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The Secret of the Naive Mind |
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SMiller
Private First Class
Gender: Female
Location: Registered: Jun 2007 Status: Offline Posts: 15 |
     
 Posted Sunday, June 24, 2007 @ 11:45 AM
I hate to admit that I have an archive of unread Le Penseur Reflechit newsletters in my e-mail because I have gone a great deal of time without a computer. But now that I am home, I felt lead to read your latest and I found that I was dealing with the very issue that you spoke of: The Naive Mind. You see, I am hanging on a very thin thread according to my sophisticated mind. But I’ve forced myself to let that logic go and embrace a much more “foolish” point of view, which is, in fact, something I believe very strongly in the depths of my heart. In other words, I’m planning my life around an event that relies very heavily on faith and trust. I think God has shown me who my future husband is and everything I have learned up to this point has lead me to him, to an opportune time and place, with the most agreeable attitude. You see, I had to give up my ideas of what my life should be like to get to this place, something God was doing in my heart before I realized why. And my ideas of love and what a woman should be have completely over-turned. These ideas have turned into exactly what God meant me to be, and exactly what this man is looking for. He just doesn’t know it yet. And that’s where my sophisticated mind swoops in. In fact I feel silly and stupid revealing this to my friends. I can’t help but label myself a stalker, talking and thinking as though we’re already engaged. But something has happened to me, and I am not going through my typical cycles of wondering if “he’s the one”. I’m planning my life around him and his life, and he doesn’t even know it! We hardly know eachother, but we’ll soon be working side-by-side for the next few years. He’s a friend of mine, and everything I’ve ever searched for in a man. I feel so strongly, I wonder what’s going on. I’ve never felt this before and I’ve never acted so “foolish”. It’s just frightening and my sophisticated mind feels overwhelmed by that fact. I often find myself coaching myself to stop thinking this way and stop getting my hopes up, because I’m only going by instinct, not rational facts and obvious signs. In fact I keep telling myself to pursue him, but my faith stops me. If this is really from God, this man will pursue me at the right time. And I’ll be ready. Thanks for your honest thoughts. I really needed that… |
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sara
Major
Gender: Unspecified
Location: Registered: Feb 2006 Status: Offline Posts: 1253 |
Posted Sunday, June 24, 2007 @ 12:36 PM
I used to worry about doing God’s will, etc. until I figured out that if it really is God’s will, He will figure out a way to get it done. Learn to cast your burdens onto the God within, so you can free yourself of useless anxieties. Also, focus on developing into the best you can be, as both a woman and a human being, so that you have much to offer God, as well as your future husband, whomever he may be. I hope I don’t sound like a know-it-all. I sympathize with how you feel. In my youth, I did my share of anguishing over men. I wish I learned how to play the guitar instead. |
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Alpine Artist
Sergeant First Class
Gender: Unspecified
Location: Registered: May 2007 Status: Offline Posts: 86 |
Posted Sunday, June 24, 2007 @ 01:00 PM
Never too late, girlfriend-start with E Minor. It’s real easy and has that mysterious minor-mojo. (And I married someone who I’d never have picked for myself. That little “knowing” that we’re talking about? I just knew he was good for me, unlike the blokes I might’ve chosen!) Now we’re going on 27 years, and as one of my songs says, “Gettin’ too old to leave him, might just as well get along…” 
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SMiller
Private First Class
Gender: Female
Location: Registered: Jun 2007 Status: Offline Posts: 15 |
Posted Sunday, June 24, 2007 @ 04:39 PM
Thanks |
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Admin
General
Gender: Male
Location: USA Registered: Jan 2006 Status: Offline Posts: 810 |
Posted Monday, June 25, 2007 @ 10:35 PM
Hello Susan. I haven’t heard anything out of you in a long time. I trust Arizona is working out okay for you? Anyway, being away from the computer is surely not a bad thing. One can spend entirely too much time on these silly machines. Yes, I think in the end we MUST turn over to God the major life decisions like choosing a life-time partner. The problem, of course, is that we get extremely impatient at times and our emotions tend to get the better of us. I was talking to GreatGrandpaDog just Saturday—we went hiking in Lost Valley, Arkansas—and we were talking about this very thing. In fact, that is part of what gave rise to the newsletter: we left at 7:30am—a death sentence in my world—and arrived back home around 5:30pm: I had a headache and took a crash-and-burn nap for about an hour and half, woke up, and hammered out the newsletter in one straight run. Shortly thereafter, I went back to bed and slept like somebody who hasn’t slept in days, waking up in the morning knowing I’d slept hard. Truth be told, this past week was a tough one and the evening before we left, I tossed and turned and tossed and turned, finally dropping off around 3:30 am. It is interesting to me that you describe the newsletter as being “honest.” It is, of course: perhaps a lot more honest than some might guess. But it seemed to me that I was rather detached when I wrote it. GreatGrandpaDog’s reminder was a gentle one and simple, but it was to the effect that if we do not let our emotions control us, soon enough we tend to gain control of them. It is hard to say, always, exactly why we feel as emotional as we sometimes do, but his words were timely. I said I woke up knowing I’d slept hard: the services that morning were beautiful and the smallest things left me feeling strangely affected. After the services, I returned home and felt fine. Now it is largely life as we know it: a bit down, then a bit up, but overall a little more down than up. The hard part, then, is living through the emotions that sometimes assail and waiting on God, trusting that we did hear correctly. Surely there are times you doubt yourself. You believe you have heard from God on this matter, but there must be times you feel like you’re only fooling yourself. But you know, even if it should turn out, God forbid, that you are mistaken in this matter, there is something that I have learned about God. He does not burst our bubbles or destroy our hope. He will, of course, speak the truth to us, but generally he lets us discover the truth for ourselves in a way that is manageable: in a way in which we can accept it in his own perfect time. I am again reminded of the Sadhu: Quote: Seeker: So how do I find the path to spiritual truth and to knowledge of God? Sadhu: God never discourages a seeker by judging his or her beliefs to be wrong. Rather, God allows each person to recognize spiritual error or truth by degrees. The story is told of a poor grass cutter who found a beautiful stone in the jungle. He had often heard of people finding valuable diamonds and thought this must be one. He took it to a jeweler and showed it to him with delight. Being a kind and sympathetic man, the jeweler knew that if he bluntly told the grass cutter that his stone was worthless glass, the man would either refuse to believe it or else fall into a state of depression. So instead, the jeweler offered the grass cutter some work in his shop so that he might become better acquainted with precious stones and their value. Meanwhile, the man kept his stone safely locked away in a strongbox. Several weeks later, the jeweler encouraged the man to bring out his own stone and examine it. As soon as he took it out of the chest and looked at it more closely, he immediately saw that it was worthless. His disappointment was great, but he went to the jeweler and said: “I thank you that you did not destroy my hope but aided me instead to see my mistake on my own. If you will have me, I will stay with you and faithfully serve you, as you are a good and kind master.” In the same way, God leads back to truth those who have wandered into error. When they recognize the truth for themselves, they gladly and joyfully give themselves in obedient service. (Wisdom of the Sadhu 58–59) God never destroys our hope. If there are voices that would discourage you, they come from three sources: either the tempter, your own misgivings, or other people. Now of course there are occasions where we think we have heard from God when we haven’t, but God truly is gracious and will not snuff out a smoldering wick or break a bruised reed. That is not his way. The Sadhu continues out his response with an allusion to the teachings of certain tenets of Buddhism, then finishes the chapter with some thoughts about loving God. It’s all wonderful stuff, but we’ll leave off with these thoughts: Quote: Some say that desire is the root cause of all pain and sorrow. According to this philosophy, salvation consists in eliminating all desire, including any desire for eternal bliss or communion with God. But when someone is thirsty, do we tell him to kill his thirst instead of giving him water to drink? To drive out thirst without quenching it with life-sustaining water is to drive out life itself. The result is death, not salvation. Thirst is an expression of our need for water and a sign of hope that somewhere there is water that can satisfy our thirst. Similarly, the deep longing in our soul is a clear sign of hope that spiritual peace exists. Something can satisfy our thirsty souls. When the soul finds God, the author of that spiritual thirst, it receives far greater satisfaction than any thirsty man who receives water. When the soul’s desire is satisfied, we have found heaven. The water of a river that has its source in one country may flow through many different countries before it reaches the sea. It passes within the domain of many chiefs, rajahs, and princes. Yet no country has the right to stop it and keep it within its territory. It is the common property of all, and wherever it goes, it quenches the thirst of all. In the same way, the stream of life comes forth from the ocean of God’s love, streaming to earth again as rain and then flowing as a river through the channels of the prophets and holy ones to irrigate the world. In this way, it quenches thirsty souls, enriching and restoring the lives of people and nations everywhere. Whoever desires it can freely take of this gift of life. Seeker: If this life is freely given, then does God expect nothing from us? Don’t we owe him some kind of worship? Sadhu: People are foolish to believe that they confer some favor on God by their worship. Those who approach worship with such an attitude know nothing of the true nature of God. If we love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and if we love our neighbor as ourselves, then we will experience God’s presence. This is worship. Eternal life will spring forth in our hearts; the fire of love will melt and forge us anew into the image of our creator. The Master has said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” It is not hard to live for a few days in peace with someone – even one who is unfriendly. But if someone lives near us and annoys us day in and day out, then it becomes a difficult task even to endure – much less to love – that person. Yet if we can win through this great struggle, then we will find it all the easier to love others. (Wisdom of the Sadhu 59–60) Incidentally, Wisdom of the Sadhu is a book that can be downloaded as a free PDF at the bottom of the page at http://www.plough.com/ebooks/wisdomofthesadhu.html and comes highly recommended. It is quick read, not difficult, yet it is strangely deep, the way true wisdom always is. The Sadhu is someone who I should be taking lessons from in terms of the naive mind. |
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SMiller
Private First Class
Gender: Female
Location: Registered: Jun 2007 Status: Offline Posts: 15 |
Posted Tuesday, June 26, 2007 @ 09:42 PM
Arizona was amazing. I’ve grown a lot. Now I’m going to Michigan to help with another Master’s Commission that is just getting on it’s feet. I missed being in this circle of wisdom and encouragement! Well, the way I see it is, the sophisticated mind is secular thought, which I have been well-versed in (who isn’t that lives in The U.S.?) God has turned my life upside-down just in the past few months, I’m exhibiting very different behaviour, specifically in the area of faith and discipline, and relationships! I once despised men and ESPECIALLY the thought of being in submission to a man (which is the will of God if us women have a father or if we are married). But now I’m practicing not only submitting to my father’s will, but I’m finding ways to support him and encourage him in any way possible; to speak only positive things about him; to take care of any need of his that I can; to validate his opinion when he speaks something logical and wise. I love my Dad… why did it never occur to me to show it? This is an amazing and joy-inciting experience for me. I know my role in my house. I know what I am supposed to do, the way God created me and why and how, and thus, doing it is no longer a chore. My motive is no longer to avoid chaos, but to fulfill my calling! Helping my Dad! What a concept! The change is overwhelming. and a lot of it has to do with the fact that I believe I’m getting married soon. Soon as in, within the next year or two. And I know that being the wife of this man will require of me a higher standard than I have been living my life. I will be in leadership, naturally, since he is a leader. I will be an example to women. This affects the way I look, and act, and think, and pray! So now, since God has given me this time to be with my family over the summer, I’m taking in every experience I possibly can, loving my family in any way possible. My sister told me the same thing; that God wouldn’t dash my hopes. I’m so excited about this, I could type away all night! Anyway, I truly appreciated the long and thorough reply to my post. It was very inciteful. I wish I knew you and GreatGrandpaDog in person, so I could join in on these long talks and such. Thanks! |
