Truth

Vienna Doesn’t Mean That Much To Me…

May 23, 2011 By theloverevolution Leave a Comment

The parallel existence of two concepts of perfection, one strict (“perfection,” as such) and the other loose (“excellence”), has given rise — perhaps since antiquity but certainly since the Renaissance — to a singular paradox: that the greatest perfection is imperfection

so the apostle paul is meeting up some people in the middle of this square called the areopagus in athens. this was a place known by the locals as the place where philosophers went to talk about the latest fad. it was the center of popular beliefs and gossip, even spiritual fads too. one of the known features of this particular geographic was this pantheon or hall of gods. just to be safe these greek followers of zeus placed this one statue right amongst the others and gave it a name: the unknown god.

the god who is a mystery, to the greeks has a name. irony? i think so. in fact, i think this whole episode is dripping with greek irony so much so that shakespeare might have wished he would have written this encounter. because i don’t think paul is attempting to change their beliefs, i also don’t think he is attempting to convert them in any way. i think that view trivializes the apparent sarcasm that is prevalent throughout the narrator’s explanation along with the nuances of this supposed conversation. take for example, when paul over-emphatically proclaims to his audience that they are ‘very religious’ (another translation uses the word superstitious).

i don’t think paul is being a door-to-door salesman here and trying to manipulate them with nice rhetoric, which christians have been blamed for doing in the past. rather i think he is doing something even more subversive, he is taking them to the end of their conclusions. he is sarcastically leading them through their belief system, again, not condemning it, but rather demonstrating the weakness of causality. he is saying: if you are this religious, then this ultimately is where it will lead you. in a sense, i think he is defending their unknown god. the greek word here for unknown is the same word we use for agnosticism.

a tear in the natural order of knowing. a gap. a wound. a scar. a place where we cannot know.

then he starts to quote their philosophers, who in turn were speaking about zeus (EX: …’we live and move and have our being’…) but he uses the term God as we have it recorded to be. but he never once condemns their belief. he simply uses the term/title that he understands god as. his audience would have caught onto this. another reason why i think he was being sarcastic is the undercurrent of greco irony which displaces not only the character (the hall of gods;truth;knowledge – in this narrative) but the idea of fluidity or the militant claim that perfection has only one definition.

and so in this conversation we see paul pushing the boundaries of belief so far that he begins challenging his audience with their own beliefs. which again this wasn’t foreign to the greek philosophers. they would been more than okay with this approach. and so his over-identification of God (saying god has created everything and etc.) although it might be true in theory is more of an ideological catch-22. and in this moment is when the wheels begin turning, because paul is indirectly speaking back into the belief of this unknown god.

paul is speaking of this gap. this unknown.

and for me, this is the centerpiece of his conversation, not the god itself but rather the need for the unknown. for agnosticism. this is why he also says god cant be a statue. god is fluid. god is untouchable (this is different from claiming that god isn’t relatable). this is why ultimately things like theology, doctrine, dogma and etc. don’t work, because taken to the end of our conclusion we are left with nothing more than a system of beliefs and no god left to worship. paul i think is claiming the same thing. that they can believe in all kinds of different things and be into the latest fads (for christians, it might be the emergent church or open theism and so on), but ultimately we don’t know. and the irony that i think he is playing on here is that the unknown is the closest we get to faith. that unbelief is belief. that denial is acceptance. i am not naive enough to think that we can simply get away with absolving ourselves from community. for it is in the evolutionary development of religion that we find beliefs are created to pose a sense of community. i posit we don’t need beliefs to create community, but rather we need each other to create community.

we need to believe in each other to solidify this community. before i get called a heretic. let’s talk about hegel for a second. he once thought that the holy spirit was God emptying his/herself into humanity. the human bond. let’s go with this for this discussion. if hegel was right, then once we create ‘knowns’ we create distance between us and the holy spirit (remember, this is hegels’: human bond) and so ultimately beliefs actually don’t create community, they distance us from community.

