Perception

by Gene Shelburne

There’s reality. Then there’s perception. Reality is what’s real. Perception is how we see it. Since the two may not coincide, we often operate from flawed perceptions.

If you’ve ever tried to get accurate information from a person who asks a church for financial assistance, you know how hard it is, yet through the years, I’ve more or less come to behave as if I can separate truth from fiction when it comes to hard luck stories.

But a recent message on the church’s answering machine continues to challenge my thinking. The fellow related his sad circumstances, and the details of his story had enough of the ring of truth about them (something of a rarity in these cases) that I decided to follow up. (Perception was at work, but what is the reality?)

            I called his number, and in tones more rude than cutesy his answering machine said, “I’m not home. You know what to do. You know when to do it.”

My mind went into a wacky mode. Is this guy giving the signal to a hit man to go ahead with the murder so he can collect $100,000 of life insurance from the unsuspecting wife? He can later tell the judge this was not what he intended at all. I doubt it, but this does have the makings of a bad TV mystery plot. So maybe this is one of Osama’s men, giving the coded go-ahead for more mischief? No, the message requesting help had no foreign accent. More like from Alabama, not known for its radical Islam.

The man in question was telling me to leave a message, and to do so after I heard the tone. But his voice made it as much a threat as a request and changed my perception of his whole story. The message he left on the church’s machine suggested one thing. The message on his own machine said quite another. So I hung up the phone.

What is your perception of this man? Of my reaction to him?

What aspects of our own behavior give either a favorable or unfavorable impression to others as to who and what we are?  Are our own lives consistent enough to send out accurate readings, or do we give mixed signals? Do you suppose anybody (except God) has a realistic perception of the real you?