May 4, 2009

Church Experiment #18: Clifton 7th-Day Adventist

Whoa … talk about seeing what your brain is conditioned to see.

I visited the Clifton Seventh-Day Adventist (www.cincinnatiadventist.org) website at least three times to check on the church’s starting time. Each time my mind saw Sunday at 10:50 AM. I even went back and looked again after multiple people mentioned I would have to attend church on a Saturday.

“No, no,” I wrote, “this particular church meets Sunday at 10:50 AM.”

Friday night, I checked one more time, and there it was, plain as day—Saturdayat 10:50 AM. Half of me thought someone snuck in and changed the day to screw with me, and the other half thought we can be so conditioned to see what we are expecting to see that we miss out on what is actually in front of our faces. Could this be analogous to our lives? To our church experiences? To our perceptions of people who are different from us?

Channeling my inner Sarah Palin: You betcha. [Remember her?]

Either way, I luckily realized my mistake in time and attended Clifton Seventh-Day Adventist Church Saturday morning. And I’m glad I figured it out because it was a life-altering experience.

To finish reading about this experience or any of the reflections from my 52 visits, please purchase the full book here.