they dismantle it.they destroy it. i am not saying we don’t need beliefs, but i am saying that if we truly desire community (some people term this church and etc.) then we must be willing to walk away from beliefs, no matter what side of the fence we’re on….

think about this on a social level…it is our superstitions that keep us from knowing each other. it is those things that create to keep ourselves safe from the unknown – the other stands in the place of the unknown. and represents that thing we fear the most. and so to dissociate ourselves from the other we are forced to betray the notion of loving our neighbour (the other) by including ideological barriers that keep us from connecting with the one we are meant to love. beliefs are violent. they separate us from the object of our desire.

Filed Under: Culture, The Emergent Conversation Tagged With: agnosticism, christian, church, Community, cross, fence, fundamentalism, gnostic, god, hegel, jesis, left, liberals, love, right, Truth

the rabbi who teaches about hate.

June 17, 2010 By theloverevolution Leave a Comment

In Jewish history and tradition, the family is considered to be the most important institution for shaping ethnic and religious identity and transmitting Judaism’s basic norms and values.! Indeed, the family and the synagogue are the only two institutions referred to in traditional Jewish literature as mikdash me ‘at, or “sanctuary in miniature,” sharing the responsibility for handing down both Jewish law and Jewish values. The family has been the setting, if not the focal point, for much of Jewish religious tradition. And, in the view of many present-day observers, it is the institution primarily responsible for Jewish continuity.

the father in the first-century jewish world was the go-to person. he was the hierarchy within the family system, the person in charge, and also the person to blame if any of his children got out of hand. his role was to keep order in his family. his role was one of the most important in the jewish community. it was a role of status. and jesus says to hate him – well, not him but the role, what he stands for. he essentially tells those who want to be just like him to violently divorce themselves from a need for hierarchy. hierarchy is also how rome ran their country. even other tribes during that period had hierarchies. had roles and status. he was challenging the cultural structures. he was pushing the boundaries of the status quo into this deep non-existence. a family gives you status. gives you a name and even influence.

jesus is saying to give it up.

become nameless.

become a person who isn’t driven by success or by what gives you status. in fact it he says to hate it. if you hate something you distance yourself from it. you don’t associate yourself with it or anything that is related to it. that is the metaphor of hating your father, mother, daughter and etc. hate anything that is associated with status. become status-less. jesus is attempting to restore a spirit of nonduality. he is being counter-culturally counter-cultural. he is also denigrating familial convention.

to hear a rabbi tell you that you must hate your family wouldn’t have been a nice thing to hear, and like some of us, some of the hearers might have also heard this literally. so, this wouldn’t have set well on the tastebuds. these were sour words. they would have stung. the father was the central figure to holding tradition together. jesus invites us to ‘hate’ them. jesus is saying that to be people who can be enlightened like him, we have to be willing to disassociate ourselves with tradition, dissassociating ourselves from structure, distance ourselves from the culture that gave us a name.

jesus is also saying we must become genderless. that there are no male or female roles, there just is. we are what we are because of the person next to us, not because of anything we’ve done. we are what we are not because of status but because of who we are. nothing else gives us status other than us being us.

in a culture, where everything was inherited (even sin in some circles) jesus is inviting each person to see themselves as one yet unique. as a free person who has a right to be different; in that culture, it was expected that you would become what the father wanted you to be. jesus is inviting all to pave their own way. to strip themselves of conventional identity and see beyond the culture and see themselves as a person who has an identity to be discovered. part of this process is the willingness to be anarchic to our traditions, vices, and identity. we must become identityless to find ourselves. you might notice some dichotomies in this post. its because the role of father has dichotomy laced within its role. its paradox in its stringent form. the follower of jesus is one who is willing to find herself in the chaos of paradox. even to the point of intentionally immersing one’s identity into the eye of the storm that will strip the identity of identity. in the gap between identity and being nameless is the person you were meant to be waiting for you there. this process of divorce is is part of the journey of what it means to meet the rabbi witout a name.

