Ok, I admit it. I’m a “Facebook test” junkie! Ten weird non sequiter questions with equally weird answers to choose from populate these idiotic quizzes. And I take them. I have to know how Southern I am, what my old-person’s name is, what kind of house, or dog or cat or whatever I am! My old person’s name is Hilda. I am indeed Southern. And I am a cottage. There should be a support group for those of us with this addiction!

Today my nephew tempted me with one of these tests. This time it was to see how open-minded I am.

I compulsively took his test (on which my nephew scored “88% open-minded”) and, trying to answer as honestly as I could, I scored “57%.” Is that good or bad? I don’t know.

Some of the questions disturbed me (unlike the questions of the other inane tests which just confused me.)

For instance, if I discover that my favorite author is an outspoken misogynist (which I had to look up: it basically means woman-hater) would I continue to read his books because I like his style, or would I never read his books again? It seems to me that would have leaked out somewhere in his writings, so he wouldn’t have been my favorite author to begin with. But suppose instead of misogynist, he was an avowed atheist and wrote really good mystery stories which had nothing to do with faith? Would I stop reading because he was an atheist? Probably not.

How would I handle a discussion with a senile man on a park bench who turned out to be a racist? Try to change him (Are you kidding? You can’t even change someone in their right mind!) Try to be all touchy-feely and understand that there was something in his background  that made him this way (besides that he was old, senile, and grew up in a different era, you mean?)  and “gently try to open his mind.” The answer I really leaned toward, but realized it wasn’t a particularly caring response, was “walk away.” Maybe I was over-thinking here, but this question and my uncertainty about what I would do, bothered me a lot.

I had no problem with the question about eating pig brain fritters in Cuba (that would be a NO!”), but do I believe the U.S. could learn something from other parts of the world? What parts? Something good – maybe. Something bad – for sure!

Have I ever had a real conversation with a homeless person? What is a “real conversation”? Does it count that one time I offered to take a panhandler to a restaurant, buy him dinner and sit with him while he ate? He rejected my offer and went on to the next sucker to beg real money. (He would fail this part of the test because he wasn’t open-minded enough to talk with me!)

I struggled with the question which at first seemed to be the easiest: “True or False – In life, there is almost always a right way to do things and a wrong way to do things…” Had it stopped there, the answer was obvious: True. But it went on “… and it’s easy to see the difference between the two.” Uh oh. It’s often very hard to know what the right way is, especially if we’re depending on our own (open or closed) minds to make the decision. But because I believe I have the mind of Christ (1Corinthians 2:16), and if I am willing to wait until I get clear direction from Him, I can be sure my choice will be the right one, no matter how the Facebook test rates my open-mindedness.