The people involved with the Emotional Intelligence literature and with Plutchik's Wheel of Emotions deserve a lot of credit for really understanding the whole brain or mind, rather than just a part of the brain or mind. From the Emotional Intelligence people, I learned that the emotions are a part of the mind or the intellect. They are not primarily in contrast to intelligence. From the Plutchik's writings or diagrams, I learned the different dimensions of emotions and how the mind processes work. What I have done in this piece of writing is apply the concept of the whole and its parts to this literature and below is what I got. Please do not blame the authors for my organization of things. You will have to blame me for that, but without their work, I would have had nothing to organize and little understanding of emotions.
The basic four positive emotions and the basic four negative emotions are:
Anticipation versus Anger (Amount Focused)
Joy versus Disgust (Relationship Focused)
Trust versus Fear (Action Focused)
Surprise versus Sadness (Thing Focused)
The process using the whole brain, rather than just the one part of the emotional center looks like the following diagrams:
Amount processing:
Anticipation Anger (amount stage)
Interested Annoyance (relationship stage)
Vigilance Rage (action stage)
Postive Amount Negative Amount (thing stage)
Relationship Processing:
Joy Disgust (amount stage)
Estasy Boredom (relationship stage)
Serenity Loathing (action stage)
Positive Relationship Negative Relationship (thing stage)
Action Processing:
Trust Fear (amount stage)
Acceptance Apprehension (relationship stage)
Admiration Terror (action stage)
Positive Action Negative Action (thing stage)
Thing Processing:
Surprise Sadness (amount stage)
Distraction Pensiveness (relationship stage)
Amazement Grief (action stage)
Positive Thing Negative Thing (thing stage)
Originally, when I put this all together I used some features in Microsoft Word to make some beautiful pictures of the processes of the mind. Unfortunately, my mind was not able to figure out a way to transfer those documents to this blog.
If you would like some colorful copies, I can send you hard copies, if you call me. For now I will say I can do it for a dollar a copy, so I at least cover postage and paper. If I get too busy I may have to charge something for my time, but I will post any change in price here first. You can call me at: 920-803-8623. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Jon
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Whole Means Healthy and Being Sound
Whole means healthy has a tremendous number of implications. One of the greatest problems for many of us is that without a focus on being whole or healthy, we feel a great deal of insecurity.
The word for healthy in the Bible is also translated as sound. We lack security and soundness, because we have placed so little attention on what creates that security in our personalities.
I have found that knowing that holy means whole and that whole means healthy through their close relationship have made me a far more secure person. My only frustration is that the habits of insecurity don't die easily.
Insecurity in our personalities draws into our lives those who are abusive and negative. I have seen plenty of that in my own life. Unfortunately, not all of that trait of being insecure has gone away. Yet what I have noticed, since growing in my own understanding (standing under) of being whole is that fewer abusive people are a part of my life. My prayer for you is that you could experience the same thing. I have not found any way that works better than this one to remove insecurity effectively.
I have experienced unsound negative criticism in my lifetime, but that is the stuff of those unwilling to enter into negotiating and understanding (standing under). The really great people in this world are able to negotiate in a healthy way about things they don't understand and they are able to grow in understanding. I hope you will take this to heart, if you are one of those who tends to give in under harsh and unsound criticism.
I am very confident that the next great revival or reformation will have at its core the twin ideas of holy means whole and whole means healthy. I am more than willing to negotiate with those who disagree. Yet it is high time to not give in to unhealthy or unsound criticism. It is great to feel secure in saying that, because I know the foundations for being healthy and sound. I pray that you will discover the same sense of security.
In Christ,
Jon
The word for healthy in the Bible is also translated as sound. We lack security and soundness, because we have placed so little attention on what creates that security in our personalities.
I have found that knowing that holy means whole and that whole means healthy through their close relationship have made me a far more secure person. My only frustration is that the habits of insecurity don't die easily.