Filed Under: The Emergent Conversation Tagged With: bible, chaos, god, hate, identity, jesus, jewish, love, nameless, one, paradox, role, strip, Truth, verse

cultivating a divorce from meritocracy.

June 15, 2010 By theloverevolution Leave a Comment

Read Matthew 20:1-16 — (NIV)

Peter wants to know what’s in it for him. What’s the prize? Where’s the pot of gold waiting? Peter is trying to put a price on what it looks like to follow Jesus. Fair enough, the disciples literally left everything. They had no status, no money, no social life, for all intense purposes they gave it all up. They were status less, faceless and in societies eyes because they had nothing were worthless. (there is something to be said about how we come to Christ; we might need to let go of all the things that give us worth to find it) At the root of Peter’s question is I need something to give me worth. I need something that will give me status. Peter wants to make his life meaningful. he wants to know what he’s going to get out of it. Its about him.

Some churches are built on a meritocratic structure. Some conservative/neo-conservative theology is built around the idea that if we do something, we earn more. Or to be a follower of Jesus means the more we change ourselves the more acceptable we become. The more we morph into the cookie-cutter Jesus follower, the more acceptable to God we are. Jesus counters this very theology head-on, he essentially says all the laborers are the same. Also, notice they are day-laborers (they receive a ‘day-wage’); they need the work. They need the wage to sustain themselves, families and assets. These things give them status. In that culture, what you had gave you a name, remember the ‘rich man’, he had a lot that’s why he was called the rich man. The more you had the more important you were, Peter wants that more. He wants status. Much like we all do at one time or another.

This story isn’t anti-materialistic, it is anti-hierarchy. Having things isn’t the issue, how we have those things might be.

There aren’t some christians better than others. Christ-followers aren’t better than Mohammed-followers. Christ-followers aren’t better than Joseph-smith followers. There isn’t the hierarchy like there is in Rome, which was the known world. (I also think this has a lot to say to ‘top-down’ model churches)

The kingdom of God (according to some Rabbinic Scholars) is the same word for heaven. Now, as I shared in a previous post, heaven in the Hebrew is interchangeable with the Kingdom of God. In some Bible versions the word is Kingdom of Heaven instead. When you look up the word for heaven one of the words featured within the word is the word for universe/sky. So, maybe a better rendering for the Kingdom of God would be a ‘universal ethic’, or ‘universal way of life’, or maybe even ‘universal potential’. So when Jesus starts talking about a vineyard this is what he is referring to, he is saying this universal ethnic is much like a vineyard.

In the Hebrew, the word for vineyard is kereme. Its the simple word for plant. So, what we know is that these laborers came not only to tend but also to plant. To cultivate. To invest themselves in what they are doing. To bring new life into existence. To be responsible for life. To cultivate life into barren places. This is what this universal ethic looks like. It’s universal because everyone can share in this work. Notice that none of the laborers are named, now why in a society where your name has currency are there characters without names? I think this goes back to English class. I remember my teacher informing me that whenever an author left a character unnamed, it was because they wanted the reader to assume its them. We/whoever is reading it is the worker. Whoever is reading it.

Jesus is also responding to the social convention/expectation that we get what we deserve. That if we work hard enough, we will get the ‘just’ pay spoken of in the story. Jesus is violently divorcing the status quo from its ‘rightful’ place. Jesus is re-defining justice. We tend to define it in terms of karma or some law that dictates if we work hard than we get more. We are defining what we deserve by how much we put ourselves into something rather than putting ourselves into something regardless of the merit. Sometimes we do this just to be noticed. Just to be recognized. Our intentions stem from a need to be loved,accepted and validated. Jesus essentially swoops in with this story and respond to Peter by saying all are valid. All are acceptable.

