Faith Commons, Introducing The Blook

Joe,

Sorry about the trouble. I got caught in that too but never got an error message. The server was actually hung or down for awhile.

Relationality is Faith, that's a relationship I haven't thought about. I'd certainly like to hear more of what you're thinking on this. It sounds interesting.

I have heard someone say that Faith is Relationship to God, before. This would fit my notion Of course my idea of Faith is not necessarily correct and I don't pretend to have it figured out. Someone today said that humility means: I'm probably wrong. I have looked at what those who had great faith did, and now that I think again, there was certainly relationality there.

bill

I hesitate to say this because I think the idea of a collaborative blook is such a good one. The definition of blook is generally understood to be something that ends up in a dead tree version. What you are envisioning is perhaps more of an ebook?

By the way, I'm going to be having a guest post on my blog by some folks that are working collaboratively yet independently - called the Germaine Truth. I'll be interested to see how the two projects - theirs and yours -- compare as time goes on. Best of luck in your endeavor.

Cheryl

Do you have a place yet where we can take a peek?

reido

I've looked at 75 blooks in the last two months at my blog. There's a link to an index of the blooks in the top right corner. But you could probably pick most any post to see how I analyze blooks.

Cheryl,

While I'm not perfectly sure that I know what you're telling us, I do think that I agree. To the extent that I understand.

Originally, the idea that a completed package that could be printed out and read somewhere else, perhaps on the toilet :), and updated as our understanding grew, seemed the perfect idea. But killing trees for each new release is not only wasteful, it seems tiresome and out of tune with the project.

Nowadays, I'm thinking that the project will have meaning for those involved and little for those who happen on it later. It is a journey that perhaps we can tell others about, show them snapshots of, but that in the end one just has to be there to understand.

This brings up a whole nother concept in blook (blook, ebook, whatever) development. And this development I'm thinking is perhaps the greater step in global communication and shared writing. That development is online, shared redaction. And this one I know almost nothing at all about. But I think editing is where it's at.

Funny thing is, I have a friend who is an editor at the Dallas Morning News who is emotionally and ideologically tied to newspapers. Ten years ago I began trying to convince him to get into Internet writing but he wasn't interested. Now that the company that owns the Dallas News (Belo) has downsized dramatically, he is left with a job of editing a webpage. He hates it, it seems, but I think it is a step toward the future. The current glut of information will only multiply until the only way for it to make any sense at all is for smart editors to put pieces together into bite-sized chunks for the rest of us to consume. That is the job of newspapers anyway. And that is what the original weblogs did. So...

It seems that whatever comes out of an online effort such as the one we are undertaking here, it will of necessity be a redaction of the whole. But not merely a copy-and-paste montage, but a story of the journey with the results of the journey at the beginning and at the end. The blog is merely the journal of the life of those who walked the path and had the adventures. The story cannot be told until the end. And that is my own struggle. I can't tell a story until I know where it leads.

I would love to hear your thought on group editing. 

bill

Thanks Bill for sharing that. I hear you better now and that's what I needed.

 Everything you just said makes me want to reply, hasn't the love gone out of faith?

Don't we believe because we will to believe, out of love? Faith and love are intertwined. When our love goes empty then we have no fuel for faith. It's true the other way round also - it takes faith to love meaningfully.

See, I told you I am mulling it over.

Joe 

Bill

This is a tremendous thread and potential blook.  I have been in Kentucky with my son's family building out his basement, so I didnt get to read until late last night.  Also have been picking up Fromm's Art of Love for a few pages at a time, and find that he has these tangents that my mind takes off on when I read some of his concepts. 

Let'd discuss this more when I get a breath.

reido

Or do you mean links/references to other works?

Not sure I understand.

reido

Well, I mean both: scripture quotes and links/references to other works.

The reason I bring this up is that a policy that encourages all to contribute needs some sort of understanding. You surely know all about what I'm getting to, but I'm thinking that others may not have given it any previous thought.

