A good distinction I think jae. Thank you.

Hi GoldenRule,

I don't know that it needs to be that complex either David.  It strikes me that the more complicated the plumbing the bigger mess a monkey wrench makes.  While loving our neighbour as ourself is quite easy to say the actual loving can be quite a chore.

While we are using the same words I am not confident we are employing the same meanings.

Let me see if I can flesh out things a little better.  There is sameness and there is otherness.  Any relation that I have with someone else can diminish one and amplify the other.  Both combine to form a reality and we can, to some extent shape that reality by what we allow to be diminished and what we allow to be amplified.

Personally speaking.  When I am looking at sameness I am seeing that all people, those I am fond of and those I am not so fond of participate in sinfulness.  We are not perfect or perfected beings.  That is the same, none of us have cleared the bar.  Recognizing that I am aware that as I am needful of God's grace I am also obligated to share it and yet part of that obligation is not to treat grace as something of little or no value.

Speaking just as personally when looking at difference I am seeing that there are huge areas of everyday living that I might emphasize but another wouldn't.  For example Jae and I differ on whether or not taxes are coerced or whether they are part of a social contract.  That is a huge difference.

If I was engaged in viewing Jae as the excluded other I would be using that difference to construct a charicature of who I believe Jae to be.  That way I would have a ready stock of ad hominems to lob his way whenever he popped into a thread.  To the best of my knowledge I an mot engaged in viewing Jae or any other here as the excluded other.

Viewing Jae as an included other doesn't mean that we are always going to agree on any given matter.  It means that I recognize he belongs here and I am willing to accept that.  Which is true of most of the membership.

So, on one level there is sameness.  Jae and I have both fallen short of the glory of God.  On another level there is otherness.  Jae is who jae is and I am who I am.

That isn't being simple that is being dense.

Sure both are shirts.  It is pretty obvious that red is not blue though.  Unless there is some colour blindness going on.

[/quote=GoldenRule]

For me, you, me, beshpin, hansen, ac, .... are indeed "one."

[/quote]

Maybe one day we will all be one.  That is something of a goal.  I do not believe that it is a present reality.  Are their levels of connection?  Sure there are.  Is there strands of respect?  I would suggest that there is.  Are we one?  Not yet.

As and aside you are aware that it is "chansen" with a "c" and not "hansen" as in the brother band from Oklahoma right?

While I respect all three of you there is certainly different degrees of familiarity and not surprisingly an ease in communication.

I think we have managed to work out agreement on that score.  Our mutual understandings of sameness appears to need more work.

Grace and peace to you.

John

Hi GoldenRule,

So impasse.

And just so it doesn't appear that we are laying all fault for communication problems on beshpin's shoulders I think it is fair to suggest that the same would be true for you.  You read beshpin in a certain way (we all read each other in certain ways) is your reading of him the fairest?

Is my reading of him the fairest?

Practice?  I thought it was just the extreme way you guys hiked your pants.  

I agree that practice makes perfect and that as far as I have responsibility for communication I should endeavour to be as clear and as concise as I can possibly be.  Of course, once the word is out of my mouth or off of my fingertips to your ears or your eyes the burden of the practice, I believe, becomes yours.

If you are bound and determined to read me in a certain way all I need to do to facilitate that reading is type something on the page and it will matter very little how hard I try or how much I have practiced if you are intent on finding insult and injury it will not take long.

In a public forum others may twig to the bias which always finds the other objectionable and those others can lend the weight of their opinion to the proceedings.  Of course there are times when communication just doesn't happen no matter how warmly both parties are disposed to it.

Invitation is, I think, all we've got.  If the other rejects the invitation sameness will be puposely diminished and otherness deliberately magnified.

Grace and peace to you.

John

For me, I ditched Zeus-God a long time ago (like when I was 20). And, at the moment, it's been replaced with a sense of being part of something bigger, but I am finding it hard to identify that with "God", perhaps because part of my mind is still seeing "God" as meaning "Zeus-God".

