?The Closer I Get To You?: Overcoming the Blind Spot II ? accord1

?The Closer I Get To You?: Overcoming the Blind Spot?II

Posted by accord1 on May 25, 2012 ? Leave a Comment?

The popular song, ?The Closer I Get To You,? by the late Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack says, ?The closer I get to you the more you?ll make me see.?? It was a very popular romantic duet written in 1977. Like many other romantic songs, it communicates a central message of passion. It is this principal of passion that is needed in our human relationships to overcome differences and make them work. It was the Passion Play of the ages that brought hope to humanity as, ?God gave his only begotten son.? ?John 3:16??

Bridging our ethnic/cultural divide involves these passion principals of appreciating, valuing and investing. We miss so much due to our blind spot?because of our?superficial relationships. The surface level is often mired by baseless stereotypes that in turn allow us to resist going deeper.

BLIND SPOT EXERCISE

1. Look at graphic of the cross and the black circle.
2. Sit at your computer with your nose pointing in between the cross and the black circle.
3. Cover your LEFT eye and stare at the cross with your RIGHT eye.
4. Now SLOWLY move towards the computer screen while still staring at the cross with your RIGHT eye.

Somewhere between 10-14 inches from the computer screen, the black circle will disappear and the area where the black circle was will now be white.? This is your BLINDSPOT.

Your brain can even ?fill in? missing information for you?..in the above graphic, you?ll notice that when you cover your left eye and look at the cross with your right eye ? the brain will ?fill in? your blind spot (the area where the circle is). You will see that your brain fills in the line for you. Keep looking at the cross ? don?t look back at the circle ? or you will see the circle again.

The preceding information is presented on the Visionary Eyecare?s Blog: ?The Eye Journal.?

In the blind spot eye exercise, we overcome the blind spot by moving even closer to a point where the circle reappears. It is the same with bridging perceived differences to unity. Some would provocatively say that, ?The devil is in the details,? or, ?With every level there?s a devil.? However, the worst devil of all is what is left to our misguided and uninformed imagination that says stop, proceed no further. Our apprehensive hyperbole tells us to settle for the status quo and to refuse to seek multi-ethnic engagements/friendships. These relationships reside in our own blind spot.? But if we step out of our comfort zone and move closer, we can see the bridge showing us the path to a new vision of one another.

To shy away from engagement with others of a different ethnic group is to limit our passion that we have been given and leaves room for the mental ?fill in? of human nature that is tilted toward division.? As we saw in the blind spot exercise, the brain ?fills in? the blind spot with its most recent information.? If we are divisive, the blind spot is divisive.? Since the brain does not question the misinformation, we believe it to be true.? However, we can permit our blind spot to proceed in a new direction.? When we allow ourselves to believe in changing the status quo, then our blind spot will continue changing the status quo.

The word of God says, ?Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples?when they see the love you have for each other.?? John 13:34-35, The Message (MSG)

Through our passion we are driven to pursue unity. We can do this by finding tangible means to engage with those who are of different ethnicities. Small groups of various forms offer great platforms to overcome our blind spot by appreciating, valuing and investing our individual and collective beauty in our differences.??

Kevin Robinson, Executive Director of Accord1

?????

Like this:

Be the first to like this post.

Filed under Biblical Ethnic Diversity Inclusion, Blind Spot, building the bridge, Christ Centered Diversity/Inclusion, cultural intelligence, ethnic unity, reconciliation, relationship with god, The Relationship with God, Uncategorized ? Tagged with culture, human-rights, spirituality

davey jones dead boston weather monsanto dr seuss birthday jennifer garner jennifer garner romney michigan