A blook on faith needs to avoid losing the readers faith in the points made in the text. For example: I'm likely to stick some loose and fluffy ideas in the text flow, ideas that may have hatched in between keystrokes, if I don't have some sort of standard that causes me to ask whether that idea I just stuck in the text is supportable someway. Of course original ideas don't have outside sources but still need some logic to support them. It's really easy for me to toss out something half-baked with the expectation that others will question me and so help be to shore up the parts I'd missed. Still, for the most part, there is lots of scripture around that gives a basis for much of the faith. But what about topics like commons?

There will be other topics that get their bases from psychology, anthropology, etc., or just historical record that need evidence for support. We may need to help each other. For example: I probably have more time than others but have limited endurance. Others may have more money for books, etc., than time to read them and take notes. Others are better at shaping the words than with gathering the original ideas.

Or will it take care of itself?

bill

Bill

Now I think I understand, and I agree fully.  Some may not understand the depth of your meaning...I do not hear you saying that all concepts and teaching must be accompanied with a quote from a sacred text.  But that there needs to be some foundational base that lends substance to a concept.

Little green men from Mars might float somebody's boat, but would render the venture ridiculous.  In fact, I have known of fundy's who like to play such games just to sabotage another's work. 

Ancient prophets employed story, parables, allegory to teach.  However, there was a river of life, a tree of life, a life in the ages, a Messiah, a crisis, a resurrection, a parousia, a judgment...all part of thematic foundational faith.  I have used examples from Judaism and Christianity, but we have read many references from other religions that employed similar descriptive methods to teach very similar themes of faith.  These prophets also employed literary form, philosophy, familiar lines of thought that people of the age identified with.

Is this touching on what you have in mind?

reido

Thanks Reido for adding clarity to my rambling.

The approach I have in mind is like a seed or an expanding, inverted pyramid. The first section, whether page or chapter would initially tell the whole story in compressed summary. Then, many paragraphs and even statements would get expanded into endnotes and then chapters. 

The first version would be much more searching than certain. It would have a release level of draft and it's purpose would be more of a demo, in software terms. As research continues, the inquiring sentences become more certain and expand into paragraphs.

This is not much different than a book proposal sent to a publisher, I suppose. The difference is, I hope, that this one would emerge. That is, contributors would recognize weak spots and propose a solution, or take on the solution. The blook would evolve in the way that Wikipedia (and other wikis) evolves today.

Sometimes on Wikipedia, someone looks for information, not finding it where they expect it, they eventually do find it elsewhere and determine to come back and write an entry for others. Eventually a copy-editor comes by and, being professionally irked by the poor editing takes it upon themselves to fix the entry. Other entries are added by those who add from their own expertise to give thanks for what they were given by others. Wikipedia is a commons.

But we still need some sort of plan to get started, and that would evolve through discussions in other threads. The basic one (so far) is this.

Faith is an historical human characteristic that is necessary for meaningful life. There is healthy faith and unhealthy faith. But life without faith is unhealthy. Our faith ability develops, and should develop. Faith is within, but it is also communal. [There can be several historical examples included here, such as the British withstanding years of Nazi bombing, or Indian citizens resisting British colonialists] Enclosure and privatizing can have similarly detrimental effects on faith as it can on other Commons such as clean air and water. Ghettos and other camps destroy the common faith of a people. These are the petri dishes in which apocalyptic faith is nurtured. Suicide bombers may be a prime example of faith turned inside out. Lost faith replaced with apocalyptic faith is not good for anybody. Therefore, healthy faith must be the concern of all. We live in a small world where the sins of our brothers come back to haunt us. Still, we need not convert everybody in the world to one religion in order to give them faith. We need only to identify healthy faith and join hands with others who are attempting to spread good faith. Good News is not religion but Good Faith, and it is subversive and dangerous to the proprietors who will stop at nothing to prevent its spread.

Anyway, that needs lots of work and much discussion. We should find many examples of people who've lived lives of faith whose biographies will add interesting side reading to the blook. The struggles of whole peoples will also add extra depth. But the main point needs to remain in the front so that readers get it before they get a chance to get bored and move on.

Does this get any creative juices flowing? How about some of you who read but haven't weighed in, would you give an opinion? Is it a point worth saying? Do you know of other websites that are already talking about similar ideas that we can link to?

 

bill 

Bill

You mentioned in another post the relationship between faith and love....

 

Watch this!

"...Faith is within, but it is also communal."

Is there something there???

