I watched one last week that, quite honestly, wasn't made that well. The narrator was some woman who could've been Siri's awkward cousin trying to sound cool, the camera work wasn't that sharp, and it all ended a little flat. But the takeaway message has stuck with me.
It was about debunking the 9/11 conspiracy theories by setting up experiments that challenge what the theorists considered impossible about how the twin towers and Pentagon were reported to have been attacked and thereafter collapsed. "There's no way steel can melt at the temperature which jet fuel burns." "The hole in the Pentagon doesn't look like a plane went through it, it looks like explosives from within were detonated." The experiments were set up, and low and behold, steel does melt from burning jet fuel over time, and a projectile object does leave the type of destruction found at the Pentagon.
When the theorists were presented with the information gathered from these experiments, they scoffed, pointed out here and there where it wasn't a perfect representation of the 9/11 circumstances, and even went so far as to challenge the intentions behind the interviewers. None of them looked at the information and thought, "Yeah, I could be incorrect. I don't think I am yet, but this information changes how I view the events." Nope. Just shifting focus and attacking something else that can be attacked.
The takeaway message that stuck with me: A conspiracy theorist expert (those apparently exist) explained how conspiracy theories are all about connecting real and fictitious dots to create an elaborate, good-vs.-evil kind of story that is usually much more interesting than reality. That is always the common theme to any conspiracy theory - it is fantastical, it is elegant, it involves an evil attacking a good. It is innocence becoming 100% wronged by the non-innocent. The expert described how this kind of story is usually more appealing and more interesting than reality. He said something along the lines of, "One of the things we have to remember about 9/11 was the amount of trauma it caused - real psychological damage. And that America was so hated abroad that people would want to do this to it...in a way, a kind of less-traumatic explanation was that there were shadowy forces at work in the government that brought this about. That explanation was slightly more tolerable than simply that the world is an incredibly difficult place, or that there were people in America who were deeply troubled, and always had been, and always were likely to cause mayhem if given the chance."
Even just considering conspiracy theories, that's an intriguing idea - that it's easier to make up fantastical stories about an oppressive evil than it is to believe that we all just simply hurt each other. But transcending conspiracy theories, this human nature of creating elegant narratives is incredibly interesting to look at up close.
Not-so-ironically, I listened to a sermon today on forgiveness at church. Not just forgiveness, but on bitterness and resentment. How we can hold onto those memories and stories of being wronged and be fueled by a form of indignation toward them. We feed off of our innocence in those moments and our anger toward the ones who wronged us. We keep them around for that sort of morbid comfort. And we weren't created to live life or be in relationships this way.
In my own life, when I think back on times when I have been deeply hurt and wronged, it is easy for me to avoid grace and forgiveness if the story in my head is that I was intentionally used and disposed of, or that I was purposefully made to feel like dirt, or simply that I was not considered or cared about at all by the person who did the wronging and hurting. I can stay indignant and brooding because I was an innocent wronged by an evil.
But if I think back on times when I have been deeply hurt and wronged, with the story that the person who hurt me simply "doesn't get it", or have the capacity to treat me the way I need, and may care about me a ton but we just can't reach each other past our mutual brokenness, and Heaven forbid they may even be acting out of their own hurt that I may have caused them...yeah, I can't escape the call of grace and forgiveness there. I can't villainize them, I can't victimize myself. We are both human. We are both broken. We both need patience and grace and forgiveness when we blow it. And we are always going to blow it.
Take care to consider the stories in your heart. If there is no room or need for grace in them, you may be creating a narrative that isn't reality. We were designed to create, it flows from us naturally - but don't create fairytales about your wounds. The victim of hurt always becomes the doer of hurt, and so you shall be.
Resist creating conspiracy theories around your life and your hurts. They may be elegant, romantic in a way, and way more interesting than reality. But they don't allow for the grace we need to survive.
Today, I will consider others to be doing the best they can, wrestling with their own twisted brokenness that I don't fully understand. I will consider them worthy of my grace and forgiveness when they wrong me. I won't make up stories or fill in the gaps with assumptions.
I will allow for the grace and beauty of His reality to help me love my best.
