Fashion Trend: Binary Glasses

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The Wall Street Journal, that arbiter of fashion, has notified us that we had better be careful not to date ourselves by wearing the wrong thing this year. No more skin-tight jeans, they say, and better hang that bright plaid button-down dad shirt in the back of the closet. Wear that stuff and you'll look soooo 2010. I have to tell you, I've never been a fan of skin-tight anything, except maybe wetsuits.

Well, there's one fashion-forward item you won't see on the runways, and you won't hear about it in the media, but you will see it on just about everyone you know. Including you and me. It’s those nifty, oh-so-stylish, binary glasses. Know what I’m talking about? Back in the day we had rose-colored glasses, remember? And we looked at the world with a dreamy longing, and everything was just perfect. Our kids were well-behaved, our houses were just so, our lives were organized, our government actually governed, and our computers never died. Nowadays, that’s so old-school. Nowadays we see things much more clearly. As clear as black and white. Light and dark. Naughty and nice. Democrat and Republican. Good and evil. Binary. On-off. Only two choices.

You put on your binary glasses this morning, didn't you? You saw someone wearing a mask, and your glasses told you exactly what you were seeing. Either a good citizen, or a drink the Kool-Aid fool. Not someone who has kids in school, like you, who grumbles about the high price of groceries, like you, not a Grandpa, or a Cubs fan, or a video gamer, like you. Nope. Your binary glasses helped you to filter out the other troublesome possibilities and reduce the reality to two choices. Easier that way. On or off. Good or evil.

Those binary glasses are especially good for assessing people based on political choices, too. Democrat? Eeeeevil. Republican? Good. Voted for Biden? Brilliant! Voted for Trump? Idiotic! The neat thing about this setup is, now that we have a national media that’s wearing the glasses, too, we can dispense with actually thinking about issues. Just make a snap judgement about what side that person is on, drop them and their whole family tree in bucket one or bucket 2, and you can go take a nap. Job done. No more thinking necessary. No need to concern yourself with their story, their joys and sorrows, their humanity.

Oh, and here’s another fabulous benefit of binary glasses. You don’t have to defend your position on any issue. Are you pro-choice? Pop on those binary glasses, and every pro-life person you meet is such a flaming cretin, that you don’t even need to explain why your ideas are right. You just need to know that theirs are wrong. Pro-lifer? You don’t even have to know a pro-abortion person to hate their guts. Binary glasses make it easy. Those people are evil, and you’re not, and no explanation necessary.

These days, everyone is all fizzied up about racism. Well, binary glasses can help you with that as well. Pop on those suckers and everything – I mean everything, from what breakfast cereal you eat, to what town you grew up in – is about race. White or black. Yes or no. Up or down. Racist, not racist. Makes life simpler, doesn’t it? There don’t have to be any other issues. You can just label people you meet either yes racist, or not racist. Nobody is allowed be undecided, or learning, or changing, or growing, or thinking about it, or just misled, or even misunderstood. We certainly can’t be on our way, we have to be either here or there, right now.

Perhaps the most delightfully insidious use of the binary glasses, is among Christians. Here your special eyewear gives you added value. Not only can you quickly assess an individual – or a whole congregation – by their music, or their political activism, or the size of their bank accounts, but you can judge them and call it “spiritual”. Now your rightness gets you on the fast track to heaven, while they slide on down to wherever they deserve to go. Detroit, maybe.

In the interests of full disclosure, we must say here that binary glasses do present some drawbacks. Human relationships tend to dissolve when people scrutinize each other in this way. Look through them too much, and you’ll find yourself with no friends except the people who agree with you. You’ll have nothing to talk about, since you all agree, so life will be pretty boring. In addition, binary glasses-wearers have been known to suffer from atrophied brains, shrinking hearts, and thinning skins. Side effects include scrunched-up mean faces, short tempers, and low tolerance for anything but being right. Or left.

So, before you look at someone through those binary glasses, ask if there is a better way. A healthier way to see the people around you. Ephesians 4: 2-3 says this:

2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

Okay, what if we looked at each other through God’s glasses – seeing others with humble, gentle eyes, being patient with their choices, even if they aren’t the same as ours? We would put up with each other’s differences, taking time to understand other opinions, and explain our own. We would stand boldly for what we believe is right, without dehumanizing those who disagree. With God’s glasses on, we would be willing to examine our own positions, defend our ideas, and even, oh my, admit we don’t quite have it all figured out sometimes. What if we started choosing unity within the family of humanity, instead of division? Allowing those with different ideas or opinions to share our lives. Letting God’s Holy Spirit lead us towards peace. There is enough evil in the world, without us adding to it by hating those who disagree with us.

Forget the current fashion. Destroy the binary glasses. Put on God’s glasses instead, and see the world and those in it through completely new lenses. Lenses of love.

Standing with you,

Carolyn

What do you think? Was this helpful? Infuriating? Thought-provoking? Please leave a comment below!

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