Christian Life 20 - On Conformity

 "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God." Romans 12:2 (NKJV) 

I've commented before in this blog that meditation can lead to new insights in interpreting Scripture, and this verse serves as a prime example.  Everyone that I've ever heard expound on this verse interprets the first clause the same way.  Everyone seems to think that it means to turn one's spiritual back on the world, and they define this back-turning in one of two ways: either to grow more conservative and refuse to "conform" to the evils of liberalism, or to grow more liberal and refuse to "conform" to the oppressiveness of conservatism.   Each faction, of course, believes their own interpretation to be right (and their opponents' wrong), and both sides can easily point out their extreme differences and irreconcilable divergences.

I heartily disagree.  I find these two groups' similarities more glaringly apparent than their differences, especially in light of our verse's second clause.  In both cases, it seems that the faction - and the individuals making up that faction - are simply following (and perhaps justifying) their own instinctive inclinations.  I don't see much renewing of the mind in either camp, and certainly nothing even slightly akin to a transformation of it.

Everyone has two conflicting desires; one to fit in and the other to stand out.  Even Maslow acknowledged this dichotomy by placing both Love/Belongingness and Self-Actualization on his Pyramid of Needs.  The concept is strikingly oxymoronic, but it is nevertheless true.  Most of us justify this disunion early in adolescence by making a point of joining the "in" crowd or the "out" crowd in school, then taking pride in our selection and showing a proportionate derision for the opposition.  We then proceed to maintain this basic structure of friends through the rest of our lives, finding than we can "belong" to our group while simultaneously "standing out" from the Others.

I made the following observation many years ago, although I've yet to develop satisfactory labels for the groups in question.  On the one hand, we have the Conformists.  These people do not feel the inclination to research and opine every topic that happens to float their way, so they simply find out what the majority opinion is and agree with it.  Next, we have the Nonconformists.  These people don't really care to think about things any more deeply than the Conformists, but theirs is a much stronger desire to appear to be thinkers so, for each given subject, they find out the majority opinion and espouse the exact opposite.  There are very few of us who are actual Free Thinkers - those who take the time to research topics, gather data, weigh the pros and cons of arguments on both sides, and be aware of and overcome our own natural cognitive biases on the subject before settling on the best compromise - and far fewer even than those who think of and publicly label themselves as such.

I've spent enough time meditating on the verse now that I've discovered there's a much better way to proceed.  There really is no need to be any of the above.  One needn't be a Liberal, Conservative or Moderate.  One needn't be a Conformist, Nonconformist or Free Thinker.  When one meditates, when one listens to rather than rails at God, when one becomes more focused on one's spirit than one's mind, the mind becomes renewed.  It begins to transform into something completely new; it begins to see more clearly what actually is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.  One doesn't turn one's back on these conflicts, but one does begin to recognize the sheer pettiness of them and begins to find oneself less and less concerned by them.  These political, social and economic issues that drive everyone's friction points become no more important than whether the children in the yard should play Hide N Seek or Tag, whether the dog's nightly kibble should be beef- or chicken-flavored.  We don't forget the conflicts, we don't ignore them, but we do rise above them. We are sitting in a rocking chair, wrapped in the loving arms of our Maker, looking down on the vast universe and beyond, seeing the earth as a tiny blue dot floating around a medium-sized star on the outer edges of one arm of a fairly average spiral galaxy, and someone thinks we need to worry about who administers the self-inflicted government of 1/200 of that tiny blue dot's human population for the next four years?  We no longer have a need to compete with our fellow humans, on any level.  We become willing to simply coexist.  Sorry.  Not really a top priority right now.  Too happy.  Too wrapped up in helping our neighbors and loving our Creator.  Too busy being peaceful and joyous for hate or ignobleness and all that gobbledygook.

Now that sounds like nonconformity to me.  It sounds like a transformation.  And it seems to hold a vague resemblance to the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Pax

P.S.  Somebody - one person - seems to be reading these posts (other than me).  I have no idea whom it may be.  If you, the reader, would be so kind as to leave a comment and tell me who you are, it would satisfy my growing curiosity.