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sara
Major
Gender: Unspecified
Location: Registered: Feb 2006 Status: Offline Posts: 1253 |
Posted Wednesday, June 27, 2007 @ 06:19 AM
I am sorry I was so flippant when I responded to you initially, but my husband thought it was a good idea. tee hee Seriously…isn’t there something in-between “despising” men and being in “submission” to them? Maybe we can just treat them in the same way as we would like to be treated? Years ago, I went to a psychiatrist in regard to several things, one of which was my rather complicated relationship to my husband, who was going through his own difficulties at the time. I remember pleading with my doctor….”Please, tell me what to do. I’m confused. You know all about Psychology…..give me a few rules to follow! I’m sick of trying to figure out how to respond to him…..” My psychiatrist, a wise man indeed, replied….”Marriage, like everything else in life, is a creative process and must be respected as such. Each marriage is different and has its own rules, which you have to figure out for yourselves. And, by the way, once you figure them out, they will probably change.” This is not what I wanted to hear at the time. I would have willingly given up my free will for a little bit of serenity, even if it was fraudulent & temporary. (nothing is more comforting than self-deception) However, twenty or more years later, I am grateful for my doctor’s wise advice. It is wonderful that you are going through so many insightful and fulfilling changes in your life. I can feel your excitement! And I know that God will guide you in all your endeavors, even if……and this is only a possibility….He does it in a way that is contrary to your desires and expectations. Fondly, Sara |
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SMiller
Private First Class
Gender: Female
Location: Registered: Jun 2007 Status: Offline Posts: 15 |
Posted Wednesday, June 27, 2007 @ 11:08 AM
Well, that happy medium is where I would go with my male friends, but not to my Dad, and not to my husband. At least that’s not what God tell us to do. Eph 5:22–24 (KJV) Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord, For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the savior of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. BLECH! Reading that scripture made me feel ill when I used to read it. It leaves a sour aftertaste especially when the men in your life are weak and stupid and don’t really care. ESPECIALLY the scripture about children obeying their parents. But God commands us to do it. Let me explain why it now brings me so much joy. I now look at it completely different. Instead of thinking of it in terms of slavery and blind obedience, I think of it this way: we are given the power to enable our men to be strong leaders—to be the men that God called them to be. and with that comes the desire to not only submit, but to encourage and to help and to love and support. If I want a man to be strong and make strong decisions, then I’m not going to make decisions for him. And I’m going to let his opinions matter. His strength is only as strong as I allow it to be. If I submit, I give him the confidence to think for himself, not to worry about my wrath or my insult or disapproval, instead he’ll worry about how his decision will affect me because I trust him. This is what I’m trying to do with my Dad. I trying to help him be strong. If his opinion carries a lot of weight with me, he will begin to have a renewed confidence. I have the power to build up or destroy a man’s manhood. That is a great responsibility. But in the same way, the man has an even greater responsibility. Eph 5:25–28 (KJV) Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word. That he might present it to himself, a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. Men are called to be even stronger, giving themselves up for the sake of their wives. God doesn’t say, “okay, wives, if your husband is stupid or doesn’t care, you don’t have to submit or anything, only if he exhibits the character of Christ.” no. He says to submit no matter what. And he tells the husband to love no matter what. My sister has recently begun to put this into practice, having an attitude of submission, and keeping up her home and so on and so forth. She used to be so mad because her husband just expected her to keep things clean. And he didn’t exactly help her out. He left a mess. But when she started actually keeping it clean, taking the full responsibility of the home, he began to help her out. It was only when the attitude of her heart changed that he felt convicted to live at a higher standard. He felt the weight of the responsibility. When she did the opposite of how she felt, she got the results she wanted. And that is what I have begun to do. Instead of lamenting over the fact that my dad is really motivated by his wife, keeping her at peace, not upsetting her, to the point where he doesn’t really voice his own thoughts when it comes to the home and what he does with his money and so on and so forth… instead of being angry at him and expecting him to step up, I help him step up by validating what he thinks and feels. This is not a ganging up against my mom, it’s obedience to God. My mom struggles with submission, and I think if she sees my example, she will begin to do the same. It’s frustrating too, because often my dad’s main concern is pleasing his wife who tends to be irrational and dramatic. So in submitting to him, I’m submitting to my mom rather than my dad…GAH! And yet, if I show him that I am honestly concerned with his opinions, perhaps he might just begin to feel that his opinions matter, cause they’re supposed to matter. God honors obedience. In the end it will be worth all the trouble. Why complicate things? Submit. And God will honor your obedience to HIM, cause in the end, that’s what it’s really about—obedience to God and what he commanded in His word, not some man-dominated world full of pride. We are not feeding men’s pride, we are helping them live God’s will. We are obeying God by submitting to man. The fact that I think this way is a miracle in itself, because these words I am saying were the very words that I despised. But that only confirms my belief that I am getting married soon. And God has found me a good man of character who needs a woman who will support and uplift him and only help him grow stronger. |
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sara
Major
Gender: Unspecified
Location: Registered: Feb 2006 Status: Offline Posts: 1253 |
Posted Friday, June 29, 2007 @ 07:52 AM
I didn’t attend to reply to you because you seems to be someone who is seeking fellowship and confirmation rather than debate, which is certainly understandable on a Christian website. However, since this is a “Forum”, I feel obligated to respond to you because you’ve raised an issue which I consider to be profoundly important. It seems to me that you are attempting to resolve a complex problem (being human) by abdicating responsibility for making your own decisions. Instead of facing the discomfort of acknowledging your own intellectual freedom, you have simply replaced one ideology (Feminism) with another (Fundamentalist Christianity) and surrendered your identity to it, without deeply questioning the legitimacy of either. There is much merit in what you have written, but do you really believe that God commands a wife “to submit no matter what” to a husband who may be self-deceived, but ignoble? What if he overzealous in “chastising” your children to their detriment and, loves you, but dismisses your concern as feminine sentimentality? Should wives of Nazi’s have obeyed their husbands and waved sadly to the Jews being herded down the street to the cattle cars? (incidentally, Nazi Germany was a Christian country) I know I’m being silly and thinking in extremes, but I thought your statement was rather extreme as well, and decided to respond in kind. Whatever we may believe about Jesus, I think we can all agree that he was no ideologue. He undoubtedly and repeatedly questioned religious authority, and urged his followers to do the same. We would do well do emulate Him in this regard. He was rather clear about this. One more thing….I am not surprised that your relationship with your father has improved, but it may be a result of observing him a new way and choosing how to creatively respond to him as a multi-dimensional human being instead of reacting automatically to him in terms of yourself. This is what we all should do when we struggle to love another person, which sounds simple, but is incredibly difficult. I hope you can do the same with your mom, for you apparently have a great deal of anger towards her. Always doubt your own virtue. As Eric Hoffer said, ”The hatred and cruelty which have their source in selfishness are ineffectual things compared with the venom and ruthlessness born of selflessness.” And also, ”How much easier is self-sacrifice than self-realization.” Ok. I feel better. I hope I wasn’t too obnoxious. You seems like a lovely and good-willed person, and despite my tirade, I do see how hard you are struggling and I do wish for you the very best in life. |
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sara
Major
Gender: Unspecified
Location: Registered: Feb 2006 Status: Offline Posts: 1253 |
Posted Friday, June 29, 2007 @ 02:07 PM
If anyone doubts how quickly I responded in my last entry, just look at that first sentence! I hadn’t intended to write anything, but all of a sudden, I was sitting in front of my computer typing away at a frenzied pace, like I was possessed. ( I DO NOT MEAN THAT LITERALLY!) I think I may have been typing so fast because I was afraid I was going to change my mind about sending it before I expressed what I wanted to say. (I’m trying to watch my weight, and I do the same thing when I eat “forbidden” food. I gobble it down as quickly as I can because I know, when I start feeling guilty, I’ll have to stop myself.) In retrospect….(a few hours later) , I don’t regret sending the message, but I do wish I had been gentler and less superior-sounding and antagonistic. I apologize for that. You were genuine and sincere, Susan, and I responded to your good intentions by symbolically smacking you across the face through the computer screen. I guess you struck a nerve. Anyway, I’m sorry. I can be such an ass at times. With sincere good wishes, Sara |
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SMiller
Private First Class
Gender: Female
Location: Registered: Jun 2007 Status: Offline Posts: 15 |
Posted Friday, June 29, 2007 @ 06:59 PM
I understand that you did not intend to say what you did the way you did, but may I vindicate? You’re right, I am not here to debate ideologies… I am here to state what I belive to be true. What you don’t know is that my whole life I have been cast aside, my concerns being made worthless and deemed that of feminine sentimentality. Most of my life has been dedicated to rebellion against these very ideas of submitting to a man. Most of my life has been dedicated to the ideals of feminism. And what you described as a disreguard for my own personal intellectual freedom is actually me expressing obedience to God despite my own intellectual disagreements. You speak as though I have put no thought or careful consideration to the ideology of Fundamental Christianity, when the truth is, it takes no careful consideration for me to side with Feminism. Feminism is what comes natural. And that is what I consider my own virtue. What I was saying was that the scripture goes against my own virtue! I am merely relying more heavily and more literally on scripture, not finding ways around it, not finding ways to explain why it is no longer relevant to today’s generation. Like I said, God honors obedience. I believe that if I submit to my husband, then God will honor that and not put me in a position where I have to compromise my faith or my family. He says in his word that he will never give me more than I can bear. And that is why I have asked God to pick out my husband for me, and that is what I was talking about in the first place. These convictions require more trust in God than I have ever been willing to give. Thus I am using my own intellectual freedom by choosing to obey God, by choosing to put more faith in his understanding than my own. If he says it in his word, then I feel obligated to follow. I know all the explanations and all the ways to make those scriptures more Feminist-Friendly. I was taught how to in Bible class. But I now choose not to. When I submit to God and do the opposite of what I feel, I surprisingly get the results I’ve always yearned for deep down. I am merely sharing what God has placed in my heart to do, and what I have found in Scripture, and stating the fact that God has completely turned my heart around. Feminism is easily justifiable and makes sense to me. The Bible says submit. Enough said. Jesus never questioned authority, he only questioned character. |
