Hammerism
When someone speaks or posts, without even trying we know who they’re listening to. Where they get their information from.
The perspectives and biases (left, right, or whatever) that are baked into their information sources become obvious from their assumptions. From how they understand what other people are saying and doing.
It’s easy to spot the limits that a given set of perspectives and biases puts on someone else’s thinking. How it hobbles their understanding of things.
Especially when their perspectives and biases are different from ours.
Truth be told, you and I are just like them. Our preferred perspectives and biases aren’t better than everyone else’s.
Our preferred perspectives and biases just create a different set of limits on our understanding of things. Limits that we think of as normal. Or healthy. Or right.
Because they’re ours.
What’s missing from all of it? The big picture.
Oh sure, we’ve all got pieces and parts of the real thing. But that’s all we’ve got.
It’s a natural weakness of human thought. We like to make things simple. Even if they really aren’t.
We’ll focus on one aspect or one idea that makes sense to us. And then try to use that one thing to make sense of everything.
Whether it works or not.
Think of Maslow’s classic line - “if the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.”
When you put it that way, the problems caused by using one aspect or one idea to understand everything, the problems caused by “hammerism,” are obvious.
It’s exactly what John the Baptist is talking about in the Gospel. When he points out the limits of earthly thinking. The limits of hammerism.
No matter how easy or comfortable it may be for us, in the end, hammerism will always fail us. Leaving us unable to connect with others. Setting us up to be blindsided by life. Because it’s only part of the picture.
What’s the alternative to hammerism?
God’s perspective. The big picture itself.
Our default mode? Limiting ourselves to the easy and the comfortable.
God’s default mode? Sending the Holy Spirit to teach us everything. In its fullness.
So that we can connect with others, no matter how different they may seem to us.
So that we won’t be blindsided by life.
So that we can understand the big picture.
As the Gospel puts it, “God does not ration the gift of the Spirit.”
If we’re done with hammerism. If we’re done playing. God is waiting and wanting to give us the big picture.
The best place to start?
By putting down our hammers. And with a quiet heart, offering up the prayer of Samuel – “speak Lord, your servant is listening.”
Today’s Readings