It's that transcendence in panentheism that my mind isn't grokking. Realistically speaking, I was a panentheist for much of my twenties and thirties. I first encountered both panentheism and process in university RS and theology courses and they clicked with me then (but I was also still a Christian then). Now, I just don't see why the notion of a transcendent reality needs to be there. The universe already transcends and incorporates us as individuals, why does it need to be transcended by something more? Is "God" just a name for our relationship to the universe or for that part of us that engages with our world on a personal level? Maybe the universe and society  transcending us as individuals is the panentheistic "God"?

There's also something of a practical element to my current quandry. It's all very well and good for me to say, "Okay, there's this transcendent aspect of reality and I shall name it 'God'". But, my personal relationships, ethics, etc. are nicely grounded in my current paradigm of a sacred web of existence. I'm not sure that believing in a "God" of this or any other sort will really add anything to my life or me as a person. It's just a change in the language I use to describe my view of existence.

Like this. Will meditate on it a bit.

Mendalla

Your comment noted that one would need to know my intent in order to judge my "button pushing". As I was not seeking validation for my exchange with besh, I saw no reason to pursue this particular aspect of your post. I suppose you may choose to see that as an impasse if you wish.

I don't recall have done so. As my "indeed" was in response to your comment on being interpretted in a "certain way", it is simply a concurrence with your comment.

As I continue to downsize the ... uh ... size of my wardrobe, I begin to appreciate the practicality of suspenders

I agree.

Sometimes, even knowing that the invitation will be rejected, we need to still offer it since it may be accepted by other ears. 

There is also, always, the possibility that we will be surprised by its acceptance the third, or tenth, or hundredth, time its made.

Be Well

David

Again, my apologies for the lack of responsiveness. Rationing my screen time again for a bit.

Hi GoldenRule,

Allow me to clarify.  I did not mean that you and I were at an impasse.  I meant, based on observation, that you and beshpin appear to be at an impasse.  Meaning moving forward appears to be stuck.

Nor am I intending to claim that you or I have.  I just thought that I would make that obvious in an attempt to head off misunderstanding or misinterpretation.

Agreed.  The one who may be playing the role of adversary in any given moment undoubtably has allies who are either lurking and cheering from virtual shadows or have yet to notice that one they identify with is in thick somewhere.

In the heat of the moment the invitation may not be seen and/or grasped by our dance partner.  Hopefully it is seen by the gathering crowds and recognized for what it is.

Agreed.  Things do not always have to remain the same.  We learn some and we grow and in so doing things which were once so threatening appear less so.  Things we thought we understood so well appear to be completely different than the way they have been labelled.

I'm not impatient.  I tend to give others the benefit of the doubt when responses aren't immediately forthcoming.  Nothing wrong with thinking things through.  Nor am I at all offended if other things are more pressing.

Conversations here take their own pace.

Grace and peace to you.

John

I think that what you express above is very relevent to not only our individual spiritual exploration, but also our comunication challenges with more traditional theologies.

For me at least, ditching "Zeus-God" isn't so much a rejection of seeing God as a "person" totally as it is ditching a particular version of that "person."

I know that I still anthropomorphize "God" at times. I'm human. Human beings, for the most part, think in those kinds of images. Not to mention that it was the culture we were born into.

So I think we end up struggling with the distinction between the image of God that, for example, my Pentecostal cousin was "seeing" when she and her husband prayed to "Father God" for my health when they visited me in hospital (which, though our theologies differ, I had no problem sincerely appreciating) and the "warm embrace" of "God" that I, though not finding a mountaintop "Zeus-God" meaningful, still "see", at times, as a loving/benevolent/compassionate "parent"

Geesh, what a a long convoluted statement. I've been reading RevJohn's stuff too much again.

I wanted to comment on the rest of your post as well but will have to come back to it another time

David

In a sermon called "Faces of God" that I preached a few years back, I talked about how we tend to put a human face (and other images as well) on the Divine to make it easier to relate to It and also how we can then use that image to reflect back and see the Divine in ourselves.

Mendalla

I like that a lot, especially when the second part, the reflecting back, is included.

Actually, I would not want us to be the "same". The does not, to me, keep us from being "one."

As you say, our understanding appears to differ somewhat. I would consider us all, and all things, to have an inseverable connection that makes us "one."

The things you list - levels of connection, strands of respect - give some evidence to that.

If the goal is to be "one" in understanding or outlook, then I truly hope we never achieve it.

David