 

reido

Reido,

I'm interested in what you're seeing? I had been thinking that faith is a personal thing as well as a group thing. That was the point I wanted to make. But it seems that you see something more. And Joe mentioned Relationality. But I'm not yet connecting the dots very well.

Yesterday I followed some of the posts under "Similar entries" just for fun to some of the discussions that we've had in the past and there I found, guess what, something like Joe's Relationality. It must be old age.

I see love and faith connected, alright. What Fromm is writing about loving sometimes seems like faith, even. And relationship is certainly part of faith since the personal god concept was invented or revealed. But I can't get my head to form a picture of the relationship between love and faith.

So, let's get in over my head here.

WC Smith says that between the two versions of Wycliffe's translations of the Bible into English (late 1300s) there was a shift  beginning to take place. In the second version faith was used in many points where bilefe (belief) had been used in the prior version. And he also found this shift in other literature of the day. So, originally Old English bilefe equal Old French fei, therefore; belief equal faith. Originally. Not anymore.

Belief and Faith meant: "Loyalty to a person to whom one is bound by promise or duty, or to one's promise or duty itself." Smith goes on to say that belief would mean the same as faithful. Earlier he points out that believe is equivalent to the German word belieben, "to hold dear": virtually to love." liev lieb. believe belieb. Verbs. The Online Etymology Dictionary says that Belief comes from "dear, esteemed." (Belief and Faith, 1979, p103,116)

Can we then say that if belief is esteemed, then believe would be esteem? Would it then follow that because at the time the scriptures were first translated into English, when some precedent was set, that belief was equivalent to faith, that both are etymologically close to Love?

But we know this intuitively, I think. Still, faith is more than love. But love may also be more than love. Does that make any sense? Do we sell these two concepts short and end up unable to imagine them carrying the weight that we need for them to carry? We talk of falling in love as if love were something that drops from trees. When real love is developed over years of knowing someone. When I love someone, I see in them the qualities that I highly regard. It's as if I see what I want to see, and in healthy relationships, my love creates what I highly regard. But this is what I see in faith.

Is it possible to see a definition of faith as the ability to create what we highly regard? That is, God-in-us becomes a reality by the very want of it. That which I highly regard in another is my love for them. That which I highly regard in myself and in others is my faith. I become that which I treasure. Where my treasure is, there will be my heart or soul also. 

 

Anyway, I hope this rambling is useful. I should have waited to see what you were thinking, but I got carried away. The word study is beyond my expertise. I see what Smith is getting to of course. But I'm no linguist. And Smith eventually concludes that belief and faith must part company because the meanings have changed almost completely now. The modern usage of believe means to regard something as true that is actually false. And the word faith may be in trouble too. Smith wrote before the Evangelical-political debacle that may put other otherwise useful words on the shelf for a generation or two, also.

Still, there is a connestion between love and faith and community. Maybe love and faith are the same thing directed differently.

 

bill 

 

Bill

This may be just an apparition, but see what you think....

"...Faith is within, but it is also communal."

 

Faith and love, we trust are connected, but how?  Are they the same thing? I think not, but where are the differences?

Here may be one.  How does Faith express itself?  In seclusion, yes, that would be a necessary focal point, but in relation to others does Faith ask to touch and affect the lives of others?  I think so. 

How does Faith touch others?  By preaching words and enforcing them on others, or by expressing the words in life -- logos, so to speak?  At that point does Faith cross over to love?  That is, in order to express itself communally, Faith must become love?

reido

 

I want to say more about your creative aspect of Faith later -- great stuff to think on.

Reido wrote: At that point does Faith cross over to love? That is, in order to express itself communally, Faith must become love?

What Reido is saying reminds me some of James 2. Except I'm getting a different picture of it now. What if James were writing to a conflict similar to the one in John's community that we discussed recently. I've always thought that the disconnect between belief/faith as a Way of life and belief/faith as mere creed to cull out the loyal and true came much later. But what if it didn't? What if the book of James is an example of an early conflict with those who were distilling the Way down to mere philosophy and leaving the Way behind?

