This man went home justified." In my relations with others, it's a waste of time to explain. It's far better to admit my own fault. This is the "soft answer" that turns away wrath.

(4) The Resurrection filter: At the root of all the things I believe most deeply is this: a tomb just outside the city walls of Jerusalem in the first third of the first century, is empty. Christ's resurrection from the dead is the bedrock filter by which I judge everything else. I didn't always think this. My faith has passed through the furnace of doubt, to use Dostoevsky's expression. But a careful examination of the evidence convinced me. Only the resurrection can explain how a cowering band of friends could become a courageous group of confessors, within 50 days of Jesus' crucifixion. Only the resurrection can explain how Saul the persecutor became Paul the apostle. Only the resurrection can explain the founding and growth of the Church for the past 2,000 years. Since Christ is risen, life has meaning and death need not terrify.

These are the filters I use. What filters do you use? How do you make sense out of the chaos into which we're thrust at birth?