we're all so formulated.

sometimes i try to pretend like i'm not formulated. i say that i don't have a clear-cut opinion about some political issue, or that i haven't fully decided which side i'm on in some theological debate. my friend asks me what i think about abortion, or gay marriage, or gays, or tells me about her current meandering life situation, and i like to say that i haven't got it all figured out yet ... and maybe i never will, this side of heaven.

but i wonder how true that really is. (i mean, come on ... i don't know what i think!?)


i'm starting to think that we are all a whole lot more formulated than we say we are. we masquerade our 'open-mindedness' as being 'currently without an agenda or opinion' (which, i'd like to note, is not exactly the definition of open-mindedness). no matter how much i insist that i haven't got it all nailed down, as soon as someone else opens their mouth to say what they have nailed down for themselves, i'm right there ready to shoot 'em down and show them why they're so wrong. which means ... da-da-daaa ... i have, apparently, formulated something.


so why are we so quick to hop on the bandwagon of open-minded de-formulization? do we want people to find us humble, as we see those know-it-alls who are so dang assertion-happy, so annoyingly arrogant, so confident in all that they have formulated? are we afraid to actually make it clear to someone else what we think at the present time because we think they might (gasp!) disagree?



i mean ... what is going to keep us silent? what is going to keep us from speaking the truth?

i pray that the only thing that ever keeps me silent when the (formulated) truth is being distorted is that i know that it would do harm to the hearer by coming in my voice.

and that is a formulation i'm ready to make.