There is also the general case for justice. We tend to define justice within a construct of social morality. What is acceptable on the whole or what is written in the ‘law-book’. Jesus essentially redraws the boundaries and invites Peter and all of us to see that true justice isn’t justice. that justice lies in the gaps. where justice hides is the space between where justice and injustice resides. He is saying that justice doesn’t make sense, well, at least the kingdom kind of justice doesn’t follow the Roman equation. This new kind of justice is egalitarian. It defies logic. Jesus is challenging Peter to rethink they way he sees justice. the way he sees merit. the way he see labor.

Also, the word for laborers in hebrew is amel – it has the meaning of someone ‘who toils’ but also mischief and wicked are two ideas that are carried with it as well. I stumbled upon a website that explains this concept well — “”the dissatisfaction that comes in life because we work, toil, and labor, and never find real contentment.” The same Hebrew word is used by Moses in Psalm 90:10, “The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble (Heb: amel).” These laborers are in a state of hopelessness. They think they have no purpose in life. It seems Jesus is using Jewish sarcasm here in response to Peter’s question. He tells a story where in the story Peter is one of the laborers. Peter needs something to give him hope because he seems despondant without something to give him hope. Its the consumer idea behind the idea that we need things to validate or make us feel hopeful or purposeful. Yet Jesus talks of day-laborers who are also in the ‘now’. the right now. he is encouraging peter (IMHO) to live for the now. to be fully in the naked now. to rest in the fact that he has now is more than he will ever need.

a lesson i myself along with our culture need to learn.

* a link to check out: http://www.jackshea.org/articles-21stSundayOT.htm

Filed Under: The Emergent Conversation Tagged With: bible, ethic, god, jesus, justice, kingdom of God, laborers, merit, meritocracy, peter, pot of gold, reverse, Truth, universal

Rescuing Mystery: A New Counter-Enlightenment

June 13, 2010 By theloverevolution Leave a Comment

Few new truths have ever won their way against the resistance of established ideas save by being overstated. — Isaiah Berlin

The very desire for guarantees that our values are eternal and secure in some objective heaven is perhaps only a craving for the certainties of childhood or the absolute values of our primitive past. — Isaiah Berlin

Our world is in a state of pregnant perpetuation over the incessant need for information. Turning on our televisions demonstrate this quite clearly. Within a 2-minute span there are commercials telling us what we lack, there are advertisements numbing us to war-torn countries and bloated babies, there are pictures after pictures subconsciously brainwashing us to believe we need to feed the consumer within. This new era has and is being called the Information Age. It seems we depend on information to tell us what to believe, to inform us of what we lack, to direct us in our life goals. The information age has become another name for irresponsible binge thinking. It seems we have become zombies to our pre-fabricated environments. We easily accept rather than question.

We sign-on-the-dotted-line without knowing what we’re committing ourselves to. Some or most of this brain-numbing slavery is do to the Enlightenment.

The Enlightenment was good in that it inspired a resurrection in the art of questioning. I think where the Enlightenment has failed us is that it has now empowered us with the ability (yet with an apparent unawareness) to create information into a pantheon of deities. Even within religions across the board, this seems to be taking place. We depend upon the dissemination of ancient information to fully inform us in the now. To be clear, there is a need for information, for holy writ, even if only to challenge it. The issue is when followers of any religion transform their information into a deity that becomes the leader or structure to measure the validity of another’s life.

The Enlightenment has assisted in this movement by empowering people with the desire and capability to transform information not only into a rubric but into a messiah. Rather than seeking the messiah beyond the messiah, we have accepted the first construct as the real one. Much like the Matrix.

Yet, there is also the apparent flip-side of this dichotomy as well, some people are starting to question.

Some people aren’t okay with the hidden undergrowth of indoctrination. Some people have seen the real wizard behind the curtain. They are people of the counter-enlightenment. This was inspired by Isaiah Berlin who saw that we needed to rescue beauty. We needed to free ambiguity from its cage. That we had a responsibility to restore the need for mystery.