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sara
Major
Gender: Unspecified
Location: Registered: Feb 2006 Status: Offline Posts: 1253 |
Posted Saturday, June 30, 2007 @ 05:28 AM
You’ve made many good points and your reply makes sense, although I’m still not a great fan of ideologies. I guess it’s because they are all so obviously man-made, even when inspired. If you don’t mind, I prefer not to get into a huge debate about THAT issue because it’s endless and boring and unresolvable. However, odd as it may seem, I do agree with your decision to reject Feminism, which is the opposite of your natural inclination. I think it was St Terese who said ”The Lord’s teaching runs counter to the instincts of nature.” Your statement that “Jesus never questioned authority, he only questioned character” is thought-provoking. I’m not sure if it’s true, but it’s an interesting observation. Thanks for giving me something to think about. |
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sara
Major
Gender: Unspecified
Location: Registered: Feb 2006 Status: Offline Posts: 1253 |
Posted Saturday, June 30, 2007 @ 11:15 AM
I’ve been chuckling to myself this morning because I’ve been wondering about the validity of Susan’s assertion that “Jesus never questioned authority; he only questioned character.” What amuses me is that, not only do I not know whether the statement is true or false, but that I presumed my perspective was correct because this claim has been made in many books and I adopted it without thinking. So, I’m guilty of the exact fault that I was accusing Susan of having…..accepting an “ideology” taught by others without examining it thoroughly. Pardon me while I remove the log from my eye. Anyway, the statement Susan made is quite interesting to me. Is it true “that Jesus never questioned authority; he only questioned character.” I’m fairly certain the second part is correct….he certainly did question character….but how about the first part? He must have questioned authority…no? The only thing that popped into my mind was “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” For the times and place He lived in, that seems like a rather revolutionary statement. And please….I’m not interesting in anyone taking sides in a debate, etc. What a bore that is. I’m more interested in pursuing the subject more deeply. Does anyone else have any insights to share? How about you, Admin? I hope so. If not, I may have to take out a Bible and think for myself! Yikes! PS Isn’t it wonderful how God corrects us in such a gentle, sweet manner? |
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SMiller
Private First Class
Gender: Female
Location: Registered: Jun 2007 Status: Offline Posts: 15 |
Posted Saturday, June 30, 2007 @ 03:26 PM
Should we ourselves question God-given authority? What about the authority of the scriptures? Do you think that Jesus questioned the Scriptures? If one believes in sola scriptura, then wouldn’t one accept what is contained in the Word itself, not questioning it? I think that if Jesus did question authority, he used his own authority as God and man. And He still submitted to the authorities in his life. I know that he never questioned scripture… The authority I speak of is scripture. When you say fundamentalist Christianity, I don’t know what that really implies. The ideology of fundamental christianity is not my authority, the Holy Bible is. that is the authority you were in essence telling me to question. I don’t really know what is meant by the word ideology. What about taking scripture at face value and putting your faith in it? Would one consider that “naive”? If I was talking strictly from a secular standpoint, I would be looking at the two concepts feminism, and fundamental Christianity as equal, and to be reasoned as to which is more logical. One is logical, the other is not. God uses the foolish things of man to confound the wise. But as a Christian, I have already made the decision that the Bible is truth. So there’s no questioning which is true or false. I made that decision when I gave my life to Christ. I have already given my heart to Jesus and devoted my life to seeking after him and what His word says. I do the reasoning, yeah, cause I live in America and that’s the way I was raised, and that’s my human response, but when it comes down to it, I choose to have faith. And that’s the difference between the two. One requires a GREAT deal of faith; it is about God’s agenda. The other is all about your own rights and your own agenda. Ideology? You either believe in Scripture or you don’t. Simple. Which is fine. It is a choice to be made. I put more merit into scripture than reducing it to an ideology. Call me a fundamentalist, I am not afraid of that. I believe the Holy Bible is truth. That is my choice. And I am seeing the fruit of that choice in my own life, and in my relationships, and in my faith. God honors obedience. The only reason I have a better relationship with my Dad is because I have submitted to him. I may be creatively responding to him, but in that I have submitted. And that is what has made the change. I shall end my thoughts with this scripture Rom 3:10–11 As it is written, there is none righteous no not one. There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God and Phil 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. |
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sara
Major
Gender: Unspecified
Location: Registered: Feb 2006 Status: Offline Posts: 1253 |
Posted Saturday, June 30, 2007 @ 03:43 PM
There are all kinds of flowers in a garden. 
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Alpine Artist
Sergeant First Class
Gender: Unspecified
Location: Registered: May 2007 Status: Offline Posts: 86 |
Posted Saturday, June 30, 2007 @ 08:25 PM
Ladies, you may enjoy these links to pages on John Temple Bristow’s book, What Paul Really Said About Women, which I read many years ago as I was married. It’s an excellent resource and may answer many of your innermost questions. I cannot endorse the page sources, only the information on the pages (the first a book review, the second a selection of excerpts and notes.) http://www.stnina.org/journal/art/2.2.7 http://www.gospelassemblyfree.com/facts/ephesians.htm A clear conviction on God’s design for a women’s place in this world is critical both to building a basic world view and to establishing peace with yourself, your husband, and all others. This is a must read toward that end. Great Lord’s Day, sisters! (and all!) |
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Admin
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Location: USA Registered: Jan 2006 Status: Offline Posts: 810 |
Posted Saturday, June 30, 2007 @ 09:37 PM
No insight from the Admin for now at least: the last two days have been spent fighting a nasty computer virus known as the VBS_Redloaf.A that is written in Microsoft’s Virtual Basic Script (VBS), and, perhaps the vanity of the designer, leaves text files named AXEL.DAV in every folder on your computer (there were around 2,000 of these files on my machine). Opening any of the files in Notepad reveals only the alias “Axel DAvis” (with the capital A in DAvis as shown). Things started running really slow, then the computer started crashing, weird things started happening, the restore points disappeared, errors kept popping up whenever one would try to do something simple (like accessing the help file), and my Internet connection quit working. I did a non-destructive restore: that is, I reinstalled the operating system using a method that leaves most of my user files intact. However, the virus apparently likes deleting DLL files (stands for D.ynamic L.ink L.ibraries, and are essential for programs to run), so I’ve had to reinstall quite a few programs. If you are curious to read more about this particular virus, the forum thread AXEL.DAV was very helpful. But you know, some time away from the computer has been quite nice. I’ve gotten some reading in I would not have gotten in otherwise and feel quite grateful that I’ve not lost any data. It’s strange, really: quite a few things in my world have been falling apart lately (some a lot more emotionally significant than this one), yet I have felt strangely at peace. I suspect that there are people praying for me: I can usually feel the prayers of others, as strange as that might sound if somebody has never felt such a thing. Granted, I have been a little annoyed at the slowness of the computer even now (I do hope I’ve fixed the virus and am running more diagnostics as we speak), but overall, I have not been at all put out by it. I am reminded of your testimony, Alpine, about the thousand-dollar error and your weekend’s peace of mind. Now that I’ve said I have no comments, I will only say that Jesus did uphold scripture and though he challenged the authorities, he did so mainly insofar as they were neglecting the keeping of the inner sanctum or spirit of the law. He probably did not see the issue quite like those who maintain sola scriptura do today (he was not a sixteenth-century European poised on the brink of the Englightment), but he certainly did not question the Torah: how often did he say “As it is written?” He was obviously most distressed by the misuse of the Torah, perhaps the most common reason why believers today are inclined to distance themselves from believing scripture unreservedly. For myself, I am not a biblical inerrantist and probably never will be (I’ve a bit too much education for that, whether that ultimately makes me right or wrong), but I have as of late developed a more healthy respect for the bible than what I had for a while and it correlates with the place I’m at in my spiritual journey: it has to do with what I take to be personal revelation, the only kind of revelation in the end that I believe has any true meaning. (Even if we say that one receives the scriptures as daily bread, that daily bread still has to be leavened with the spirit of God.) Perhaps it also has to do with the liturgy: the reading of so much scripture in such beautiful and non-judgmental ways where it is left largely to interpret itself. And when it is interpreted in the homily, it is ALWAYS with the end of furthering our intimacy with Christ, inspiring us and filling us with hope, helping replenish that all-important supply of faith, hope, and love. Outside of such a beautiful setting, the way the bible is sometimes treated leaves a bitter taste: it is precisely this treatment of sacred things that made Jesus very angry. It was not religious zeal itself that he was against, but rather that zealous arrogance that sins against humanity by its self-righteous refusal to see its own reflection in the broken panes. As a side note, I am quite astounded sometimes at just how many New Testament ideas are found in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament in some of the most unlikely places: aside from the arrival of Jesus, very few New Testament ideas are truly new. That shouldn’t really surprise us. Jesus was, after all, not a Christian: he was throughly Jewish. And it is regarding the spirit of the Hebrew Bible and its shared assumptions with Christianity that I wish to post on another of these threads we’ve got going now: it has to do with the idea of Christianity evolving as seen through the lens of Buber’s evolving “Jewry” (as he, or more precisely his translator, puts it), a part of the reading I’ve managed to get in these last two days. We should remember that Buber was a Zionest (though not to be stereotyped as one might be tempted when hearing the word “Zionist” and all the lamentable politicization involved): he was alive during the founding of the modern state of Israel and himself relocated to Jerusalem to live out his teaching career: an intellectual very well versed in the thinkers of his day as well as Judeo-Christian and Eastern thought, he was understandably very concerned with the preservation of “Jewry” and when we combine that concern with Orthodox Judaism’s great concern with the preservation of their heritage through the lineage of their children, we can well imagine what he has to say about evolving Jewry is quite profound. |
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Admin
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Posted Saturday, June 30, 2007 @ 10:50 PM
Hmm. Maybe I won’t be replying as soon as I thought: you know those fairly lengthy quotations I often leave from this book or that one on this forum? I don’t type all of those quotations: I scan them. And when I went to fire up my scanning software, I got an all-too familiar message as of late: “This action is only valid for products that are currently installed.” It seems the virus has, if not deleted hundreds of my programs, at least deleted their startup dlls (which is as good as having deleted them, since it requires a reinstall to make them work properly). So, depending on how long it takes me to reinstall Microsoft Office, I may or may not have another reply on this forum in a timely fashion. Especially given that I’ll be gone almost all of next week with only limited access to a computer: well…  (Still at peace, but getting tired of cleaning up after malicious electronic pests.)