Considering WC Smith's point that believe means to hold some one or some concept in such high regard that I mold my life around them or it, and considering Reido's point above, let's revisit James 2:

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good [2] is that? 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

Salvation here is seems a change that results from faith, alright. A change in life. A change in Way. But it's not what most Christian groups preach. It's not afterlife because the next examples have nothing to do with afterlife. They are about action from faith.

18 But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! 20 Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. 24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. (James 2:14-24 ESV)

What we often miss from James nowadays is that believe means faith in action, since it is the verb form of belief. This is, of course, James' point. To claim to have faith, and yet produce no fruit by it, is a lie. It's an impossibility. One cannot have faith without producing something from it. The lack of fruit, indicates the lack of a tree. At least the lack of fruit begs the question of whether there is a tree. To believe isn't so easy as to assent to something that empiricists deny. That's mere silliness. Even empiricists would accept that fruit indicate the probability of a tree. Maybe The rath of folks like Richard Dawkins is ultimately directed at the lack of fruit?

So, Reido's point that Love results from Faith seems a supportable claim from Christian scriptures. Can anyone add more supporting scripture or research? Does anyone have objections?

Here's a sample objection just to get the ideas moving: Could it be Faith in Love that produces Love? That is, is it not Faith itself that produces Love, but Faith in Love? What if my faith were in my professional knowledge? Or, what if my faith is in my family name and reputation? What sort of fruit would these bear?

 

BTW: All are invited in to our conversation. Please feel free to offer ideas. Reido and I have been doing this almost everyday for a few years and may sound like we're having a private conversation. But it's not meant to be private at all. Please join in.

 

bill

Bill

I have struggled with that particular writer in the past because I found his expressions so "Jewish".  Now I see something I havent seen before.  For me, the problem stems from having been taught that a word means this or that -- as though people always walked about with a dictionary of modern developed meanings. 

You're onto something here.

reido

I am trying to take in everything. I think I can't see the trees because the forest as a whole is so grand in my eyes. But here's a little something I want to throw in the ring.

At this stage of my life I tend to take lessons about the God/human relationship by drawing on what I've learned of the human/human relationship. I think we are created in God's image and so, as time goes on, I put more and more stock in that comparison.

Love affirms the being of another

and,

faith believes and accepts the love of another .

Here's a little story about some pre-teen kids at summer camp.

Jerry looks across the compound and sees Soleil. He observes her and comes over to speak. He feels accepted as Soleil expresses an interest in him. After a few minutes Soleil is called away by her group leader and Jerry is left standing there with the boys. Jerry experiences a brand new feeling; it's the feeling that it is good that girls exist, and that it is really great that this particular girl, named Soleil exists. Also Soleil experiences the same feelings about boys and about Jerry in particular.

So ... here's what we have so far. The two kids like each other ... and ... each believes they are liked by the other.

Now, they could like each other and not get to be friends. In that case they wouldn't experience that beautiful puppy love that is so important for that stage of life.

But because each believes they are liked, they will become friends and grow in relationship. You have to have love (or in this pre-teen parable, like) and you have to have faith. You have to believe in order to receive the love that is offered from another.

If we say "prove it" when offered a whiff of love, then the lover will be immediately rebuffed. Love has to be met with belief.

Isn't it that way with God and us? He loves and we believe He loves. If, for whatever reason, we do not believe it, then we will not experience it - in effect, the love will not flow to us. And the faith with which we respond to love must be multifaceted. We have to believe things about the lover, ourselves and the world around us.

Now, I know this is just a little parable and it will go only a little ways, but it means something to me. I have actually been little pre-teen Jerry my whole life and I'm still learning to believe other people love me -- and I'm still learning to believe that God loves me. Long way to go yet. Sometimes I feel like I don't believe at all and I don't love at all, but that's just sometimes.

Joe,

This one: "faith believes and accepts the love of another," has got me to thinkin'. Don't have much to add yet. 

"...that none can shut." 

 "Against these there is no law."

"A well of living water."

"Love your enemies."

 

These are just touching the hem of the garment of expressions that may point to the relational power of faith and love.  Some may not appear at first to be in this context, but maybe after thinking a bit a picture will come into view. 

reido

 

Have you given any thought to Carbondale option that I mentioned (a multi-media CD that could have mulitple releases? Also, I'd love to hear what you think of the Germaine Truth project and whether you see any similarities with what you're trying to do.