The counter-enlightenment is about reduction.

Reducing our answers, dethroning them and finding God beyond them.

This new counter-enlightenment denies that words alone have power and re-invites mystery to return from exile to speak to us. To teach us. To inform us of what we have been missing. The counter-enlightenment* is an all-inclusive open movement that invites any and all people, from all religions, from all spaces to come and sit and rest in silence. Rest in the reality that God wasn’t in the storm, or the lightning, or the earthquake, but that God himself was in the silence**. This is where we want to be in the silence. Where do you want to be?

*The hope is to create a real-time counter-enlightenment movement. Anyone interested, contact me.

** Rabbinic Scholars translate this story to mean that God wasn’t just in the silence, but that his voice was the silence itself.

Filed Under: Culture, The Emergent Conversation Tagged With: ambiguity, berling, counter-enlightenment, desire, enlightenment, eternal, heaven, information age, isaiah, mystery, philosophy, pregnant, religion, the, Truth

verbal abjection: being changed by a changing language.

May 30, 2010 By theloverevolution Leave a Comment

The concept of abject is often coupled (and sometimes confused with) the idea of the uncanny, the concept of something being “un-home-like”, or foreign, yet familiar. The abject can be uncanny in the sense that we can recognize aspects in it, despite its being “foreign”. An example, continuing on the one used above, is that of a corpse, namely the corpse of a loved one. We will recognize that person as being close to us, but the fact that the person is dead, and “no longer” the familiar loved one, is what creates a sort of cognitive dissonance, leading to abjection of the corpse.

We all search for home in one way or another. Home is what we know. Home is what creates a sense of safety, at times it might be a false-sense of safety, but safety nonetheless. Home is important to our development. We all search for home in different shapes or forms. The whole idea behind a child holding on to a blanket and taking it with them everywhere they go or while they sleep is this psychological need for home (or safety). To be estranged from our homes it to make us a foreigner or immigrant. This feeling of being an outsider tugs at the very idea of being rejected by others; it challenges our own value. Rather than embracing the life an outsider, we do and try things to make sure we remain the insider.

Acceptance makes us feel like we are back at home again. Acceptance seems to make sense to us in our subconscious, once we lose that feeling, we spend our whole lives trying to get it back. But, what if part of why we’re afraid of being the foreigner is because at times we still feel like an outsider. Chances are, you and I have and will feel like the outsider at sometime in our lives. Maybe we are afraid of the untruth that we aren’t valuable. At one point, the author of Hebrews talks about how we are all foreigners/pilgrims just passing through – that this world is not our home. That all we accrue is temporary. That our status is beyond what we see. That our acceptance doesn’t lie in what we do/don’t have. Our status is transient. It doesn’t dictate who we are or can be.

If this is true, than maybe we need to learn what it looks like to hold the things we might call home, loosely. This isn’t to forget or devalue the importance of the ideas we may have accrued. Let me clear something up, I am not talking about relationships. I am talking about ideas, philosophies, worldviews and personal status.

Maybe the part of being abject, is to treat our ideas and even language with a bit of abjection. If we don’t, no matter how hard we try, our ideas will never evolve – they might be re-packaged but really they haven’t changed. If we learn to hold our ideas loosely than not only does it allow space for those ideas to evolve, but it allows us the space neccessary to evolve with them. If the feeling of abjection can teach us anything, may it be that to renew our ideas, to renew our thoughts, we must hold the words we speak with a spirit of abjectivity. When we do, we can begin to learn to live in a state of perpetual change.

Filed Under: The Emergent Conversation Tagged With: abject, acceptance, afraid, chances are, embrace, estranged, hebrews, Home, jews, maybe, outsider, the, Truth, you

why we need absurdity.

