“There is NO BOX—just a big, nebulous, ever-expanding vastness that deceives us into thinking there are walls.
Bust ’em down.”—Unknown
NEBULOUS means in the form of cloud or haze. When discussing a concept or idea—it means unclear, vague, or undefined. Antonyms for nebulous include: clear, direct, simple, understandable, coherent, and straightforward. Nebulous speech is used when someone doesn’t want to reveal their thoughts. It throws the listener off track. There’s a lot of that going on in the world today. Some would rather be indefinite and obscure in their speech and let people try to figure out for themselves what is meant. Have you ever had that type of conversation? The person speaks in nebulous circles, and you don’t know at the end of the conversation what really happened. Could you please be more specific?
Have you ever heard the phrase “The nebulous ‘THEY’?” Well, church and other leaders hear third party from this group all of the time. “‘They’ think the worship is too long/short.” “‘They’ said ‘they’ didn’t like your message.” “They feel you should/shouldn’t do/say X, Y, or Z…” The nebulous ‘they’ seem to be a big and looming part of your constituency—until you find out that “they” are usually one person who had a complaint and a subsequent conversation with someone—who then shared with you what “they” said to them— but were unwilling to say to you. You are generally more interested in the perspective of the person who is sharing this news. Did that person choose to protect or defend you? or did “they” agree with what “they” said. It’s not a great way to build trust. Perhaps the communication, clarity, climate, and connectedness of our families, workplaces, organizations and churches would improve if we challenged people to identify “the nebulous they.” No, we can’t do that, Sadell! “They” won’t like it! LOL!
There seems a deceptive element to “the nebulous ‘they.'” Scripture tells Christ followers, “Therefore, rejecting all falsehood [whether lying, defrauding, telling half-truths, spreading rumors, any such as these], SPEAK TRUTH EACH ONE WITH HIS NEIGHBOR, for we are all parts of one another [and we are all parts of the body of Christ].” (Ephesians 4:25, AMP) We are not to be a part of nor spread the opinions of the “the nebulous ‘they.'”
