There’s a saying here in Texas that “even a blind hog finds a nut now and then.” Maybe that’s why even people with less-than-noble purposes sometimes do something good.
Of course, if you acknowledge that, you’ve got to give credence to the opposite as well: Sometimes people with noble purposes do something bad.
I’m puzzled by people who are so quick to claim the moral high ground, to exhibit an over-inflated sense of personal piety, to wrap themselves in Bible study and prayer and Jesus talk—and yet act in ways that turn out to be self-serving and destructive. Some do this on purpose, because they see themselves as holy warriors using whatever means necessary to obey their understanding of the will of God. But many others just conveniently overlook their own character flaws while busily playing church.
I heard an excellent speaker today at a business luncheon. He talked about the importance of beginning any business enterprise with a clearly stated set of values: what you believe in, how you’ll treat customers, how you’ll do business. That is sound and true advice. The problem, however, is living it out and being willing to look closely enough at yourself to judge whether you really are living it out.
The same multi-millionaire business executive said that through the years he has sought to learn from numerous mentors. He has two requirements in selecting these mentors: they must be smarter than him, and they must be neither a relative nor an employee. He has sought out people who have nothing to lose by telling him the unvarnished truth.
There’s a healthy balance in declaring yourself a person of values and acknowledging that someone besides you or your inner circle must hold up the mirror of evaluation. Self-reflection works best when you’re looking through an unfiltered mirror.
Most of us go through life looking at everything around us through the lens of our own experiences. What we perceive as normative in our context must become the basis of judging what’s normative for others as well. The reflections we see of ourselves and our behaviors filter back to us through narrow and biased mirrors.
If we want to be more than the blind hog stumbling across a nut now and then, we must be intentional in seeing ourselves realistically—and probably with help from others. That’s why it’s so important to interact with people not like ourselves, from different places and with different views.
When we take such a bold step, we may join with the blind man who after meeting Jesus said: “All I can tell you is once I was blind, but now I can see.”