AWESTRUCKDUMBPILGRIM - Musings

AWESTRUCKDUMBPILGRIM

"Everyone has a right to their opinion."

9/16/2019

I have a problem with this common phrase.

Not because it isn't true, but because it's used as an excuse to justify an arrogance that can only come from ignorance.

It's essentially saying: "Everyone has a right to come to a false conclusion." False by virtue of being premature.
There are very few experts and fewer unquestioned authorities on the complex human issues upon which we form, or more often, adopt, our opinions.

And those who have really wrestled with the nuances of complex issues and acquired an informed opinion realize that they are not experts, much less, authorities on the subject.

They realize that their opinions are insignificant and provisional. They never end discussions by announcing their opinion. No, they make a particular inquiry, based on knowledge and curiosity, desiring to expand their understanding.

So I'd rather we said, "Everyone has a right to ask questions." Or "All questions are welcomed." This would encourage inquiry and discourage the feeling that we should know stuff when there's way too much stuff to know, but together, we know a lot.

This is harder, I think, because questions betray ignorance, whereas ignorance is concealed by opinions.

10 "Fundamentals"

5/25/2019

1. God, eternal source, is creative kenosis, not coercive power
2. God is unveiling light and rememberance, the demonic is concealment and forgetting
3. Humans are divine image bearers and thus co-creators of the telos
4. The trajectory, or telos of life is shalom for all, love flows shalom
5. Sin is whatever blocks the flow of love, which builds shalom through unveiling light and rememberance
6. Persons are too small to do "evil," and so, evil is impersonal, the result of collectively blocking the flow of love
7. The good (shalom) is too big for a person, so creative kenosis (the divine) is always everywhere luring persons into interdependence, solidarity, and creative kenosis
8. Which all suggests that The Way to shalom is shalom by being divine image bearers
9. There is synergy in being divine image bearers together that can create more shalom than we have ever dared to hope for or imagine
10. It is beauty that will save the world, or it will not be saved

Transhistorical

5/25/2019

The truth of scripture is transhistorical and it manages this by taking the form of myth, story, parable, and poetry. The historical setting is far more setting than history.

These forms are flexible, they can move through time carrying their truth in images that can be understood in any cultural context.

The modern preoccupation with fact has diminished the purpose of sacred texts, which is to communicate meaning and wisdom across time.

The imaginative capacity to discover meaning appears to have been atrophied during the scientific age. And the good news found within the sacred stories has been hidden.

Impersonal Powers

5/25/2019

The Powers and Principalities are as impersonal as a hurricane. And the people that work for the Domination System think they're doing good. I can't blame them. They're playing the only game available, as best as they can. It makes no sense to get angry.

But, of course, I do get mad at people, once in a while -- including myself, I feed the system, after all -- but then I remember... The Domination System functions on its own, it multiples our small, personal, petty sins, turing the fear and selfish concerns of individual persons into immense, impersonal evil.

I see no hope in blaming people, even those who appear to be winning the game at the expense of others. Their petty greed is too small, too personal, to do great harm. It's the collective sins of human-kind, multiplied, made transpersonal that makes up the Powers and Principalities.

The same strategy applied to a hurricane needs to be applied to the Domination System. We get together and move our loved ones to a safer place.

Soft On Sin?

3/26/2019

When traditional Christians say to me, "your God is soft on sin," I think, "I suppose you could see it that way, but he's sure hard on me. Telling me stories of enemy love and foolish trust, encouraging me to follow Jesus in choosing to die than kill. Not to mention praising a way that includes poverty, mourning, and being persecuted for his name's sake. I don't feel judged by 'my God,' but I sure feel an insistent invitation to enter into a story that's bigger than I can imagine and a lot harder to live out than the sin avoidance story."

Subjectivity

3/26/2019

Another drawback of fundamentalism:

Ignoring the diverse ways that people respond to the same message -- due to subjectivity -- because you believe in "objective truth" and don't want to be bothered by complex variables.

Result: blaming humans for being human, rather than the fundamentalist facing his own human desire to simplify and control.

Talking to Your Self

3/9/2019

Have you noticed, even after you talk sense to yourself about the price you're not willing to pay to own that new thing, or remind yourself that your friend is hurting and that's why they made that cruel observation, that the ache of longing or sting of hurt still lingers?

Well that's because there's a part of each of us that is pure feeling and not responsive to rational explanation. Rational self talk is necessary, but it neglects to honor one of the most valuable parts of the human psyche, the emotions that move and inspire us, and give us the wonderous capacity of empathy. We neglect this capacity at great risk.

Ignoring these irrational feelings and plowing forward results in several neurosis. The two expressions I've observed most often are numbness and volatility. One can lose the capacity for joy, pleasure, and compassion from treating one's emotions like an enemy. The other common reaction to repression is inappropriate expressions of emotions like resentment and anger, lust and self pity, which are easily justified by the overdeveloped Rationalizer to whom the keys to the psychic kingdom were given, unaware of all the hidden passageways in the castle from which the unobserved emotions can escape.

Letting one's embarrassing emotions join the conversation can be daunting and discomforting at first, but you'll find that it may not be long before you begin to welcome what they add to your vitality and perspective. The party in your head will be much more lively when you show those tricksters a bit of hospitality.

The Holy Fool Imagines

3/6/2019

I'm imagining an after-life accounting where it's proven to me that there was never any hope of a more equitable, regenerative society, where the best way to reduce violence was a good guy with a gun and the military industrial complex made the best of a bad situation and life would have been a lot worse without it, even accounting for all the waste, death, and animosity. In this reality the dream of being raptured away from a doomed planet was as good as it gets, and working the system for security and consumer pleasures while one waits was the best anyone could hope for. In this picture, the rapacious captains of industry are praised as "makers" and anyone who resisted this vision, or despaired at the ecological destruction and isolation, was shamed and expelled.

I can feel what this would feel like, because it's the subtext of nearly every implicit message of the grand narrative in which we live. Hopes and dreams of a more compassionate, collaborative world are entertainments, mere diversions.
I'm pleased to discover that even as I imagine this scenario, there is something within me that is unmoved, convinced that the beauty of compassion and generosity, play and creativity are real, and remain the deeper truth.
And as the image plays out, I stand before those who mock my naivete and pity them.

The Knowing Pronouncer Vs. The Respectful Questioner

3/6/2019

I've always respected people who ask open ended questions rooted in genuine curiosity far more often than they make statements, or espouse opinion. But there are a lot of sublimated forces that drive us to make pronouncements, and I am subject to these forces even though I work hard to combat them in myself.
One of the benefits I've gained from the increased access to diversity and complexity that social media can afford is being regularly confronted with ideas and ways of seeing that I do not understand; and having views that I assumed to be almost universal contradicted by others.

In other words, I am being pushed into the way of being that I mentioned above preferring, that is, the respectful questioner rather than the knowing pronouncer.
It's interesting how being drawn to a place, or way, leads one into challenging experiences that are required to making that way natural and personal rather than merely imitative.

Thoughts are like Children

2/16/2019

Thoughts are like children playing beside a camp fire. They're usually okay as long as they are monitored. If they know they are seen and loved they are free to play and discover. It is when they are neglected or continually corrected that they conceal their activity and do harm. Lovingly attend your thoughts, let them play and take risks, and watch them mature and integrate without the need for artificial limits or harsh words.