Cheryl,

Thanks again for the advice.

I did look around at Germaine Truth Saturday afternoon, which left me rethinking some ideas that I'd tossed aside weeks ago. GT does well, the interconnecting of related yet separate sites. It the advantage of a single focus. Although that single focus is made obvious only by the structure that we get to admire after the work is done.

FC doesn't, or at least does not now have such a single focus, but looking at GT helps me see where it might, and perhaps should have one. The next few days and weeks will include searching for something like a single focus that allows all the variations to remains yet connect.

What you've helped me understand, I think, is that it's not the ebook or blook that counts but the site's purpose. This purpose has gone along for the journey, these past thirty months, and needs a reassessment to understand what changes it might have experienced, and what that might mean for the next year of so.

Thanks again for your help.

bill

Bill

Will be interesting to hear where this fork turns.  Sounds like an idea brewing.  Will share some experiences and insights with you tomorrow AM. 

 reido

Bill

Sorry, lost my morning post and this one may not make it.  Inet connection still poor.  Wanted to say I visited  Germaine Truth and looked around.  It is very well planned and there are some talented writers there.  The Editing part was not visible, so I don't know how it all really works.  You will understand it better, I am sure.

The "Forks in the Road" caught my attention, and wondered if this meant some new direction.  IMO, Redaction is necessary, but not an end in itself.  That is where I see religion getting itself stuck in the mud.  Potentiality and possibility wait elsewhere in a Creative Phase.  How to develop that is the Quest.

A couple of shared concepts from our trip to the Smokies and Blue Ridge...

We enjoyed "Unto These Hills" the play at Cherokee, NC and it provoked a lot of thought about Inclusive Faith.  In the intro before the show, they share some of their native language and beliefs.  This was accomplished in music and song.  I found it very helpful toward understanding the story of a People (Limited in scope as it is).  Also, the story begs questions, and that seems so appropriate as well. 

The other item worth sharing was the experience of riding thru the Nantahala Gorge.  While there is more than enough present to overwhelm the senses, there is also more to the Epic, so that one easily understands that there is Time involved.  Redaction would conjure up a time when the rock was animate...grinding and crunching its way out of the Earth's crust.  The cascading water is but a whisper of what must have once carved this canyon,  but still the Voice is there. 

 

reido

Bill and others

While you are getting to the previous post...

For the sake of projecting into a "next" phase of Faith in the blook, what would this next stage progress into?  Fowler, called his 5th stage "Conjunctive Faith" (see Bill's link in his previous post).  I find that way of thinking useful and fitting for development, but as we have discussed in many past posts we would not intend to Limit thought to Fowler's Stages (nor did he intend his writings to be used that way, IMO).

This brings up a point about Limitation.  Whether we call it Transitional, Inclusive, Universalist,  whatever ideas we associate with Faith that goes beyond Redaction, we now leave behind the mapmaking that defines Faith in terms of "What it is NOT", and begin thinking in terms of Possibility and Potential.  That does not mean that one no longer includes reflection on the past, or on consequential behavior, but I think it means we are not erecting walls that keep us in, and others out.

Also, a forward-looking Faith does not require that all have attained a particular perspective in order to partake.  If one comes to the River, there will be unlimited points of access and observation.  This Inclusive feature will come to bear when the obvious questions of God arise.  There are a variety of perspectives along that line. 

In a nutshell, we are talking about a Commons.  That is, an area where all can enter and partake freely.  This Commons does not exist by decree, but by nature of being what it is, and what is potentially there to be recognized by all.

reido

Ever notice when flying that the river finds its way and life finds the river?

Arti

Now that you mention it, that conjures up a good way to envision how things work in a cosmic scheme. 

 

reido

Reido,

The fork I'm seeing is not so much an idea as a realization that the content here needs better organization. The idea is not yet here, actually. It's missing.

What I do understand—so far—is that we need at least two areas: one with few constraints so that ideas and discussion can go where the spirit wills, and another area that is logically and/or intuitively structured so that visitors can find their way around and so that we all can know what's here; what needs rework; where we might be going; etc. This is sort of where editing or redaction comes in.