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Alpine Artist
Sergeant First Class
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Location: Registered: May 2007 Status: Offline Posts: 86 |
Posted Sunday, July 1, 2007 @ 04:28 AM
Thanks for the affirmations, Eric. And yes, we’re praying for you, for this renewal of your mind (and all of our minds unto this awesome rest & peace), for God’s perfect will in your life here on earth as in heaven in whatever of life’s challenges you now face, and of course, that your tools of communication also be renewed to better than ever and the fulfillment of that will. Again, it can be the little things. Nothing can steal our peace like dealing with this stuff! A passage from Hebrews runs thru my mind constantly these days. Somehow, it seems fit for this space: Quote: 4:11Let us therefore be zealous and exert ourselves and strive diligently to enter that rest [of God, to know and experience it for ourselves], that no one may fall or perish by the same kind of unbelief and disobedience [into which those in the wilderness fell]. 12For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power [making it active, operative, energizing, and effective]; it is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the dividing line of the [g]breath of life (soul) and [the immortal] spirit, and of joints and marrow [of the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and sifting and analyzing and judging the very thoughts and purposes of the heart. What you said about coupling logos (the scriptures) with rhema (that “knowing"  to have discernment in our lives is an absolute confirmation in a conversation that my son and I am now having on a similar forum, one that we together developed for our family (truth be known, mom’s main intent was just to keep up with enjoying him as he now lives life outside of our home!) http://st.cyan-studios.net/forums/index.php?topic=33.msg165#msg165 (This is a somewhat secure site, but hope the link works. btw, anyone is invited to join by simply signing up) May I quote you to him: Quote: [Jesus] was obviously most distressed by the misuse of the Torah, perhaps the most common reason why believers today are inclined to distance themselves from believing scripture unreservedly. For myself, I am not a biblical inerrantist and probably never will be (I’ve a bit too much education for that, whether that ultimately makes me right or wrong), but I have as of late developed a more healthy respect for the bible than what I had for a while and it correlates with the place I’m at in my spiritual journey: it has to do with what I take to be personal revelation, the only kind of revelation in the end that I believe has any true meaning. (Even if we say that one receives the scriptures as daily bread, that daily bread still has to be leavened with the spirit of God.) Ryan has been so hungry for logos, but the right word, in the right way. He’s an amazing man. (His son Uriah, whom Ryan has dreamt of and spoken of since he was nine, is due to be birthed in less than 6 weeks, and as his mother prepares the nursery, his father prepares his heart for imparting God’s ways to this tiny young mind.) I’ve mentioned this forum to him a few times, and it would be helpful to use your quote, if you’d allow. MUCH grace & peace to all this beautiful Sunday morning! |
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Alpine Artist
Sergeant First Class
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Location: Registered: May 2007 Status: Offline Posts: 86 |
Posted Sunday, July 1, 2007 @ 11:12 AM
I hope that another testimony will encourage (I seem to be full of them lately) -again, regarding our practicing peace. But hey, we overcome the liar by the blood of the Lamb and the word of the testimony, right? Point of discussion to follow: Hard times and challenges are not random in scope or timing. And contrary to what many of us hear others say, nor are they from the devil. When a particular discipline captures our attention, we accept and pledge to adopt it. Then, when we receive opportunity to put it to work, we sometimes mistake it for some attack from hell. This piece takes you to my discovery of the meaning of these things, as I see them. It’s from my blog on our family website, regarding a nephew who’d recently been released from prison and had been staying in a Christian “halfway house.”Quote: At 11:30 last night the phone rang. Bad news. Details are still fleshing out, so I’ll be general, but we all need to pray for Bobby. As many of you may know (and I haven’t had a chance to enter yet) Bobby has left Khouse. He couldn’t abide the rules any more. He’s been staying with friends and sometimes at his dad’s. We’ve invited him to church and have tried to keep in touch-he’s been working in the plumbing division at Vision and until now (even through his mom’s death) has been showing up and working hard. The old life is tugging hard on Bobby. He’s lost weight, been seeing the wrong friends, and missed work a couple of days last week. Other troubling things are happening, and just 4 short months out of Sterling in March. Ron & I got up to talk, and watch a little tv to settle down. Then, when we went back to bed, we saw some things as we prayed. A vivid picture came of Jesus in the hull of a boat, asleep while a storm raged around Him. God was steering His ship, and whatever happened was all right with Him. Ye of little faith were all up on deck losing their minds with fear. Who was steering theirs? In this blog, we’ve talked before about an intense quest for that peace and rest promised by our Sabbath, the Messiah. In brief moments, we’ve touched on it, and in so doing, we’ve enjoyed respites from physical pain, wasted time and unnecessary aging. We’d just returned from one of the most restful, recharging times we’ve spent in a long time, and in a former life we might’ve said of all this bad news, “Isn’t that the way it goes-get things moving in the right direction and along comes bad news to ruin it.” We might’ve blamed the liar, and said that it was just like him to send such worry our way at such a time. But, #1, the liar only has so much power. And #2, when we ask God to teach us something, and the curriculum calls for challenges like this, should we call them evil, or roll with them as part of the lesson, determined to pass the challenge, lest we revisit it over & over until we do? We prayed that we meet the challenge without fear. We began to enlarge our God, and minimize our problem. We reminded ourselves of just how small and helpless we are, and became comfortable with that. We encouraged ourselves by remembering God’s amazing miracles in our family (see article titled “Look what the Lord Has Done" and filled our hearts with His awe once again. Then we simply gave Bobby and his family into the HUGE hands of an able God, and turned over and went to sleep. Our dreams were positive, and our sleep refreshing. Of course, we took up the fight again this morning, but we know that each day it will get easier. There’s a tremendous prize ahead. Peace.“My peace I leave with you, My own peace I bequeath to you.” “Be anxious for nothing, but with prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God, and let the peace that passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” “Be ye not conformed to this world (read: smoking, drunkenness, worry, anger, dispair) but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” “Taking every thought captive which would exalt itself above the truth.” Ron has pain in his wrists that flares up when he’s stressed. A few things make him stressed, including getting older, and grief over his broken nuclear family. But, he’s been working out again (and looking good, by the way!) The increased power is showing. And even better, he’s been able to give these concerns to the Lord more and more, and he’s daily gaining strength and reward in the renewing of his mind that no bodily strength can ever give him. Now that’s real power - power that we may well need every ounce of in the uncertain days to come. “In this world, you’ll have trouble. But cheer up. I’ve overcome the world.” And for that, we’re more than conquerors! Please pray for Bobby, and for our family. God will help us. It ain’t over till it’s over, and it ain’t over yet. Without doubt, victory is on its way! |
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SMiller
Private First Class
Gender: Female
Location: Registered: Jun 2007 Status: Offline Posts: 15 |
Posted Sunday, July 1, 2007 @ 11:55 AM
That’s an awesome testimony. My family is going through the same thing (how very strange). My brother just got out of jail in may and has been doing good, but he’s starting to hang out with his old friends… and my parents have only been fighting because of their fear. And they lack peace. I’ll pray for Bobby. Maybe someone out there will pray for Adrian too. |
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Admin
General
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Location: USA Registered: Jan 2006 Status: Offline Posts: 810 |
Posted Sunday, July 1, 2007 @ 12:10 PM
Afterward note: Sorry: I saw neither your latest post, Alpine, nor Susan’s latest. I will read them now. Thank you on all accounts and most especially for any and all prayer. And of course you can excerpt anything you find helpful: you don’t have to ask. Everything I write “officially” has an open copyright and doubly so for my candid sharing here. So your son has dreamt of his own son since he was nine? That’s pretty amazing and unusual. Thanks for the link to his forum: I read over the thread you linked to and what I hope to post today on Buber passing along a Jewish heritage ties in well with your link on the gospel according to Anna. I also read over some of the other posts: in general, I tend to be a little less interested in the bible and the church per se, though I can clearly see that what you share there is fruitful and productive and I commend you for it. I suppose my biggest complaint with both the bible and the church is that in altogether too many instances they stand in the way of the ever-present reality of God that in greater or lesser degree is known and proclaimed by all nations; I am admittedly very jaded and somewhat cynical about anything that resembles institutional Christianity (at least in its protestant, and especially American protestant, forms), though I’ve a soft spot for the Orthodox and Anglo-Catholic understandings of the faith that, for the most part, form the palm tree whose strength I so greatly admire with deep roots and flexible branches making it at once both able to withstand what the rigidity of fundamentalism cannot and yet supply what the relative lack of rootedness of other systems cannot. Though I shall in truth always be throughly protestant—having been raised this way, whether I like it or not, I am too much a maverick at heart to be otherwise even as I desire and admire much of the ancient wisdom—I see a great deal of ugliness that has come from that unfortunate split and in my personal experience, many of the most quote-unquote “bible-believing churches” are among the absolute worst even though in many cases their piety is genuine and heartfelt, rising to the stars. Truly, though I do not wish to squelch the smoldering wick and stand in the way of anyone’s faith, a great deal of bible-this, bible-that talk just makes me sick to my stomach: that’s my visceral reaction. As I said: I am deeply jaded and even cynical and that affects my ability to see beauty even where it exists. But bibles and churches aside, I do know God and my gratitude to him is great. To the degree that communion with him is the aim and goal of bibles and churches, my heart deeply responds and I share in fellowship. One last comment before I depart: I have alluded to the fact that throughout my life, I tend to battle depression. I have noticed that depression is as illogical as it is all-consuming. A person who is depressed may, depending on the depth of the depression, know on an intellectual level that the depression will not last forever. But emotionally and practically speaking, he or she cannot imagine what life might be like without the opaque overlay, for the depression is totally overwhelming, taking root in every facet of one’s psyche. Being the sort of person who struggles with depression quite often, I have noticed that sometimes when depression departs, it truly is like a very dark cloud has been lifted revealing the sun above and I have often experienced a sense of wondering how I possibly could have been under its influence. In the light of that now highly visible sunlight, my vision is restored and I see the depression for the spineless