When you were a kid playing hide-and-seek, did you prefer being the hider or the seeker? Where was a favorite hiding place? (Serendipity Bible 10th anniversary edition, page 1051).
I
don't know the answer to this question because it is difficult to
remember many years ago when I played hide-and-seek. But certainly
the question has much relevance. Perhaps you have watched an
interview program on the television in which the guests seemed more
interested in hiding from questions rather than answering them. They
hedge, they circumnavigate, they obfuscate, they answer questions
that they would have liked to have received rather than the one asked.
The one thing they don't do is simply answer the question. These are
people that much prefer playing the hiding role rather than the
seeking role. They seem to get an ego boost from being sophisticated
in this way, from possessing what they see no doubt as skill in
avoidance of simple facts. They like to play the role of the wily
fox. This is a skill I do not admire but instead arouses distrusts
within me.
So
it is a simple fact that I admire skilled seekers rather than
hiders. But as it applies to me personally I must admit that more
often than I'm proud of and in more ways than I can count I am a
hider. I, for example, sometimes don't wish to think about
consequences. I'd rather not think about the pounds eating bowls of
ice cream can put on. I rather not think about the consequences of
not having daily exercise. Sometimes it can be a very serious matter.
Once I had termites in my home and put off for a long time thinking
about the consequences of not effectively dealing with the problem.
Seeking is not always fun, but it is always requires effort.
I'd much rather seek exclusively when it's fun. Unfortunately, life
does not always accommodate this preference.
Afflicting
mankind from the beginning has been the desire to escape simple
truth. We will be much better off when we learn to seek it and see
the search for truth as an adventure and a duty that redounds in
fresh actualizations of self-worth. Even in the garden of Eden
abject hiding was a shameful and depressing exercise.
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