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The Map is Not the Territory
by Monte Wilson

Even though a map is an artifact, something made, it is not arbitrarily imposed on the land. It comes out of careful observation and accurate recording of what is actually there. It is required that maps be honest. And there is also this: maps are humble—they don’t pretend to substitute for the country itself. Studying the map doesn’t provide experience of the country. The purpose of the map is to show us the way into the country and prevent us from getting lost in our travels.

--From the Introduction of E Peterson’s newest book, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places.

I first ran across the map as a metaphor back in the early 80s, through Alford Korzybski, the father of general semantics, who said "A map is not the territory it represents, but if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness".

Each of us has our own individualized maps that we use for getting through and around and over life. This explains why we often have the communication breakdowns that we do: I assume you are operating by my map—the authorized map of reality, of course—and you assume that I am using a copy of your map. This is where one of us—if there is to be any communication—decides to “see through the eyes of the other,” i.e. look at reality using the map of the other.

Our maps are made up of such things as our beliefs about God and spirituality, what we are to value, what is Right, what is Wrong, the nature of time and history, and etc. We then use our maps to help us decide the proper direction for our lives both on a day-to-day basis, and on a more global basis for structuring our life out into the future.

Our perception of reality is not reality itself but merely our version of reality: our “map.” The closer our maps approximate reality, the greater the potential for our arriving at our desired destinations.

The Map is Not the Territory

I believe that the quest for an “accurate recording of what is actually there” is a lifelong endeavor. Think about it: For eons, sailors had “honest” and “accurate maps” showing that the world was flat. Before the Industrial Revolution, the businessman’s map was totally centered on an agrarian-based understanding of the marketplace. Then there was the Information Revolution...and then the Digital Revolution … each requiring massive updating of people’s maps.

Clearly, updating maps is crucial to successfully navigating through life.

This is no less the case for People of Faith. While you believe you have an accurate map vis a vis your Holy Scriptures, your understanding of this “map” evolves, does it not?

This is one of the reasons why maps are “humble.” No map ever contains the entire reality of the territory covered. For the sake of convenience, many things are not on the map. Moreover, there are some “realities” I simply have not added to my map: I don’t see these yet, or possibly do not give certain realities the importance they deserve on the map, or whatever.

The Menu is Not the Food

This is another way of saying that the map is not the terrain. Words are not the experience of the words. God-followers know this. Having an accurate theology is not the same thing as having a life that demonstrates that theology. Having an intellectual understanding of the terrain I must traverse is not the same thing as making the journey.

Think of one of those restaurants where the menus have pictures of the food: the food never tastes as good as the picture suggests. (And you deserve this for going into a place that has such menus!) The picture of the food is not the food itself.

For example,

Understanding the word “love” is not the same thing as the experience of love itself. In fact, you have no real understanding of the word until you do live it.

If there is one glaring shortcoming of Christians in the West it is here: the intellectualizing of the Faith. We have great pictures: the color is sharp and the clarity is pristine. We take these photos and place them in albums with every picture in the proper order and placement. Yet, we are spiritually malnourished because all we have is pictures, with very little experience of actually “eating the food.”

Updating Maps

Returning to the metaphor of maps, I can’t help but wonder what would happen if we really did seek to actually use our maps as a guide for how we lived out our lives, rather than as art work with which to decorate our brains? Is it possible that we would discover some of the terrain is altogether different from what we had “mapped out,” thus, requiring we update our maps?

I think one of the reasons we do not like to update our maps is that we do not like leaving our comfort zones. “This is the map that got me to where I am today. “ But the problem with this is that “today” is unlike ”tomorrow” and will, accordingly, demand an updated map.

Lincoln said that our greatest defeats follow our greatest victories. Is it possible that part of the reason for this is due to the fact that our greatest victories cause us to place an undeserving and unhealthy faith in “the map that led us to victory”? This is why I love the quote of Lew Platt (HP): “Whatever made you successful in the past won’t in the future.” THIS is the mindset that will keep us from investing our maps with an authority they cannot bear.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2009