The title of this selection is based on a statement made by Lady Catherine De Bourgh in Pride and Prejudice, as this venerable matron is instructing others on the finer points of music, of which she is avowedly a connoisseur though she has never bothered to learn much about it, but certainly has much natural taste and is thus qualified in her critique of others. This is an amusing scene in the book, but strangely not an uncommon one in our modern society where, thanks to Google, etc., everyone is a natural expert on just about anything and everything. We have replaced logic, reason, and rational thought with the search engine and social trending (if my 'friends' like it, it must be good). Like the esteemed Lady, there is very little depth to our so-called knowledge yet we are too vain to admit, even to ourselves, how little we actually know about said topic.
This especially occurred to me the other day whilst standing in line to fill a prescription and the eight elderly people ahead of me each had 57 different medications, half of which were prescribed to control the side effects of some other medication. There seems to be a pill for everything, yet in truth we know so little about the human body and its microscopic workings that putting so many different substances into our body at once without knowing their interactions with each other and with each unique individuals body makes me nervous. Modern medicine is a wonderful thing, saving countless lives and extending nearly all others, yet we approach it with the attitude of 'my doctor can fix anything' rather than with the fear and trembling which should accompany all such activity which involves the life and well-being of a human soul. I begin to see why God demands the same treatment of Himself.
We should not be in terror of God, yet we should approach Him with all the respect and awe that our rather miniscule and precarious mortal state demands when in the presence of the One who wrought us. Yet we stand like the Pharisee in the temple (Luke 18), congratulating ourselves on how wonderful we are because we are not as bad as some other people when we should be like the tax collector, humble and honest, and therefore forgiven and justified before God. Pride goes back to the Garden when the serpent asked, 'did God really say?' God has really said, we should really listen and obey, if we want to have any standing whatsoever in the Kingdom of Heaven! Then maybe we can turn our eyes to the practice of medicine or advising others on the quality of their musical ability, but only after we have correctly assessed our own skills and knowledge in a certain area and actually discover that we have something meaningful to say.. Just because you can 'google' tuberculosis, does not mean you are qualified either to treat or diagnose it. Even more so are we unqualified to contradict what God has spoken.
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