Insecurity in our personalities draws into our lives those who are abusive and negative. I have seen plenty of that in my own life. Unfortunately, not all of that trait of being insecure has gone away. Yet what I have noticed, since growing in my own understanding (standing under) of being whole is that fewer abusive people are a part of my life. My prayer for you is that you could experience the same thing. I have not found any way that works better than this one to remove insecurity effectively.
I have experienced unsound negative criticism in my lifetime, but that is the stuff of those unwilling to enter into negotiating and understanding (standing under). The really great people in this world are able to negotiate in a healthy way about things they don't understand and they are able to grow in understanding. I hope you will take this to heart, if you are one of those who tends to give in under harsh and unsound criticism.
I am very confident that the next great revival or reformation will have at its core the twin ideas of holy means whole and whole means healthy. I am more than willing to negotiate with those who disagree. Yet it is high time to not give in to unhealthy or unsound criticism. It is great to feel secure in saying that, because I know the foundations for being healthy and sound. I pray that you will discover the same sense of security.
In Christ,
Jon
Whole Means Healthy Means Connecting Words with Things
"Among the multitude of scholars and authors we feel no hallowing presence; we are sensible of a knack and skill rather than of inspiration; they have a light and know not whence it comes and call it their own: their talent is some exaggerated faculty, some overgrown member, so that their strength is a disease." I start with this quote because this blog is intended to speak about being healthy and part of that is the importance of things and not just words.
My other blog intends to discuss a skill in words. Yet a knack and skill in words alone carries the danger spoken of above, if it is exaggerated. The author of the above quote also wrote: "... answers never by words, but by the thing itself that is inquired after." The author also wrote: "No answer in words can reply to a question of things."
The balance that I want to achieve is that of a healthy relationship between things and words. I want to be derogatory toward neither, except when one truly becomes over-developed at the expense of the other. One of my professors in college points out this distinction another way. He calls it the difference between a knower and a teacher or the difference between a learner and a student. The former is concerned with things, the latter with words. Both are needed together in a healthy educational atmosphere.
What has really driven me to write about being whole and healthy are the real world need for each. Look around you at the people you know. Do not many people need to be whole and healthy? Isn't healthy also a buzz word in our time? Yet what is the thing called healthy? Or what is the thing called whole?
Alongside of stumbling upon the word holy meaning whole, I was stumbling through life in need of being whole. I was not a holy person, because I was not aware that a holy person was a whole person. The words I heard took me away from being healthy to "some exaggerated faculty, some overgrown member." Whether the topic was humility or love or some other, they each in succession pulled me away from the reality of being a whole person, because the community and communication exaggerated one part in place of the whole.
This is where the skill of words becomes important. Words are carriers of things between people and from God to us and us to God. It is much like money which takes the place of the goods. Words are the carriers of things from one person to another, much like people can exchange goods through the exchange of money. Yet the money ultimately is concerned about the goods and about the tremendous advantage that money offers over a world where there is only the goods.
Likewise words themselves are about things and about the tremendous advantage we have, because we have the faculty to communicate by words. I think we have a great yearning in our day for being whole and for being healthy. I think quite a few of the broken want to be healed. I think a few want to stop that healing for others and I think a few of the broken enjoy the excuses they can make from their brokenness. I also think many healthy people can discern something whole and something broken.
What is missing is God's communication on this subject, because the thing called words are in disrepute. They aren't regarded like money. People too often exaggerate the power of money and dismiss the power of words. If God meant to communicate that a holy person is a whole person and therefore a healthy person, then we are missing out because I don't get that thing called healthy, when I exchange my words with another person. This is because the message we are receiving or the money we are getting says that the thing we can exchange our words for is not a whole thing, but a separated thing.
The problem is that the thing we are receiving for our words is not what we need. Unfortunately, while money can be spent on a diversity of things, if you have enough; words can only be exchanged for the thing they are agreed to refer to in the language we speak to one another. So back to my earlier quote: "Among the multitude of scholars and authors we feel no hallowing presence; we are sensible of a knack and skill rather than of inspiration ...." Inspiration comes not from words, but from things. Are you sure when we read your Bible, you are getting the thing God intended and that you needed or has someone swapped the goods on you? May God bless you with discernment.
