U is for Understanding

I've put a lot of thought into this one. When the word Understanding comes up we get a mixture of ideas about what it means. There are several degrees of understanding. First, on the basic level  understanding requires comprehension. It often requires listening. And study. Pondering, and lots of thinking. Second, understanding as a virtue requires compassion for those you comprehend, yet disagree with. The first part is important. But the second part is crucial to making it a virtue.  After all, having understanding, yet using it to take advantage of another person turns it into a vice.

When I was a kid I really struggled with this virtue. That is to say, I always felt like the world was telling one big private joke and I was left out on it. While everyone was laughing, I just didn't get it. It upset me a lot, but I did  not know how to cope except to keep silent. Phrases like "common knowledge" and "common sense" annoyed me because I did not know those things which people claimed were so common. I just wanted everyone to stop and explain what was going on to me. Most people never had the time.

I can recall this one time, I must have been about seven years old, where my mother dropped me off at this huge children's activity at the church. They were gathering outside on the lawn doing all sorts of activities, but no one stopped to show me where I needed to go. And no one told me what the activity really was. I wandered around the entire hour or so, confused and upset because no one explained anything. They just expected me to know. And when it was over and my mother came to pick me and my brothers and sisters up at the curb, someone shoved one of those old iron-on tee shirt clings into my hands. It was backward, but being mildly dyslexic I could read it. It said Primary Children's  OLYMPICS. I missed out on so much fun because I simply did not comprehend what was going on.

So, years later, in a youth activity we were asked to choose one quality we wanted to develop. And I chose Understanding. I wanted more than anything to understand what was going on around me. It always felt like people were talking over my head, and I was sick of it.

I learned a few things about Understanding since then...

First of all, understanding requires listening with your mouth closed and just taking it in. This requires self-control and listening to someone entirely. When we were kids and my mother used to ask us to do things for her, we would often run off mid-way through her instructions... and she would have to call us back, often laughing, saying, "I'm not finished! Don't go yet!" Partial information is often the biggest problem with misunderstanding. Though... it is great plot-fodder in film and books, and creates awesomely funny dialogue.

Secondly, understanding requires asking the right questions. Sometimes you have to study things out to ask the right questions to get correct and clear answers. I had a teacher once who used to say there was no such thing as a wrong question. But as kids we would then make up random questions just to test his theory... questions like: "Why do hotdog packages contain eight hotdogs but packages of buns twelve?"


What the teacher really meant was you should not be shy to ask what you need to know.
So ask the right questions... just don't be shy about it.

Now this girl's biggest problem was asking the right questions. because what she wants is to go straight to his castle where a little brother is being held captive.

Thirdly, understanding requires quiet time to think and study the answers. That's right, study. Intelligence is not something we are born with. It is something developed, like muscles. Truly strong men are not born strong. They become strong through hard work and exercise. True intellectuals are not born geniuses. Einstein himself never claimed to be a genius - only passionately curious. The curiosity is the key. He asked questions, thought and studied. That is what made him smart. People who don't want to put forth the effort to work towards greater intelligence ascribe genius to intellectuals. The smartest people I know started off as ADHD, autistic, dyslexic, and slow at learning. I have notice that people who have had it easy in high school tended to drop out of college much quicker than those who struggled through high school. It is the struggle that made them what they were. Not born brains.

Fourthly, understanding requires more listening and even changing the way you think to allow for the possibility of being wrong. This is very hard, by the way.

My father used to say that language is intrinsically woven with culture. Certain words and ideas just don't exist in some cultures. For example: when I taught in China, I had to teach the concepts of good, better, and best to my students - an idea which is not intrinsically Asian. It is a linear, Western concept. Asian thinking is more holistic. Yin and Yang. Balance. Where westerners think in terms of bottom versus top - Asians tend to think about the community and your fixed place in it. So the idea of social mobility is in essence not even Asian. It is a foreign concept. This is why Communism was so deeply successful (yes, successful as an accepted philosophy) and ingrained in mainland China, but failed after a few generations in Russia. Russia is too well connected in European thought (especially French thought, if you look at St. Petersburg) for its citizens to be satisfied with it (I've been there also).

It took me several years of hearing my older sister argue, "You think you are always right!" to realize that nearly everyone does. Most people don't express an opinion unless they were sure it was the truth. Understanding opened for me more when I allowed that I could be wrong. It opened more when I allowed that everyone could be wrong, and there is a lot that is still unknown.

Fifthly, expressing understanding may often require validating the right to an opinion, belief, or idea. Even if you don't like it. Even if you don't agree. Even if you see a course of action that you desperately want to do. Sometimes validation means keeping your opinions to yourself and abstaining from criticism.

In this video, she is seeking understanding and validation. Not a solution.

Sometimes, in action, people confuse understanding with assuming what people want. Sometimes understanding has no physical action at all. Sometimes all understanding requires is listening and acknowledging - validating - the feelings of others.

There was this 80's song that was really popular that expresses this well. Look past the big 80's rocker hair and listen (Oh, ignore the train sounds too).

The line about "...at the end of it all, she will understand me" pretty much sums it up.

In the world today, people present the idea that when you understand something, you agree with it. But for me that is not the case. Often, when you understand a thing, you disagree... like in the song above. Sometimes understanding delivers a course of action against the thing you understand.

For example: I understand that eugenics teaches that if you excise or remove an undesirable genetic trait by either sterilizing those that have that trait or eliminating the individual who carries that trait the quality of the population will be improved. It is a philosophy that I highly disagree with, even if it was methodically and scientifically thought out. It is the premise for the film GATTICA. And it led to the Holocaust.

So, basically, you are allowed to disagree while understanding.

But that being the case, it is HOW you disagree that matters. Being argumentative, angry, and violent is not good behavior. Remember, their opinion IS valid. Everyone has the right to their belief. Everyone.

So, there may be a moral/physical choice someone is making that repulses you. What do you do?

This is where the virtue of civility comes in. The biggest understanding we all need to have is that everyone is valued in the eyes of God. Even those that don't believe in or even hate God. Even those that attack God.

Why is Understanding a Godly trait?

Honestly... I think this one is obvious. Understanding leads to wisdom. For example, when king Solomon was granted to either become wealthy or wise, he chose to have a wise and understanding heart (1 Kings 3:12). And with that understanding heart, he became in the end even wealthier king than he would have if he had chosen riches in the first place. The only (and sad) reason Solomon fell as a king was because he turned from his wisdom and chose to worship the foreign gods of his waaaaay too many wives. Basically, he turned his back on the One who granted him wisdom in the first place - an incredibly foolish move.

A wise God gives second chances to those that need it. And he allows us to learn from our own mistakes. A wise God knew we would all screw up. So a wise God sent a Savior to us, giving us our second chance... and third chance... and fourth chance... as long as we continue to choose to turn to Him.

U is for Understanding.