aron
07-05-2008, 11:08 AM
One thing I don't want to do is regress into a "I told you so" -- "No you didn't", or "You are a liar" -- "No, You are a liar" back-and-forth interchanges.
I saw it recently on another discussion board and it was tiring and discouraging. It is worse than watching a couple of third graders in a sandbox fighting over a plastic shovel. Because with the third graders you have the hope they will eventually outgrow it. With what I was watching, I said to myself, "Where do I want to go from here?" and the answer was "Someplace else." Someplace where we can have a conversation.
A conversation, to me, is a mutual exploration. Both parties learn, and grow from the exchange of information and interpretation.
In contrast to that, I was recruited twice, once by the Mormons and once by the International Churches of Christ. Multiple contacts by multiple people over an extended period of time. And you know what they had in common? With both groups, you couldn't have a conversation. Their starting assumption was that I was in error and needed to be amended. The possibility that I might have something worthwhile to share was not even considered.
Yes, the flow is from the throne, but once it hits the believers there should be some mutuality, some reciprocality of positive exchanges. When that is lost it becomes a static process(either "Do as I say"/"Yes, sir!" or "Do as I say"/"No, You do as I say") and Nietsche is right: "God is dead".
I was deliberately being provacative there. Of course God isn't dead, but our experience of God's flow gets reduced to a bare minimum. But an environment of mutuality opens the floodgates of experience. Mine gets shared with you, your perspective changes mine, and so forth. It is progressive. As long as we are on planet earth we should expect to progress. And fellowship, mutuality, sharing, is preferable to "Repeat after me..."
Peace to all who read this note.
I saw it recently on another discussion board and it was tiring and discouraging. It is worse than watching a couple of third graders in a sandbox fighting over a plastic shovel. Because with the third graders you have the hope they will eventually outgrow it. With what I was watching, I said to myself, "Where do I want to go from here?" and the answer was "Someplace else." Someplace where we can have a conversation.
A conversation, to me, is a mutual exploration. Both parties learn, and grow from the exchange of information and interpretation.
In contrast to that, I was recruited twice, once by the Mormons and once by the International Churches of Christ. Multiple contacts by multiple people over an extended period of time. And you know what they had in common? With both groups, you couldn't have a conversation. Their starting assumption was that I was in error and needed to be amended. The possibility that I might have something worthwhile to share was not even considered.
Yes, the flow is from the throne, but once it hits the believers there should be some mutuality, some reciprocality of positive exchanges. When that is lost it becomes a static process(either "Do as I say"/"Yes, sir!" or "Do as I say"/"No, You do as I say") and Nietsche is right: "God is dead".
I was deliberately being provacative there. Of course God isn't dead, but our experience of God's flow gets reduced to a bare minimum. But an environment of mutuality opens the floodgates of experience. Mine gets shared with you, your perspective changes mine, and so forth. It is progressive. As long as we are on planet earth we should expect to progress. And fellowship, mutuality, sharing, is preferable to "Repeat after me..."
Peace to all who read this note.