C. S. Lewis in The Magician’s Nephew highlights two problems with trying to see through another’s eyes: “What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.” When taking a photo, it is easy enough to change perspective by moving a little to the left or right or by tilting the camera up or down. It is much harder to change your perspective by changing your internal filters. Stephen R. Covey said it this way: “Each of us tends to think we see things as they are, that we are objective. But this is not the case. We see the world, not as it is, but as we are—or, as we are conditioned to see it. When we open our mouths to describe what we see, we in effect describe ourselves, our perceptions, our paradigms” (Stephen R. Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, 28).
In sacrament meeting, a young father introduced his family to the ward. In telling about his marriage, he said: “We got married on a weekend in Las Vegas.” A few minutes later he clarified: “We were married in the Las Vegas temple. The wedding had been planned for months.” If you just heard the first part of the story, your perception would be very different than the truth. When I heard the first comment I thought, “I wonder if they are converts or have recently become active.” When he added the critical detail, I laughed and thought how my perception was flawed because I didn’t have all the facts.
Facts improve perception, as does the angle of the camera. But who I am, my biases and experience, compound seeing through others’ eyes. One night, in a supermarket parking lot, my son and I were returning to the car when we noticed a man going from car to car, trying to open the driver-side doors. He tried our car door, which was fortunately locked. He lifted the door handle of about ten cars. I ran back into the store to tell someone and my son watched the man. Soon four security guards encircled the man. The man denied he had touched any car door handles and said he was putting his business cards under the driver-side windshield wiper and produced some business cards as evidence. My son and I would swear in court that he was attempting to gain entrance to vehicle after vehicle, and there was no business card under our driver-side windshield wiper.
How reliable was our eye-witness account? Studies show that many factors such as inattention, surprise, fear, dim lighting, and a million other variables skew perception. Face identification is especially difficult. If you are being a victim of a crime, the fight or flight response is propelling you toward safety not toward getting a closer look at the facial features of your assailant. Facts show eyewitnesses can sway a jury, but eye-witnesses are often wrong. Another time in a mall parking lot, a man tried to grab me but I screamed, ducked his grasp, and almost hysterically ran back into the mall. A security guard was standing at the door. I quickly told him what had happened. He asked, “What was he wearing? How tall was he? What race was he? Could you identify his face? I sadly shook my head at each question. All I knew was a man tried to grab me.
In one study, a person entered a convenience store and performed some memorable action, such as paying in pennies, to draw the clerk’s attention. Later the clerk is asked to identify the customer from a photospread. “The percentage of correct identification ranged from 34-48% and the percentage of false identification is 34-38%. It is hard to know how far to generalize such studies, but they suggest that eyewitnesses are almost as likely to be wrong as to be correct when identifying strangers. Moreover, these results occurred [in] highly favorable circumstances: extended duration, good lighting, clear visibility, and no ‘weapons focus’” https://www.visualexpert.com/Resources/mistakenid.html).
When you sit behind the wheel of a car, your perceptions can be a matter of life and death. Sometimes there is too much information to be processed in too short of time and the driver experiences what is called attention overload or inattentional blindness. Accidents occur when there is too much information for the brain to process quickly enough—the road, other vehicles, weather, pedestrians, animals, noise, listening to the radio, talking on the phone, talking to a passenger, external thoughts about work or what to fix for dinner, glare, poor visibility, and so many other unpredictables.
I recently observed quite a serious accident at close range. I was one car behind the two that crashed. The man who was not at fault jumped out of his car, pounded his fists on his car, pounded his fists on the other driver’s car, pulled at his hair, yelled at the other driver, and angrily paced all around the accident. He continued to yell and pull at his hair and pound his fists again on the cars. As he was pacing, pacing, pacing, he got very close to me. His anger concerned me and consumed my mental attention to such a degree that I did not hear emergency vehicles arrive. I had inattentional blindness. A policeman in frustration came to my car window and told me to move out of the way. In such moments, when we are playing, so to speak with half a deck, unnoticed and unseen problems contribute to perceptional blindness. In this case, I had become part of the problem.