creature that it is: it looks powerless and I cannot fathom how it held the power over me that it did. With my head freshly cleared, everything looks different: my equilibrium is restored and what just moments ago seemed impossible I now do with ease and greet difficult decisions with a confidence and wisdom I simply did not possess before. While I have felt a little glum and at times even a little despondent lately, I have not felt depressed and have enjoyed an overall sense of peace. Nevertheless, these last three nights in particular I have been experiencing the sense of an ongoing fog being lifted from me, a low-level fog that has affected me for untold months now. These last three nights, I have slept and I have slept soundly, and I have, for the moment at least, a much greater sense of reality and nearness of God. Most of all, it seems my clarity of vision has increased and the wind and sea of my emotions have finally been calmed. These experiences are not new ones in my world, but having been under any kind of cloud (not unlike your Israelites) makes one so much more grateful for the light of day. What makes such things enigmatic is that they do not always have any logical explanation: no evident presence of sin or wrongdoing and no obvious biological basis either. It seems sometimes that the best explanation is spiritual oppression, though I am not one who readily plays that card for I have seen that hand abused far too many times. So then, I said my gratitude to God was great and through the liturgy I have gained an increasing appreciation of the Psalms, which before I’d always seen as being either bland or vindictive or both: vindictively bland perhaps. The Psalm for services today was Psalm 16, and in particular, verse 7 exemplifies how God speaks to me: my heart does give me counsel in the night and prayer is to me what scripture is to others. So then, the Psalmist proclaims in 16:7–11:Quote: I will bless the Lord who gives me counsel; my heart teaches me, night after night. I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand I shall not fall. My heart, therefore, is glad, and my spirit rejoices; my body also shall rest in hope. For you will not abandon me to the grave, nor let your holy one see the Pit. You will show me the path of life; in your presence their is fullness of joy, and in your right hand are pleasures forevermore. The reason, then, I am falling in love with the Psalmist is because he was one of the original mystics: not the high-flown kind that make God inaccessible to the “little people,” but the kind who understand that communion with God, in whatever form, is the heart and soul of faith. When the text is read in the light of such communion, it becomes sweet to me. When the text appears in any other setting, it simply makes me nauseous. The reason is simple: I care only about the text insofar as it helps me understand my beloved better. I care nothing for the text itself for itself, aside from an occasional bit of earthy poetry and some pretty strange stories: it is a rather unique piece of literature. Still, I always did prefer the magic of fairy tales even to those tales told by that strange and often naive nomadic people: Persian tales brought to mind visions of Taj Mahals even before I knew what the Taj Mahal was, Greek legends had their valor and their tragically sophisticated heroes, Arthurian legends were something else entire with their Medieval and to large degree French chivalry: by comparisons, bible stories were just weird and rough-hewn: quite simplistic by comparison. I liked Esther a lot (then again, we’re in Persia again) and the story of Ruth was also compelling to me. Some of the apocryphal stories were pretty interesting and the frequent occultism and leanings into sorcery from Balaam of Beor, to the wisdom of Solomon, to the dark sayings of Daniel and the ties to the Kaballah and gematria (“let those with wisdom calculate…" tantalized my adolescent mind.The New Testament simply didn’t do it for me: some of the Gospel stories were interesting, but lots and lots of dry prose that grown-ups—pardon my French—went apeshit over in the most ugly fundamentalist ways: indeed, what it meant “to follow Jesus” was too much tainted by fundamentalism and that should rightfully turn anyone away. I did believe in Jesus as a child; even as a teen I did for a while until I began to encounter the other religions of the world. I even communed with Jesus at the age of seven and beyond, though he never seemed to bring me many friends and speaking of him as I had been taught brought only ridicule, and that perhaps deserved. Now don’t get me wrong: I knew my bible very, very well. I could give you all the correct theological answers and consistently outperformed peers three times my age with my theological prowess and knowledge of the verses. But truth be told, I still don’t like a lot of the associations that exist in my mind when I encounter passages from the New Testament: if I can shut that out and hear with fresh ears what is really being said, I’m usually fine, but even then I sometimes can’t hear with fresh ears and I start feeling a bit ill. At that point, it is time to shut the book and turn to God, which is in the end the whole point of the book anyway. No, it’s not a bad book, really, and in truth, I give it far too little credit, as I obviously not only know it well, but it has shaped and molded me to large degree. Like being thoroughly protestant whether I like it or not, I am also thoroughly steeped in its pages. The main thing, I think, is just that I don’t feel very comfortable around people who worship it. |
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sara
Major
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Location: Registered: Feb 2006 Status: Offline Posts: 1253 |
Posted Sunday, July 1, 2007 @ 02:21 PM
Susan & Alpine Artist, It is awfully difficult to watch a loved one go down the wrong path. Sometimes we can intervene in a constructive way, but it is often useless. The only advice I have to offer is to pray, of course, but also to try not to judge the situation. In my own experience and from observing others go through trying circumstances, I have learned that the “worst things” often turn out to be the “best things”. Also, keep in mind that Jesus hung out with the misfits of society, not the comfortable and well-off. There must be a reason for that. Eric, I’m grateful for moods. I think it widens our perspective. We see things when we are depressed that we’d miss when we are cheerful, and vice versa. Frankly, I’m much kinder and compassionate when I’m a little bit miserable. You’re right, though. Moods are weird. Sometimes I wake up and find myself married to a hopeless imbecile. Others mornings, he is precious and wonderful. And it has nothing to do with him! He’s just sitting there drinking coffee! As for seeing things with new eyes….. Oh my, how I understand your plight! A friend of mine was absolutely appalled when he learned I had never read Hamlet. He sent me the play, as well as book on Shakespeare, by Harold Bloom. I read both, but it was impossible for me to read the play with fresh eyes because I was already so familiar with the plot, characters and quotations. If only I had been able to read “To be or not to be” before I had heard it hundreds of times! I hope you fixed your computer problems, you poor soul. Nothing more aggravating than that, is there? |
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Admin
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Location: USA Registered: Jan 2006 Status: Offline Posts: 810 |
Posted Sunday, July 1, 2007 @ 03:40 PM
I think my computer issues are resolved: for now at least. Still more programs to reinstall, but I think the virus is gone and better protection is now in place. And hey, I finally got the promised post put together, which turned out to be so involved, I decided to start a new thread entitled The Re-Ordering of the Total Person. |
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SMiller
Private First Class
Gender: Female
Location: Registered: Jun 2007 Status: Offline Posts: 15 |
Posted Sunday, July 1, 2007 @ 03:51 PM
So very interesting, your take on the Bible, Eric. My experience has been somewhat similar only with the opposite effect on me concerning the scriptures. Because my parents were raised as strict catholics, even though I was raise in a Christian home, the strict, legalistic Catholic ways shaped my world. Not to say all Catholicism is legalistic and strict (nowadays I meet Catholics who are extremely traditional, and others who are extremely liberal… perhaps this doesn’t apply in general, but it seems to be a trend to me). But I was raised with the mindset of earning my salvation through works. If you do one wrong thing, the guilt never goes away. And the Old testament had a very disgusting ring to it in my ears because all I had learned from it was judgement and damnation. Obviously I did not understand it, nor did I really study it. I had a very legalistic view of God; he was some distant creature, disapproving and disappointed, but he let me live anyway. And the New Testament was beautiful to me, as straightforward as it was, because of Jesus’ love and his grace (though not until recently was any of it real to me). It wasn’t until I took it upon myself to start following the stories of the Old testament that I found trends of God’s grace. After reading about how the Isrealites continuously deserted God and went to their own idols, as though he had never done anything for them, I wanted the scriptures to tell me of how he crushed them entirely… and often he had to bring judgement. But any time he brought judgement, immediately following he brought grace and love and provision. And it was a testimony to me of His character. Psalm 139 was a life-changing experience for me. Lately I have noticed that no matter what I read in the Bible, whenever I pick it up, the passage that I read is relevant to my very situation. Right now I’m in the new testament and I read it passage by passage, sometimes more than one passage a day. The timing in which I read the scriptures is always significant. It’s as though God is speaking directly to me. And often, he’ll repeat what I read in a sermon I hear, or someone will mention it in passing, or I will see a picture that depicts what I have just read that morning. Or the passage will address very specifically a circumstance I am in. The Word is living and active in my life. God is living and active in my life! Though he always has been, he’s just revealing it to me now, and teaching me very many things in a short amount of time. I realize he’s preparing me for what’s to come, something exciting, something that I know is going to be tough. I’m not even talking about the whole marriage thing. That’s a side-note; a “hunch” of mine. Anyway, I understand now why you often find many sources to explain the character of God; because you are not “as interested in the Bible per se” . It never occurred to me before (for some reason that word doesn’t look right to me..occurred… is that right spelling?). I always enjoy your thoughts whenever you share them. You are a person of great depth and intelligence, which is why I read your newsletters. Your statements are always thought-provoking. I am just very passionate about what I believe and sometimes I can find myself in debates that are not really productive and merely serve to puff up my pride. oh the irony. Anyway, I think I will say thank you to everyone in this discussion board. I am able to articulate what I believe and gain wisdom from every post. |
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Admin
General
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Location: USA Registered: Jan 2006 Status: Offline Posts: 810 |
Posted Sunday, July 1, 2007 @ 04:33 PM
