Open Minds

anticipate, (ăn-tĭs'-eh-pāt') v., -pat·ed, -pat·ing, -pates. (1) to feel or realize beforehand; foresee (2) to have an unnatural need to see ketchup fall from a bottle

I suppose it is natural to follow up to a post about Open Doors with posts about Open Minds and Open Hearts. Did you anticipate that? I’m thinking about open minds today, but probably not in the way that the United Methodist church intends when we say, “Open Minds.”

On an Emmaus walk, one is asked not to anticipate – to avoid trying to “guess” what is going to happen next. Why is that? Anticipation is such a fun game. Actually, I make my living anticipating. After all, that’s what a scientific hypothesis is – anticipation or prediction of outcome based on what is already known.

This quote was part of the Advent Seasonal devotions from the Upper Room (delivered to my email):

STEP OUT: ANTICIPATE nothing, expect more than could ever be imagined. Risk the journey and see where creator and created will go together. The thirst is the thing, come and feel your thirst begin to be changed into something else until the goal is reached. Water, pure water, will surprise, will refresh, will renew, if the traveler refuses to be trapped by his own expectations. Step out, a well waits for you with water only God can give. But be prepared, it may be satisfaction of a nature never experienced before.

Hilary McDowell
ON THE WAY TO BETHLEHEM

How can anticipation close our minds?

• Can it be that focus is the opposite of anticipation? So often I catch my mind wandering during a service, thinking about what might be coming next (either in the service, or in the day itself). When I loose focus, I miss what is happening right in front of me.
• Sometimes, when we anticipate – when we predict what is going to happen next – we are disappointed by what actually happens. It may be that disappointment is actually grieving for the death of what we thought might happen. If anticipation hadn’t given birth to the prediction, then we wouldn’t have the grief. We could just enjoy the actuality. (Is that way too abstract?)
• Are you one of those people who hunts hidden Christmas presents? Who will unwrap a present secretly to know what is inside? I never have been. I don’t want to know ahead of time – I want to be surprised. My mother is one of the worst secret-keepers I know; I often have to stop her from telling me the identity of a “surprise.” S is just the opposite. I could leave his birthday present in a brown bag on the coffee table. As long as I told him that what was in the bag was meant to be a surprise, he would never open it. Anticipation – guessing what’s in the bag – can ruin the surprise. Focus allows us to be surprised by God.
• Here’s one I found today on answers.com – “Some people hold that anticipate is improperly used as a simple synonym for expect; they would restrict its use to situations in which advance action is taken either to forestall (anticipate her opponent's next move) or to fulfill (anticipate my desires).” In other words, to anticipate, in some people’s eyes, is to try to CHANGE what is about to happen. It makes us an active participant, sometimes with motives contrary to God’s, instead of a recipient of grace.

I just finished Ezekiel. Is it a sin to say that this is one of the most boring books in the Old Testament? Here’s Kim’s synopsis: Much of the book is spent warning God’s people of the awful, impending take over of their country by the Babylonians. The last few chapters are instructions involving the use of the word cubits an inordinate amount of times. If my goal weren’t to read the Bible from beginning to end, I would have given up on Ezekiel. Today I finished it. Here is the last verse of Ezekiel: (Ezekiel 48:35b)

"And the name of the city from that time on will be: The LORD is There ."

Wow. I wasn’t expecting that. It was a chapter full of measurements and instructions, and then WHAP – a surprise. It was as if God was trying to say in the book of Ezekiel through his prophet to his people – If you would just listen to me, then I will be there!

Focus. Pay attention, and YAHWEH-SHAMMAH GOD-IS-THERE (The Message).