I agree with you that redaction tends to be problematic and reductionistic. At this time in history we should be expanding ideas and letting the patterns emerge. I certainly don't know enough to edit, in fact, I couldn't converge on anything now if my life depended on it.

When I mention editing, I'm not thinking so much of throwing out all but the “right” words. Instead, I'm thinking more about collecting, that pulls ideas from existing documents and discussions to make new wholes. It might be as simple as creating multiple ebooks, each as different collections (TOC) of pieces out of the same mass of individual documents. This is hard to imagine for me. It requires collecting all kinds of notes, essays, articles, quotes, comments, threads, and any other type of online content stored in ways that make them easily combinable into new and different wholes, yet allowing them to stand alone and even be revised, which would affect everything that points to them. It's really a web within the Web, except that this one should be organized in some useful way.

Am interested in discussing more of this. We just got back into town this afternoon after some ten days of being digitally incommunicado, so I have some other things to catch up on. But I did quite a lot of thinking around these concepts in recent days and hope to have something useful to say later.

bill

Bill

Oops.  Sorry about that.  Seems my brain still carries some of the old luggage around.  I thought by redaction, you were referring to some of the retraced ground laid as background for the opening chapter -- to some degree having to retell the old before we could take the next step into the new. 

Yes, now that I am on the same page, I also see the need to periodically review and clarify or add comments that came along after the original writing.  That would take full advantage of Development.  Don't know exactly how to "Do" the editing -- perhaps take a particular chapter when it has had sufficient comments to fuel the fire, and have a period of collective thought as to what thoughts should be included and expanded.  Possibly the person who originated the thought could participate in the wording and location for the entry.  Maybe after the edit, the chapter's comments could be cleaned up to remove unrelated material, like some short posts I made in anticipation of one I would make later.

Am I even close?

 

reidoi

Reido,

It was your words some time back about moving forward and letting creativity emerge where it will, that convinced me that the process cannot be contained and directed. I'm using redaction here really as a misnomer but I don't know of a better word. So, any confusion is my fault, actually.

All,

During this recent and short sabbatical I intended to spend much of four quiet days in a Bead & Breakfast in Lincoln Nebraska piecing together some ideas that might help kick-start this project, but in the end did a lot of thinking about it while reading a book by June Singer titled Seeing Through the Visible World: Jung, Gnosis, and Chaos. I checked the book out from the local library to learn something of Jungian archetypes, but learned much more. Singer (like other authors I've run across lately) uses the so-called new physics or new science to justify a new perspective, and in Singer's case, the Gnostic perspective of order-out-of-chaos gnosis or knowledge. This new physics of the twentieth century is, of course, Relativity, Quantum Theory and Emergent Complexity, which leaves Newtonian physics and much of the current social sciences based upon it behind. Determinism is dead. Knowledge is no longer static facts but dynamic trends; and in multiple dimensions. Creation does not fall out of an algorithm, but instead emerges out of chaos. It is no longer enough to feign objective observance of natural phenomena, clean-room experiments or surveys to “know” them. One must understand both the subject and the object, to predict the outcome of an applied predicate. In an age in which we program silicon machines to do the math for us (and increasingly more), determinism is a perspective to be relegated to the truly mechanized.

Most cultures have a creation myth describing a god that brings forth the world by bringing order to Chaos—usually by winning a battle over Chaos. But another way of looking at this is as if it were a continuous process. Creativity is itself the work of bringing order out of chaos. Which requires first that chaos exists. To bring order out of order is what we usually get with redaction, I think. Which is why my use of the word earlier is a misnomer. Order from order is merely warmed over, or rearranged stuff that we might as well merely point to and quote. But tossing seemingly unrelated stuff together and mixing it all up until there is no recognizable order produces a chaos from which a new creation can emerge. This is the magic of the Cosmos of which we are both made and also a contributing member. But how does one make sense of it all?