There’s actually quite a bit of similarity between the Catholic legalism you speak of, both doctrinally and actually (if the picture I have in my mind is any way accurate), to my own experiences. My reading, in this instance, is the Catholic legalists and evangelical protestants who together comprise the religious right. Of course, our exposure and perspective of the bible was different growing up though. And while it often does seem that the scripture read during the liturgy is relevant to my life, it is really quite a rare experience in my world to actually find that reading the bible on my own seems very relevant. There have been times, but they have been a long time ago, and I think things always sound different when interpreted corporately rather than individually. Anymore, bible verses only tend to come alive for me well after the fact when I am thinking about anything but and they suddenly flash into my mind. Rare is the day when reading the bible is anything more to me than a rote exercise: it so often feels very “been there, done that” to me. My prayer life, on the other hand, is often dynamic and indeed forms my very lifeline to God. You’re right, though. I am not as interested in the bible per se and still have enough negative reflections concerning it that I rarely cite it directly, instead choosing to cull literary allusions that are familiar to those who know—my writing is actually saturated with biblical allusions—and simply seem poetic (if a little antiquated) to those who don’t. In general, my world has many facets and each semester I get the privilege of teaching classrooms full of college students, some coming from strong religious backgrounds of all types (though predominantly Christian, as Missouri, like your native Oklahoma, is still very much in the bible belt) and others coming from a-religious or purely “secular” homes, still others from homes halfway around the world where almost everything we do here is strange (and deservedly so, in many cases). A great many of those raised in religious homes have either rejected the faith on intellectual grounds (or some other equally honest reason) or believe but are in rebellion against it. Neither of these groups respond well to bible verses as typically presented nor does such benefit those who are not religious at all. However, speaking in an intelligent, everyday language that is fully engaged in modern culture and lives in the real world is capable of working miracles. There are actually quite a few things I’ve stopped doing, some of them large, some of them small, because of the impression that it often communicates. To cite one small example, once upon a day, I would always capitalize the personal pronouns for God: He, His, Him, etc. I believed it honored God, but later it seemed to me that in the world in which I lived, it was often perceived as an action self-righteous persons adopted in a sort of “I’m holier-than-thou” stance. I stopped capping the words not because I no longer wished to bring glory to God, but rather for that very reason: I felt a subtler statement spoke louder because it seemed more credible and was better received. That does not mean that if you or others cap such words you should stop; it does not mean you’ll be perceived as self-righteous if you do. It merely means that in my world, I felt that was how I was coming across and thus I stopped doing that. But really, those are the supporting reasons I offer, but in the end, my world just does not have that much in common with evangelical Christianity anymore. I write as I write and speak as I speak because I detest anything that seems glib or arrogant, and too much of the Christian world is perceived in that fashion. Much of the evangelical world is just too small for my tastes, with a God whose creativity is limited to static interpretations of time-worn passages. That God may have created the entire world and everyone in it, but he seems to have forgotten his children in India, Peru, China, and Japan, to name but four places: forgotten them, at least, unless they shape up their act and become thoroughly Westernized in all ways theological. For that matter, that God seems to care mainly about Western Christians and is quite oblivious to other world perspectives and religions in general. And unfortunately, that God is not really big enough for life at the university to say nothing of being big enough for the world in general. So I suppose that’s a lot of what explains me: I like big things, I like exotic things: my world is big and (as much as is possible) so are my intellectual horizons. I don’t like boxed-in ideas and I do not believe God comes prepackaged and boxed in either. I believe in the realm of possibility and see potentiality in all things: in my world, God often speaks more powerfully to me through a blade of grass or a bird’s song than 2 Corinthians 2:19 (look that one up some time—smile). You know, I really should shut up while I am ahead. I am strangely unguarded today and I am letting my opinions fly right and left without thought or discretion. Honestly, while there is truth in what I write, some of it is also caricaturing as well. The fact is, the world is not and never will be a one-size fits all and one person can never really speak for the experiences of another. God speaks to all of us differently in different ways and we all have different ideas about all kinds of things. In fact, he sometimes even speaks to heretics like me. Joking aside, I really should get out and do something away from the computer. I need to clear my head and regain my focus. |
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Alpine Artist
Sergeant First Class
Gender: Unspecified
Location: Registered: May 2007 Status: Offline Posts: 86 |
Posted Sunday, July 1, 2007 @ 07:57 PM
Eric, I’m hoping that you’re being more open today because that’s what we do when we sense that we’re among friends, who have earned a bit more of us. That’d be really nice. Kay ps Lord, Adrian is in Your hands, not ours, not his parents’. Please show them rest, so that they can step aside to let You do Your will in his life as only You can…amen. |
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sara
Major
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Location: Registered: Feb 2006 Status: Offline Posts: 1253 |
Posted Monday, July 2, 2007 @ 07:25 AM
Your comment about liking “big things” made me smile, Eric, because after watching a Sunday full of depressing news on TV, I decided to try to transcend my own nationalism and cease to be an American in terms of my perception of events. Please…everyone…don’t get hysterical and start reporting me to the CIA…..I love America and am grateful to be here, etc. but I’m convinced that, in order to save the planet, we have to get beyond tribalism and the divisions between us. Something else contributed to this decision. I was chatting with my mailman a few days ago who is from Pakistan. He is very upset because he perceives that a violent minority of extremists are misinterpreting the Koran and distorting the truth of Islam. He was explaining to me why the Koran is the purest form of Scripture and superior to all others religious writing. It is the actual words of Allah….how could an illiterate man like Mohammad create something of such astonishing beauty….it has withstood the test of time, etc. If I closed my eyes and erased his accent, I could have almost convinced myself that I was talking to a Fundamentalist Christian. Don’t misconstrue what I’m saying. My mailman is a good guy. Very devout and honorable and compassionate. I’m happy that he’s happy he’s a Muslim. But….PLEASE…..we all have to STOP this childish insistence that “My God is better than your God”. It is stupid and ignorant. I’ve become a great fan of Krishnamurti who I first encountered in my youth and then again a few weeks ago. In an interview, he described what a definition of Religion could be and I agree with him, although not completely. Incredible as it may seem, I’m much more tolerant of organized religion than he is. I think, if we long for union with God and seek Love & Wisdom from Him, He will communicate to us through our belief system, whatever it may be. However, K makes many good points, even though he sounds a bit arrogant and cranky. I think he was pretty old when he gave this interview and tired of saying the same things over and over again. Krishnamurti: Yes, sir. You know, a word like ‘religion’, ‘love’, or ‘god’, has almost lost all its meaning. They have abused these words so enormously, and religion has become a vast superstition, a great propaganda, incredible beliefs and superstitions, worship of images made by the hand or by the mind. So when we talk about religion I would like, if I may, to be quite clear that we are both of us using the word ‘religion’ in the real sense of that word, not either in the Christian, or the Hindu, or the Muslim, or the Buddhist, or all the stupid things that are going on in this country in the name of religion. I think the word ‘religion’ means gathering together all energy, at all levels, physical, moral, spiritual, at all levels, gathering all this energy which will bring about a great attention. And in that attention there is no frontier, and then from there move. To me that is the meaning of that word: the gathering of total energy to understand what thought cannot possibly capture. Thought is never new, never free, and therefore it is always conditioned and fragmentary, and so on, which we discussed. So religion is not a thing put together by thought, or by fear, or by the pursuit of satisfaction and pleasure, but something totally beyond all this, which isn’t romanticism, speculative belief, or sentimentality. And I think if we could keep to that, to the meaning of that word, putting aside all the superstitious nonsense that is going on in the world in the name of religion, which has become really quite a circus, however beautiful it is. Then I think we could from there start, if you will. If you agree to the meaning of that word. A: Yes. I have been thinking as you have been speaking that in the biblical tradition there are actual statements from the prophets which seem to point to what you are saying. Such things come to mind as Isaiah’s, taking the part of the divine, when he says, ‘My thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways are not your ways, as high as the heavens are above the earth so are my thoughts and your thoughts, so stop thinking about me in that sense.’ K: Yes, quite. A: And don’t try to find a means to me that you have contrived since my ways are higher than your ways. And then I was thinking while you were speaking concerning this act of attention, this gathering together of all energies of the whole man; the very simple, ‘Be still and know that I am God’. Be still. It’s amazing when one thinks of the history of religion, how little attention has been paid to that as compared with ritual. K: But I think when we lost touch with nature, with the universe, with the clouds, lakes, birds, when we lost touch with all that, then the priests came in. Then all the superstition, fears, exploitation, all that began. The priest became the mediator between the human and the so-called divine. And I believe, if you have read the Rig Veda – I was told about it because I don’t read all this – that there, in the first Veda there is no mention of God at all. There is only this worship of something immense, expressed in nature, in the earth, in the clouds, in the trees, in the beauty of vision. But that being, very, very simple, the priests said, that is too simple. A: (laughs) Let’s mix it up. K: Let’s mix it up, let’s confuse it a little bit. And then it began. I believe this is traceable from the ancient Vedas to the present time, where the priest became the interpreter, the mediator, the explainer, the exploiter; the man who said, this is right, this is wrong, you must believe this or you will go to perdition, and so on and so on and so on. He generated fear, not the adoration of beauty, not the adoration of life lived totally wholly without conflict, but something placed outside there, beyond and above what he considered to be God and made propaganda for that. So I feel if we could from the beginning use the word ‘religion’ in the simplest way. That is, the gathering of all energy so that there is total attention, and in that quality of attention the immeasurable comes into being. Because as we said the other day, the measurable is the mechanical. Which the west has cultivated, made marvellous, technologically, physically – medicine, science, biology and so on and so on, which has made the world so superficial, mechanical, worldly, materialistic. And that is spreading all over the world. And in reaction to that – this materialistic attitude – there are all these superstitious, nonsensical, unreasoned religions that are going on. I don’t know if you saw the other day the absurdity of these gurus coming from India and teaching the west how to meditate, how to hold breath, they say, ‘I am god, worship me’ and falling at their feet, you know – it has become so absurd, and childish, so utterly immature. All that indicates the degradation of the word ‘religion’, and the human mind that can accept this kind of circus and idiocy. Ironically, perhaps, I have become more and more intrigued by Jesus lately. In one sense, we all obviously create an image of Jesus to fit our needs, and I am no different than anyone else. However, when I decided to bracket the debatable issues…the “Only Son of God” and Resurrection stuff, and focus on Him as a man (there is no question he was that), my fascination increased. Obviously, He was a mystic, but what was he trying to get us to SEE? That’s why I like the parables so much. BTW, even before you mentioned it, I noticed that you stopped using capitals when you refer to the Bible and the personal pronouns of God, Eric. I do it to be respectful, but, the “He” and “Him” business (in regard to God, not Jesus) has always annoyed me. I wish there was another pronoun…besides “It’….which is not gender oriented, don’t you? Hey, Alpine Artist! I found your website! Both you and your artwork are beautiful! You are not AT ALL how I pictured you. I thought you were chubby with a bun. I don’t know why I thought this, but I did. Maybe it’s because you seem so warm and homey…like freshly baked bread. If you want to see what I look like, go to one2onetoot.com The picture’s a little old and I’m more frayed around the edges, but I look basically the same. You’ll see that I never finished my website. Maybe someday…… |