One time, I flew into Oakland, California, to help my daughter while her husband was out of town. I had to take BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) from the airport to Pleasanton where they lived. I’d never ridden BART. My only experience with trains was on the underground in London, where I became quite proficient at transferring from train to train to reach my destination. So as I walked down into the BART station, I scanned the walls for signs telling me which train to take and immediately heard the rumble of an approaching train. Warning lights began to flash and I looked around for someone to ask if the train went to Pleasanton, but there was no one within earshot. The train screeched to a stop, the doors automatically opened, and there I stood, paralyzed with indecision, looking up and down the track for some indication of what I should do. The seconds passed. Just as the train was about to pull away from the station, a man who must have been watching me out of a window left his seat, ran to the open door nearest him, and yelled, “There’s only one train. Get on the train!” Thankfully, he stood in the doorway until I jumped aboard.
Confusion, fear, and preoccupation cause faulty perception, but the biggest hinderment is where we started—who we are. Who we are is where we came from and our foundational belief system. These cultural traditions are among the hardest in which to find middle ground. This situation described in the Benjamin Franklin Papers illustrates this dilemma that happened at the Treaty of Lancaster in Pennsylvania between the Government of Virginia and the Six Nations, sometime before January 7, 1784.
“After the principal Business was settled, the Commissioners from Virginia acquainted the Indians by a Speech, that there was at Williamsburg a College with a Fund for Educating Indian Youth, and that if the Chiefs of the Six-Nations would send down half a dozen of their sons to that College, the Government would take Care that they should be well provided for, and instructed in all the Learning of the white People.
“It is one of the Indian Rules of Politeness not to answer a public Proposition the same day that it is made; they think it would be treating it as a light Matter; and that they show it Respect by taking time to consider it, as of a Matter important. They therefore deferred their Answer till the day following; when their Speaker began by expressing their deep Sense of the Kindness of the Virginia Government, in making them that Offer; for we know, says he, that you highly esteem the kind of Learning taught in those Colleges, and that the Maintenance of our Young Men while with you, would be very expensive to you. We are convinced therefore that you mean to do us Good by your Proposal, and we thank you heartily.
“But you who are wise must know, that different Nations have different Conceptions of things; and you will therefore not take it amiss, if our Ideas of this Kind of Education happen not to be the same with yours. We have had some Experience of it: Several of our Young People were formerly brought up at the Colleges of the Northern Provinces; they were instructed in all your Sciences; but when they came back to us they were bad Runners, ignorant of every means of living in the Woods, unable to bear either Cold or Hunger, knew neither how to build a Cabin, take a Deer, or kill an Enemy, spoke our Language imperfectly; were therefore neither fit for Hunters, Warriors, or Counsellors; they were totally good for nothing. We are however not the less obliged by your kind Offer, tho’ we decline accepting it; and to show our grateful Sense of it, if the Gentlemen of Virginia will send us a dozen of their Sons, we will take great Care of their Education, instruct them in all we know, and make Men of them” (https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-41-02-0280, paragraphing added).
Discerning needs across cultures, and any human difference, can challenge perceptions, and often there is not a day to satisfy the Indian Rules of Politeness. For example, a grandma in a BART station needed immediate help, as did the same grandma unaware that she was blocking emergency vehicles at the scene of an accident.
One of the greatest blessings of being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the gift of the Holy Ghost. It is He who can help every one of us perceive and understand. When I see through a glass darkly, He can turn on a spotlight. When I see a sliver, He can show me the beam. When I see narrowly, He can expand my vista. He knows how to help me focus on the demands of the moment wherever I am, whatever I am doing. He can help me put internal filters in place, so I can see another’s point of view more objectively. The spirit of discernment—the ability to judge well—is one of His premier gifts. Guide to the Scriptures explains:
“The scriptures talk about the ‘discerning of spirits’ as a gift of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:10; DC 46:23). It means ‘to understand or know something through the power of the Spirit. … It includes perceiving the true character of people and the source and meaning of spiritual manifestations’ (scriptures.lds.org). It is this gift that will help each of us perceive, assess, and discern situations quicker and more accurately. The Holy Ghost, which is every member’s gift, is the testifier of truth and a personal alarm system.
