10%.
It is a percentage filled with mystery.
At the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) you can miss this number if you aren't looking for it. There is a small sentence in one of the cases with a few animals on the 2nd floor. This percentage represents the approximate amount of species scientists know about.
90%.
This is the amount of scientists don't know and it is crazy. When I think about all the different kinds of species out there and recognize it's only 10% of what is actually in the world it humbles me. It humbles me because I think I know a lot. Yet, 90% of the Created species of God are still yet to be discovered.
Look up into the sky. Look down into the depths of the ocean. So many things above and below yet to be discovered and yet I often live my life as if I know things, as if I know what I am talking about when it comes to certain concepts and ideas. This may be true, I may know a lot of things, but I always have to put it in perspective of what I don't know because if I don't, things go bad.
Often times I catch myself looking out on the water or up in the air and simply marvelling at the bigness of what I am experiencing, realizing I am just a small person - a small person with knowledge, but a small person with a lot of learning ahead of me.
It's always important for me to start my day in this posture because it makes me a more loving, accepting, compassionate person. I don't go about my days wondering how a person can't understand this or that, because I don't understand this or that; I am able to listen and connect with others. If I start my day from the posture of arrogance I get caught up with what I know and simply can't connect with others.
I wonder what the world would look like if people lived their lives with this perspective. Instead of trying to prove how much we know or don't know, maybe we all need to start with a posture of "we are all just trying to figure this thing called life out." This makes it easier for us to come upon a person who doesn't know something simply and help them understand it. This makes it easier for a person to teach me something instead of thinking I don't need to be taught because I know it all.
I am still learning. I am still growing. I am still maturing. If I don't humble myself under the truth of the 10% I will hardly, if ever, be able to experience the 90%, but as I humble myself under the truth of the 10% it leaves me open to experiencing the other 90%.
This morning I am choosing to be a part of the 10% and look out into my day with awe and wonder, or with what Abraham Joshua Heschel calls "radical amazement."
It is a percentage filled with mystery.
At the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) you can miss this number if you aren't looking for it. There is a small sentence in one of the cases with a few animals on the 2nd floor. This percentage represents the approximate amount of species scientists know about.
90%.
This is the amount of scientists don't know and it is crazy. When I think about all the different kinds of species out there and recognize it's only 10% of what is actually in the world it humbles me. It humbles me because I think I know a lot. Yet, 90% of the Created species of God are still yet to be discovered.
Look up into the sky. Look down into the depths of the ocean. So many things above and below yet to be discovered and yet I often live my life as if I know things, as if I know what I am talking about when it comes to certain concepts and ideas. This may be true, I may know a lot of things, but I always have to put it in perspective of what I don't know because if I don't, things go bad.
Often times I catch myself looking out on the water or up in the air and simply marvelling at the bigness of what I am experiencing, realizing I am just a small person - a small person with knowledge, but a small person with a lot of learning ahead of me.
It's always important for me to start my day in this posture because it makes me a more loving, accepting, compassionate person. I don't go about my days wondering how a person can't understand this or that, because I don't understand this or that; I am able to listen and connect with others. If I start my day from the posture of arrogance I get caught up with what I know and simply can't connect with others.
I wonder what the world would look like if people lived their lives with this perspective. Instead of trying to prove how much we know or don't know, maybe we all need to start with a posture of "we are all just trying to figure this thing called life out." This makes it easier for us to come upon a person who doesn't know something simply and help them understand it. This makes it easier for a person to teach me something instead of thinking I don't need to be taught because I know it all.
I am still learning. I am still growing. I am still maturing. If I don't humble myself under the truth of the 10% I will hardly, if ever, be able to experience the 90%, but as I humble myself under the truth of the 10% it leaves me open to experiencing the other 90%.
This morning I am choosing to be a part of the 10% and look out into my day with awe and wonder, or with what Abraham Joshua Heschel calls "radical amazement."
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