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Alpine Artist
Sergeant First Class
Gender: Unspecified
Location: Registered: May 2007 Status: Offline Posts: 86 |
Posted Monday, July 2, 2007 @ 11:38 AM
Thanks for the lift, Sara-some of my friends & I like to say we’re uprooting the granny paradigm. -And you’re a cutie yourself! Your work must be extremely rewarding for you. How do you do it, though? (Eric, too?) Teaching must take enormous patience. My daughter Arianne taught before her children were born (even tutored as work study in college) and the stories she tells give me great admiration for her work. Even now, she teaches couples the Bradley Natural Childbirth Method, and loves it, but I think I’ll just stick to my little paints. (Actually, I do like taking classes to kids in the local schools & churches, but it’s usually just for a day to a week.) The talent of taking a young piece of gray matter day in and day out and making out of it an educated mind is one I’ll leave to you artisans, and thank you greatly for. |
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Location: USA Registered: Jan 2006 Status: Offline Posts: 810 |
Posted Monday, July 2, 2007 @ 03:55 PM
Let me first say that I feel I have truly been benefiting from this forum and taking the time to go back and re-read some of the entries that escaped my full attention as I’ve been installing and reinstalling and in general gearing up for a week away from the computer has been very encouraging. I would like you both to know, Susan and Kay, that I have prayed for both of your loved ones and will continue to do so as they cross my mind. And in particular, Kay, I feel that your testimony has benefited me, as has your presence on this forum in general. Specifically, when you are describing the course of action that you and Ron took, I find that this experience has replicated itself in my life as of late as well: Quote: We prayed that we meet the challenge without fear. We began to enlarge our God, and minimize our problem. We reminded ourselves of just how small and helpless we are, and became comfortable with that. We encouraged ourselves by remembering God’s amazing miracles in our family … and filled our hearts with His awe once again. Then we simply gave Bobby and his family into the HUGE hands of an able God, and turned over and went to sleep. Our dreams were positive, and our sleep refreshing. Of course, we took up the fight again this morning, but we know that each day it will get easier. There’s a tremendous prize ahead. Peace. You have well captured the experience right down to the “of course, we took up the fight again this morning.” I will also say, in response to your saying that you hoped my lack of inhibition was that I knew I was in the company of friends, first of all, thanks. Second, I would say that I believe what I was apologizing for upon further reflection was my use of labels which invariably focus on lesser matters and often serve to polarize. The labels I mean are such terms as “religious right,” “evangelical,” “legalists,” and other such terms. Labels almost invariably label the labeler and suggest that, at that moment at least, he or she is not focused on matters of most importance. There is nothing wrong with labels per se, particularly if they are used as impersonal descriptions or as positive references. If I say that “25% of evangelicals believe x, y, and z” and that figure is accurate, there is nothing disparaging in my reference. Finding something positive and bringing the matter to the attention of another is invariably positive and really needs no elaboration. But disparaging labels, on the other hand, far too often breed negativity and polarization and accomplish little. I had though to say a great deal more than what I’ve said, but I will add the last thing I did think to say: there is much truth to Jesus’ admonition that we should let our yes be yes, our no be no, and that anything else comes from the evil one. In any case, there is much to be said for simplicity of speech. Now then, one thing in what you posted today really stood out to me, Sara. It has to do with what Krishnamurti says when he writes “I think the word ‘religion’ means gathering together all energy, at all levels, physical, moral, spiritual, at all levels, gathering all this energy which will bring about a great attention.” What it reminds me of was one of the darker sayings in Buber’s I and Thou which I would like to share here, as I believe it derives from Kierkegaard and is (in my estimation at least) a rather compelling thought. Buber writes: Quote: The fiery matter of all my capacity to will surging intractably, everything possible for me revolving primevally, intertwined and seemingly inseparable, the alluring glances of potentialities flaring up from every corner, the universe as a temptation, and I, born in an instant, both hands into the fire, deep into it, where the one that intends me is hidden, my deed, seized: now! And immediately the menace of the abyss is subdued; no longer a coreless multiplicity at play in the iridescent equality of its claims; but only two are left alongside each other, the other and the one, delusion and task. But now the actualization commences within me. Having decided cannot mean that the one is done while the other remains lying there, an extinguished mass, filling my soul, layer upon layer, with its dross. Only he that funnels all the force of the other into the doing of the one, absorbing into the actualization of what was chosen the undiminished passion of what was not chosen, only he that “serves God with the evil impulse,” decides—and decides what happens. Once one has understood this, one also knows that precisely this deserves to be called righteous: that which is set right, toward which a man directs himself and for which he decides; and if there were a devil he would not be the one who decided against God but he that in all eternity did not decide. One must admit that this passage is rather nebulous at first glance. I believe he is referring to the existential angst of the Nietzschian Übermensch, or superman that exists “beyond good and evil.” In such a world, as Sartre would later suggest, we are “condemned to freedom” and refusing to make a choice is itself a choice. If we make the world, as Nietzsche and the materialists claim, then my “will to power” or my “will to will” (again, Nietzsche) is all that exists and I am responsible for all my actions, a responsiblity that is itself absurd and without meaning, for I am held responsible for what is essentially meaningless. Put in plainer English: I must choose. Such a choice is frightening. Nevertheless, I plunge both hands into the fire—deep into the fire—and suddenly in an instant all is calm. All is calm for me, unlike for the materialist, because “delusion” (the ultimate meaninglessness of all things to which I try to assign my self-made contingent meanings) “and task” (the inevitable necessity of choosing and of acting) are subsumed under something greater. Buber is making me go hundreds of miles out of my way to communicate the one simple idea I want to communicate, but bear with me. There are, roughly, two types of people in the world: the materialist and the believer. The materialist lives in a bounded world and finds no meaning for existence outside this boundedness. The believer, however, encounters eternity in the embrace of God. To the materialist, fate is fearsome and spells his doom. He has little control over the course of events and they are not decided by anything other than caprice and chance. Thus to him fate mocks him. To the believer, he too has little control over the course of events but these are decided by the supreme benevolence. The inevitability of his life becomes to him destiny and in his freedom to embrace his destiny, he finds meaning and purpose. We did not quote the surrounding text, but that is context in which this passage appears. To the believer, all things take on renewed meaning. His encounter with God, to the degree that it is true encounter, is so complete that even his evil impulses are saddled and yoked and made to pull against their native will into the single direction of God. Thus, even the evil impulses are brought “into subjugation to God” and only this man who “serves God with [even] the evil impulse” truly decides what happens because he alone, like the Kierkegaardian “single one” is serving God with his entire being. He truly decides what happens because he is working in complete and total concert with the architect of the universe: because in his freedom he has chosen to embrace his fate totally and in this he has thus found his true destiny and liberation. Buber was obviously seeking to communicate to an existential audience: his writings, at least this part of them, would make little sense outside that historic context. Philosophers! Especially religious philosophers! We should just line them all up and shoot them so that they’ll leave off with their impossibly dark sayings. Still, if we compare “I think the word ‘religion’ means gathering together all energy, at all levels, physical, moral, spiritual, at all levels, gathering all this energy which will bring about a great attention,” to this idea of “serving God [even] with the evil impulse,” we have said a very similar thing. Both would imply giving oneself heart and soul, without reservation, to the active service of God and once turning their hand to this plow, not turning back again but instead being contented to “let the dead bury the dead.” (Such a person is fully alive: what use do they have of the old, dead ways even if friends and family still cling to such things?) |
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Posted Monday, July 2, 2007 @ 04:26 PM
One more question, Kay: how is it that “Alpine Artist” is the newest member of this board, is only at the rank of private, and has only made 7 posts? Did you delete and then recreate your account? And a question for everyone: even though I’ve hacked it some, the interface on this forum is still pretty primitive: very “Web 1.0.” There are several rich-text editors I’ve considered installing, but most of them offer so many features as to drive a person to the point of distraction. I recently encountered another interface, however, that looks just about right. Take a peek at this demo page and let me know what you think. The advantage is that “what you see is what you get” (wysiwyg) unlike here where you have to wait to see what you’ll get unless you do a preview. The only immediate downside that I could foresee is the emoticons. I am proficient in JavaScript, so I would imagine I can hack the code so that they too could be included as wysiwyg, but after I get back from this week’s vacation, I’ve also got some Web work to do for the college and two other client sites to finish, so I don’t know how soon I could hack this thing. As is, I could install in less than ten minutes, but hacking it could take me a lot more time, depending on how complex the source code. So what do you think? I kinda like the pretty colors of this antiquated interface, but it would be nice to offer real-time formatting, and that particular editor validates to XHTML Strict (which I swear by). Don’t worry about the time it will take me: all I want to know now is: “Would you like to have a more user-friendly interface, and in particular openWYSIWYG 1.01 beta—especially if I can bring back the smileys?” |
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sara
Major
Gender: Unspecified
Location: Registered: Feb 2006 Status: Offline Posts: 1253 |
Posted Monday, July 2, 2007 @ 05:10 PM