This, making sense of it all, is what I've found to be the great sticking point for myself. As I've mentioned before, I've got stacks of material on the floor (some of which I recently carried from Texas to Missouri to Nebraska and back) and loads of ideas floating in my head, but know of no way to get them organized onto a page. Over the past two months the situation has only grown. However, I'm beginning to see this Chaos as a good thing. That's because the chaotic, shapeless mass is beginning to show patterns. The more I add to the mass, the more distinct the patterns become even as the mass grows. If I were a real writer, I would have had from the beginning the skills to create patterns and line up the loonies on the path without first building the chaotic mass. But I'm not a writer, so I must do it the hard way. And I'm ok with that, these days. Even as the readership of this site drops because I'm not keeping my promises to follow through, I'm increasingly confident that the result will be something useful, that it will help others to add their own knowledge—some that they might not have known they had, and that it will be significantly different from the current fare getting published in books, journals and on the Internet today. But it is only out of the the chaotic disintegration of death that new life can emerge.

What has this got to do with Faith, anyway? Faith is the stuff of human relationship. Just think about it for awhile—a few days or weeks. Each relationship begins with an offer of unwarranted trust, which if offered from the other and repaid from each, lifts the relationship to the next level. Faith may even extend beyond humanity. It is the healthy bond between atoms and molecules in the structures of civilization. There are other bonds as well, but they are not healthy; they are not creative. Civilization is built upon faith. Not reason. Neither facts. It is faith

bill

Bill

This is going to kind of a rough form of question, so bear with me while I roll it out...

Goes with the gathering data that you mentioned, out of which emerges order.  Arti said this the other day..."Ever notice when flying that the river finds its way and life finds the river? "  There may be a cosmic truth there that fits very "naturally" into the scope of Existence.

Most religions that I have observed take the data and develop themes from them.  Even these themes can be forward looking as in the vision of the Restoration of Israel.  Time and motion are viewed determinately under Newtonian physics and from that we learned to guide missiles to a target by recomputing the time and distance to close.  While we have learned a lot from this kind of predication, there may be a whole lot more.

That is where I find my question -- in the chaotic soup of data, we stir in some time and motion, and voila:  a theme appears.  Did Singer have anything related to this?

reido

Reido,

Although I'm unsure that I've correctly understood your question, I'll take a stab at it anyway. In fact, throughout the book I was reminded of many of our conversations here. And at several places I thought: Reido would probably know all about this. Here's a quote from an interview with Singer that I found online.

MISHLOVE: June, in your early work at the Jung Institute, you have described in Boundaries of the Soul how for your final examination you were asked to describe the process of individuation, which is the goal of Jungian therapy, as if you were talking to a street sweeper while you were waiting for a bus. I wonder if you could repeat that definition for us.

SINGER: Yes, and that was a shocker of a question, I might add, because I had studied all the parallels of the individuation process from the alchemist down to the present day. So when this question came to me, to describe this process while you're waiting for the bus and you're talking to a street sweeper, I looked out at the Lake of Zurich, and I thought, well, it's something like being in a sailing boat on the lake and utilizing the wind, understanding that the wind is something that you don't make and you can't control. But you need to understand how to live your life in the same way that you understand how you would sail a boat, taking the power of the wind and going with it and allowing your own knowledge of it and your understanding of it to help you go in the direction that you need to be headed. And so in Jungian analysis you learn how to deal with your own power, or rather the power that comes through you, and live your life in such a way that it's harmonious with that power which is above and beyond and all around. ( Intuition.org, <http://www.intuition.org/txt/singer.htm>)

Singer also writes about Jung's collective unconscious from which apocalyptic revelations and messianic hopes burst into the “visible” world. Those in tune with the collective can predict potentiality in a people. But of course there are charlatans abounding, too. Still, the way that she explains it and the archetypes makes sense to me, at least.

I read the discussion between you and Arti and thought the “river finds its way and life finds the river” point was a great addition to your river metaphor. It seems like the natural flow is often backwards to the way that we often expect. Like the old saw that says: you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. I have tried to get my kids to do something and had them refuse, only to pick it up on their own later. If I were just smart enough to be prepared for them, rather than trying to “prepare” them.

bill

What an interesting title.  Might check that out.  Yes, the wind metaphor comes pretty easily to me.  Faith gets tied in when I understand that it is quite natural for life to play out seemingly infinite numbers of themes.  Your point is illustrated well to show how contrived many themes are -- that's the way we have been programmed.  The natural flow doesnt seem to work well when we attempt to force it.

 

reido