May 25, 2010 By theloverevolution 1 Comment

absurd
1550s, from Fr. absurde, from L. absurdus “out of tune” – out of propriety

life doesn’t make sense, but then again that is extremely cliche, but true. we get taught at an early age to ‘fix’ things. we learn that through our toys that the square peg doesn’t go in the round hole. that the colors are meant to match. that clothes are supposed to coordinate. we learn that if they don’t, its absurd. its improper.

we get brainwashed into thinking we are all made to be and think the same.

then we join certain communities, groups, friends, churches that somehow teach us all to think the same. believe the same. we get entrenched into a way of life where when things don’t follow the patterns we get taught then we think something is wrong with life.

absurdity teaches us we don’t have to be god. absurdity teaches us that when life it out of tune, its more than okay. it empowers us to see that maybe a square-peg can fit into a round hole. that maybe ambiguity is a good thing. absurdity draws us back into the mystery. absurdity allows us to ask questions that others might not think we should. absurdity allows us to confess that we don’t have all the answers. we need more absurd politicians, theologians, historians and etc. absurdity draws us into curiosity with a child-like fervor. it draws us into expressive creativity that are constantly re-drawing the boundaries. it allows us all to be out of tune. and that we shouldn’t have to feel bad or inadequate if we are. it allows us to see the world in a whole new light, along with one another. absurdity allows to see that love can really change everything. that love is salvation. that love heals. that love transforms. absurdity breaks the chains of sameness. absurdity allows us to be broken and accept that that is alright. absurdity allows us to draw outside the lines and demonstrate another aspect of our divinity. it also allows us to not take ourselves so seriously, to laught at ourselves, to parody ourselves. to hold what we say and do in light reverie, but deep reverance.
absurdity can change the world. we have to start by accepting that what isn’t proper might lead us down the rabbit hole and bring us into a world where the impossible becomes possible. dream in asburdity!

Filed Under: Creative Writing, Culture Tagged With: absurd, alice, asburdity, god, hole, ideas, out of tune, proper, rabbit, theologians, thoughts, Truth, world. globe

deconstructing deconstruction that leads to reconstruction

May 23, 2010 By theloverevolution Leave a Comment

trying to make sense of what we go through tends to be a natural thing that most people want to do. when the world falls around us, we want to not simply pick up the pieces, we also want to inspect the pieces and know why they fell apart in the first place. our curiosity drives into wonder. we wonder why things didn’t work out and want to make sense of it all. we think making sense of it will somehow bring this holistic peace. which isn’t necessarily true.

deconstruction i think is within us. deconstruction compells us to ask questions we might not otherwise. it forces us into corners we intentionally stay out of. it forces us to deal with the areas we have either been told not to interact with or have out of fear never deconstructed before.

deconstructing the bible, jesus, belief systems, theology and the world around us is perfectly natural to being human. there isn’t anything wrong with deconstruction. we all need to ask the questions we’ve been told we’re not supposed to, not for the sole sake of being defiant, but to learn and unlearn the things we might need divorce ourselves from. it’s not an easy or comfortable process, we might even lose friends and make enemies in the process. but if we never ask questions we either have learned to accept our lot as a victim who allows life to happen or we have been brainwashed to think we don’t need to walk outside of the boundaries to see who and what lies beyond.

if we never walk outside of the fences we’ve constructed for ourselves than we will only grow as large as the space that we have conceived for ourselves. questions are essential because they lead us on, the move us, inspire us and even challenge us to see beyond what we think know. deconstruction is about letting go of the systems of belief, coming to realize that salvation isn’t found in systems. that salvation isn’t found in a belief system, but partial-salvation (which means ‘healing’) might be found in the process from deconstruction to reconstruction.

but what if reconstruction isn’t what we think it is?

the word tends to connote the idea of rebuilding, or piecing things back together. what if reconstruction was revisited from a different lens?

