Seeing and Hearing when Poisoned – Introduction (The first of a 4 or 5 post series)

We all see and hear. We all have paradigms and lenses that we see through. We all have filters over our ears that we hear through. Not all filters or paradigms are correct—in fact I would dare to say that the majority of the world’s populations’ filters and lenses are not only skewed but flat out wrong. That is called human nature and every day life, but what I am concerned about is seeing and hearing when our minds have been poisoned.

Do you remember the Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien? The trilogy was recently made into film—as if you didn’t know. In the last film, “The Return of the King,” Frodo and Sam and Gollum were making their way up the stairs of Cirith Ungol to find entrance into Morodor. For those of you who read you will find this scene near the end of “The Two Towers.” In the preceding journey Gollum had been whispering lies to Frodo about his best friend Sam, saying that Sam wants the ring for himself and so on and so forth. Gollum gained Frodo’s trusted and began to sneak sweet little morsels of lies to Frodo. These lies slowly turned Frodo against his true friend, our hero, and beloved, Samwise Gamgee. Now Gollum wanted to be rid of Sam, so he framed him by sprinkling Sam with bread crumbs as he slept and threw the rest of their provisions in to the dark abyss below. One thing leads to another and Gollum successfully turns Frodo against Sam. And here Sam says to Frodo “Can’t you see, he has poisoned you against me!?”

Sadly, it was too late for Sam and Frodo. Frodo could not see or hear clearly because he was poisoned, and thus Frodo left his one true friend right as he was on the doorstep of hell itself—and that is not the time to lose a person who truly cares for you. But more often than not, it is at the gates of hell (or while trekking through hell) that we lose those closest to us. But when, and why, we lose friends when we do is an entirely different topic that can be covered later, but for now lets take a look at what poison really is.

The best way to maintain seeing and hearing clearly is to not drink the poison, but to do that we need to be able to discern what is poison and what is truth. This requires seeing and hearing, and this will require another installment . . . so stay tuned because the next installment of Seeing and Hearing when Poisoned will be up within the week—promise.