Eric, I don’t know if you ever heard of Roberto Assagioli, but he’s a psychologist who tried to incorporate spirituality into psychotherapy in a system he created called Psychosynthesis. He’s very big into encouraging people to develop the power of their Wills so that they can choose to act upon good rather than evil impulses. It’s more complicated than that, but basically he claims that we must recognize our lower impulses…not to destroy them because that is impossible…but to use their energy by aligning them with higher motives. He says we must learn to “Serve God with your bad impulses as well as your good impulses” and claims we can direct all our psychological energies…good & bad….toward achieving an ideal. I read this when I was fairly young and it saved me from anguishing over my demanding Ego, which always likes to show off at times. Ok…I show off…but not for ME…for God and to help others. It is especially useful when I teach or when I lead that group for people with emotional problems. My ego adds a little show-biz to my delivery because it wants recognition. It wants the kids…and group members to say…”Sara is just so astonishingly ASTUTE and INSIGHTFUL!!!” I see this in myself and it makes me laugh, but I also use it, I hope, to help people more effectively and create something good. I’m sure, Eric, there is part of you that, at certain times and circumstances, insists that you write the most impressive sentence possible so that you can dazzle people with your flair for language and superior intelligence. It probably makes you wince when you discern it in yourself. Well, don’t wince…just use that energy to enlighten people to the beauty of God as you know Him. Oops. him? I, too, have found the last few discussions quite valuable. Thank you, everyone. |
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sara
Major
Gender: Unspecified
Location: Registered: Feb 2006 Status: Offline Posts: 1253 |
Posted Monday, July 2, 2007 @ 05:17 PM
Our replies crossed in cyberspace. As for the interface, I don’t care one way or the other. Just don’t make it too complicated because I’m rather simple-minded when it comes to computers. Do whatever makes you happy. |
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Alpine Artist
Sergeant First Class
Gender: Unspecified
Location: Registered: May 2007 Status: Offline Posts: 86 |
Posted Monday, July 2, 2007 @ 05:26 PM
Thanks so much for the encouragement, Eric. I’m glad to say you’re glad I’m here, and hope you’ll still say that when you read the last post I put up on “Reordering….” And thank you so very much for praying for Bobby and our family. The thing about “taking up the fight every morning…” I know a little about depression, too. It’s been said that creative, sensitive people seem to suffer more than others. Maybe it’s because an active (in some cases over-active?) imagination can so much more vividly torment a soul. I’ve had a few recurrences, which, for me (I certainly can’t speak for anyone else) have always followed a particular occurrence: deep burnout. Whether physical (as when we completed the construction of the home in which I now sit,) or psychological (overbooking my schedule, combined with grief and other big life changes, etc.) Once recently, it had probably been three weeks since I had a day of rest and reflection. The body can rest in one or two nights’ rest from even the hardest work, but the mind needs a little “wastin’ time.” I remember my attitude that day: Negative. Generally, I kept saying, “Why is it so hard to have tranquility today?” What’s up? Then it hit me. Sunday I had promised myself I’d finally take a day to recharge. This was Wednesday, and my mind was now in mutiny. Right then and there, I put it all my work down. (Thankfully I work at home on my own schedule.) I made a warm drink and put on some music. Then I pulled up a chair at this computer and found Mr. Renaissance. Now, I know that depression is much more than fatigue. It has put me in the hospital before, and made me want to die. (But that’s yet another of my endless testimonies.) Its root or core may be an entirely different thing, much more profound than what we call “burnout.” But I think that it can really play a part insofar as the ongoing battle. Quote: What makes such things enigmatic is that they do not always have any logical explanation: no evident presence of sin or wrongdoing and no obvious biological basis either. It seems sometimes that the best explanation is spiritual oppression, though I am not one who readily plays that card for I have seen that hand abused far too many times. In your experience, Eric, would this theory be a fit? In any case, my prayer is that your upcoming getaway will be a healing one as the cloud continues to lift. K ps maybe I did re-register. I was told I did not have access, to please re-register or something. Maybe because I misspelled my password 3 different ways or something. No matter. Private, Corporal, it’s all good. Also, interface, formatting…I’d appreciate anything you put up, so long as we can all still get together. I’m getting a lot out of this too. |
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Admin
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Posted Monday, July 2, 2007 @ 08:29 PM
Certainly I fall into the trap of wishing to appear more astute and intelligent than I believe myself to be, but I (usually) recognize it for what it is: basic insecurity. And insecurity is of course a lack (or a perceived lack) of confidence and worth, in keeping with Weinandy’s observations. Pride itself has a strong basis in insecurity—we puff ourselves up precisely because we feel small—and pride is said to be (and very likely is) the root of all evil. I suspect that in such case, the insecurity we feel is the truth we prefer not to face, or at least the insecurity hints at the truth, even if it ultimately distorts it and makes us appear worse than we are. Preferring not to face the painful truth of our own inadequacies, we sometimes manifest a lie, hoping to convince ourselves of its verity as much as others. For myself, even more deeply, the thing I feel I so often lack is intimacy and I believe that contributes to my insecurity and my tendency to sublimate through other venues. Loneliness and lack of appreciated worth touches at the heart of all of us, for the one thing we fear more than anything else is to be left utterly alone (though this fear manifests in a variety of subtle ways that are not always so easily recognized and we might be inclined to deny this basic root until giving it further reflection and thought). The older I get, the less satisfying I find trying to appear astute and insightful in any sense that does not actually bring benefit to somebody else. I gain my deepest satisfaction from believing that I have made a valuable contribution to another: it is in spiritual service that I gain my greatest and most pure satisfaction. We really do gain our greatest joy and happiness when we’re selfless, but that can be difficult when we feel needy. I have said less than flattering things about the intellect, but my mind truly is a gift and I have also discovered that sometimes what I am tempted to abuse as a means of inflating my ego is also the very thing that is capable of drawing me up and out of myself and into the arms of God. The most pure forms of my intellectual gifts are the times in which I pursue the world with an unpretentious wonder, as a child does the wonder of a butterfly. I said that I often feel I lack intimacy: casting about for ideas for a possible newsletter recently when suffering from acute writer’s block, I looked over all the blog entries from my short stint on Xanga where I first encountered Susan and several others who now subscribe and sometimes post. One of those entries was comprised of a few excerpts from an online article entitled “I am Lonely, Lord.” The author states: “When you feel alone and lonely, it’s usually because there is no one else in your life, and, at this moment, who you are, or what you do, doesn’t mean a great deal to anyone. It is a basic human need to know that your life and your work are worth something to somebody.” If we feel that our life isn’t meaningful to anybody at that moment, then we try to make up for it by attracting attention to our talents. And in this way, my insecurity often manifests itself of wanting to appear more astute and intelligent: the latter is really only the means to an emotional end. And in the end, we are not intellectual creatures at all and never were: our passions can certainly lead us around by the nose—a metaphor from Aristotle—but it is also the emotional core that forms the truest part of ourselves as well. I am further convinced that when we sin—prompted by that evil impulse we strive to enlist in God’s service—we are seeking some real good in a wrong way, at the wrong time, at the wrong place, or with the wrong person. That thought is not original to me, but comes from John Powell’s book Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am? Quote: Rationalization The most common form of ego defense is “rationalization.” As a technique for self-justification, it is hard to beat. We find some reason for our action which justifies it. We “think” (rationalize) our way to a pre-ordained conclusion. Very often there are two reasons for everything we do: the alleged good reason and the real reason. Rationalization is not only self-deceit but eventually corrupts all sense of integrity (wholeness). We rationalize our failures; we find justification for our actions; we reconcile our ideals and our deeds; we make our emotional preferences our rational conclusions. I say that I drink beer because it has malt in it. The real reason is that I like it; it helps me feel uninhibited and secure with others. As with all ego defense mechanisms, there is always something which I cannot admit in myself, something that I would like to do which appears wrong, or something that would make me feel better if I could believe it. Rationalization is the bridge which makes my wishes the facts. It is the use of intelligence to deny the truth; it makes us dishonest with ourselves, and, if we cannot be honest with ourselves, we certainly cannot be honest with anyone else. It consequently sabotages all human authenticity. It disintegrates and fragments the personality. Insincerity, as an interior state of mind, is a psychological impossibility. I can’t tell myself that I do and don’t believe something at the same time. Choosing evil as evil is also a psychological impossibility, because the will can only choose the good. Consequently, to deny the truth I can’t admit, and to do the deed which I cannot approve, I must necessarily rationalize until the truth is no longer true and evil becomes good. Did you ever ask yourself the surprisingly difficult question: How does one choose evil? How do we commit sin? The will can choose, by its very nature, only that which is good. I am personally convinced that the exercise or use of free will in a given situation of guilt is that the will desirous of some evil which has good aspects (if I steal your money, I will be rich), forces the intellect to concentrate on the good to be acquired in the evil act, and to turn away from the recognition of evil. This urges the intellect to rationalize that which was originally recognized as evil. While I am doing something wrong (in the act of doing it), I cannot be squarely facing its evil aspect; I must be thinking of it as good and right. Consequently, free will is probably exercised in the act of coercing the intellect to rationalize rather than in the execution of the act itself. Both of Powell’s best-selling books, this one and Why Am I Afraid to Love? (its prequel) come much recommended. See you all again on Friday or Saturday, unless I can sneak in a newsletter somewhere along the way, as it is that week again. (The last report was that with all the rains in Kansas, my brother’s wireless wasn’t working—something to do with wet leaves and the pond that has now taken over his entire back yard—and frankly taking a week off from the computer seems rather glorious to me anyway.) |
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Alpine Artist
Sergeant First Class
Gender: Unspecified
Location: Registered: May 2007 Status: Offline Posts: 86 |
Posted Monday, July 2, 2007 @ 08:46 PM
Godspeed, safety, and rest to you, Eric. Take with you the love of friends, old & new, who just plain appreciate you. |
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Alpine Artist
Sergeant First Class
Gender: Unspecified
Location: Registered: May 2007 Status: Offline Posts: 86 |
Posted Wednesday, July 4, 2007 @ 11:42 PM
We too, will be taking some r&r up in the wilderness until Sunday. Hope all had a good 4th! Blessings, |
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