maybe reconstruction can be less about rebuilding our ideas, and more about our actions. more about living out our ideas embedded with compassion. reconstruction tends to be more about putting ideas back together, but what i am proposing deconstructing be a part of a life-long journey. that we hold the art of the question closely and intimately. but that we also see that there is a need for reconstruction. for a putting back together. a time to build and a time to tear down.

but if we can begin to see that reconstruction can be the process that we live out. that our actions define our beliefs. rather than our beliefs (which should always be held loosely) forming us, which seemingly doesn’t work so well. so maybe deconstruction can be ongoing, but reconstruction can be how we choose to live our lives out. for example — we can constantly hold the ethic of love while we question the validity of baptism. and so what frames us isn’t whether we believe in baptism, but that love is constantly reconstructing with us no matter what we might end believing in. Life is a journey, deconstruction and reconstruction can be the lovely companions that trek along with us.

Filed Under: The Emergent Conversation Tagged With: batism, bible, companions, deconstruction, derrida, god, jesus, life, philosophy, reconstruction, thought, trek, Truth

new thoughts on the rich man and lazarus

May 5, 2010 By theloverevolution Leave a Comment

here are some new thoughts as well as jewish notes and understanding of the story of the rich man and lazarus and how it also challenges us how we treat those who are outside of our community or sphere of influence…rich man and lazarus

Filed Under: The Emergent Conversation Tagged With: 16, bible, crumbs, israel, jesus, judah, justice, lazarus, love, luke, parable, poverty, purple, religions, rich, rich man, status, story, Truth

i am interviewed over at something beautiful podcast. check it out below….

April 30, 2010 By theloverevolution Leave a Comment

http://www.somethingbeautifulpodcast.com/podcast/043010.mp3

Filed Under: The Emergent Conversation Tagged With: bible, conditioned, interview, jesus, sheep, something beautiful podcast, theology, thomas mathie, Truth

meet truths relatives.

April 25, 2010 By theloverevolution Leave a Comment

truth is a murky subject. because some believe there is objective truth. others believe that truth is subjective. some might even believe that truth can b discovered in 66 books, others believe it can be found in the forest. some believe truth is a person, and others believe truth is an illusion. but why not both? why can’t truth have elements of all of the above rather than constantly fighting against one another. that maybe each characteristic above along with a whole gamut of others can teach us things about truth and its nature and how we can discover it. i think truth can even be like a dysfunctional family. but a family nonetheless.

Meet Truth ‘The Father’: Truth as a father cares for us. supplies our needs. works hard for our development. guides us. corrects us. advises us. loves us. can believe in you.

Meet Truth ‘The Mother’: Truth as a mother is compassionate. is powerful. is independent. is loving. accepting. correcting. beautiful. nurturing. listening. teaching. meets our needs.can believe in you.

Meet Truth ‘The Siblings’: Truth as siblings can annoy you. can upset you. can enter your world when you don’t want it to. can be there for you when you least expect it. can stick up for you. can love you. can spur you on. can borrow things without ever returning them. can be your hero. can believe in you.

Meet Truth ‘The Cousin’: Truth as a Cousin can seem distant. out of reach. uknown. cold. out of contact. unsupportive. OR close. within reach. known. warm and inviting. accessible. can believe in you.

Truth as a family teaches us that present within the fabric of truth is diversity. there is transformation. but that truth believes in us. truth cares for us. truth is also different to each person as you can see the characteristics being played out, this doesn’t mean that there isn’t truth out there that isn’t objective, it means that all of our attempts can barely graspe the full depth of truth. it doesn’t mean we don’t try, what it means is we enjoy the journey. we let it unfold us, rather than trying to colonize it. we allow the relationships we have in truth to expound upon us rather than us trying to comment on it. the less we try to influence truth to be what we think it should be, the more truth can influence us to find who were are meant to be.

Filed Under: The Emergent Conversation Tagged With: authors, believe, bible, brother, comment, cousin, father, influecne, love, mother, sibling, sister, Truth, trying