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The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition tells us that the enlightenment was “. . .an intellectual movement of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries marked by a celebration of the powers of human reason, a keen interest in science, the promotion of religious toleration, and a desire to construct governments free of tyranny. Some of the major figures of the Enlightenment were David Hume, Immanuel Kant, John Locke, the Baron de Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Voltaire.” Our own Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were also considered important thinkers in that age of enlightenment. However, enlightenment is not just a word used to describe a period of human history. No, enlightenment can and still does happen. It happens in ways and around subjects that we probably would not choose. If we decided we wanted to learn something that we did not already know, then new knowledge can find us in spite of the fact that we were really not looking for anything new.
Enlightenment happens in our lives when some new piece of knowledge breaks into our understanding of how the world works. We come into the world and we immediately begin to learn about and adapt to our surroundings. We learn the limits of our world, or at least the part of that we call home. A natural part of that learning experience is for us to assume that what we experience of the world is, in fact, the way the world is.
Take, for example, okra -- that delightful little treasure that no garden should be without. Growing up, there was always okra in Pappaw’s garden. Mammaw did four things with that okra. She fried it, boiled it, pickled it, or she canned it as one of several ingredients in her “soup mixture.” I grew up assuming that everyone ate okra and most likely ate it served in one of the four ways that my mammaw prepared it for us.
When I went up north to Louisville, Kentucky, to attend seminary, I discovered that not everyone ate okra. I rarely if ever saw it in the produce section at the grocery store. My life assumptions about okra changed. Given the new information that I was gathering, I began to assume that okra was a southern thing. I missed okra, but I was fine with it being a delicacy that is unique to my part of the country. This new reality served to give me one more reason to look forward to the times when I could go home. It also created a sense of ownership. Okra was mine -- not too many other people seemed to want it.
This week I have been in Washington for the General Assembly of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Will and I went up a couple of days early to see some sites of historical interest. Monday morning we stopped by the Manassas National Battlefield Park. We took a short ranger-guided tour that was quite informative. That afternoon we made our way to Mount Vernon, the home of our nation’s first president. Impressive doesn’t begin to describe it.
I enjoy visiting historical sites, and I drag my children to them as often as they will let me. My hope is that they will learn something. Mount Vernon and Manassas Battlefield were the places were I was expecting to learn something on Monday, and I did pick up a few tidbits of historical trivia, but nothing that even started to change my view of the world.
As we were leaving the restaurant where we ate supper Monday evening, we decided to go check the international grocery store across the parking lot. I knew something was up when we walked through the produce section. The only thing that looked familiar was the cabbage. At least I think it was cabbage. There was okra there, three different varieties, none of which were ever grown in my pappaw’s garden. We made our way through the rest of the store looking at food items that we had never seen. In the canned vegetable aisle, I picked up a can that read okra on the label. The label also said that it was from somewhere in Africa. Something was definitely happening, but I was still not sure just exactly what it was. Going down the aisle with all the cookies and snack food, I noticed a clear plastic canister with the word okra on the label. I took a closer look and that is when it happened. The label read Okra Chips.
Now, in my understanding of how the world works, if anybody is going to make something called okra chips, that person is going be from somewhere deep in the southern part of the United States. The label said that the okra chips were a product of the country of Thailand. In that moment my view of the world changed.
When I got back to our room, I fired up the laptop and did a search on the internet. I had to find out what else I did not know about okra. My ignorance was legion. When God created the earth, God planted the first okra crop in the area of the world that we now call Ethiopia. That is not the half of it. In Egypt, okra grows wild on the banks of the Nile. Can you believe that? Okra is to Egypt what blackberries are to East Tennessee.
Just when I think there is nothing else to know about one of my favorite foods, enlightenment happens. Out go the old assumptions, in comes a new perspective on the world. Of course, the same thing can be said about God. There is always more to God, and God is always moving through our lives waiting for us to savor God’s goodness in a way that changes how we view ourselves, our world and our God.
Joy and Peace,
Ed
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