In Christ,
Jon
My other blog intends to discuss a skill in words. Yet a knack and skill in words alone carries the danger spoken of above, if it is exaggerated. The author of the above quote also wrote: "... answers never by words, but by the thing itself that is inquired after." The author also wrote: "No answer in words can reply to a question of things."
The balance that I want to achieve is that of a healthy relationship between things and words. I want to be derogatory toward neither, except when one truly becomes over-developed at the expense of the other. One of my professors in college points out this distinction another way. He calls it the difference between a knower and a teacher or the difference between a learner and a student. The former is concerned with things, the latter with words. Both are needed together in a healthy educational atmosphere.
What has really driven me to write about being whole and healthy are the real world need for each. Look around you at the people you know. Do not many people need to be whole and healthy? Isn't healthy also a buzz word in our time? Yet what is the thing called healthy? Or what is the thing called whole?
Alongside of stumbling upon the word holy meaning whole, I was stumbling through life in need of being whole. I was not a holy person, because I was not aware that a holy person was a whole person. The words I heard took me away from being healthy to "some exaggerated faculty, some overgrown member." Whether the topic was humility or love or some other, they each in succession pulled me away from the reality of being a whole person, because the community and communication exaggerated one part in place of the whole.
This is where the skill of words becomes important. Words are carriers of things between people and from God to us and us to God. It is much like money which takes the place of the goods. Words are the carriers of things from one person to another, much like people can exchange goods through the exchange of money. Yet the money ultimately is concerned about the goods and about the tremendous advantage that money offers over a world where there is only the goods.
Likewise words themselves are about things and about the tremendous advantage we have, because we have the faculty to communicate by words. I think we have a great yearning in our day for being whole and for being healthy. I think quite a few of the broken want to be healed. I think a few want to stop that healing for others and I think a few of the broken enjoy the excuses they can make from their brokenness. I also think many healthy people can discern something whole and something broken.
What is missing is God's communication on this subject, because the thing called words are in disrepute. They aren't regarded like money. People too often exaggerate the power of money and dismiss the power of words. If God meant to communicate that a holy person is a whole person and therefore a healthy person, then we are missing out because I don't get that thing called healthy, when I exchange my words with another person. This is because the message we are receiving or the money we are getting says that the thing we can exchange our words for is not a whole thing, but a separated thing.
The problem is that the thing we are receiving for our words is not what we need. Unfortunately, while money can be spent on a diversity of things, if you have enough; words can only be exchanged for the thing they are agreed to refer to in the language we speak to one another. So back to my earlier quote: "Among the multitude of scholars and authors we feel no hallowing presence; we are sensible of a knack and skill rather than of inspiration ...." Inspiration comes not from words, but from things. Are you sure when we read your Bible, you are getting the thing God intended and that you needed or has someone swapped the goods on you? May God bless you with discernment.
In Christ,
Jon
Whole Means Healthy Focuses on Learning
Early on in this blog, I want to say that it is intended to link teaching to everyday things, to daily topics and to local or even international issues. I am not a great admirer of those who learned nothing in the classroom nor of those who are stuck in it. I like to distinguish learning about things from studying words. Both are necessary parts of the same coin.
Wholeness and whole are classroom material that clearly express the meaning of holiness and holy. If you want to research and study this topic, then you can check out: http://holinessiswholeness.blogspot.com/. That was written to fill the teaching or studying need in our lives.
Healthy and unbroken are the everyday stuff of life that must be addressed, if we are going to make a difference in this world. As only one example, Martin Luther was saved through the teaching of the righteousness of God in Christ, but he delivered a deathblow to the world the way it was by addressing everyday and eternal acceptance topics like indulgences. This everyday stuff is what eventually lit the fires of world transformation! This stuff is about learning and real things.
My desire is to see the world transformed once again through the renewing of our minds and the transforming of our lives (Romans 12:1-3). We need to study and learn. May God make changes in our day, like what He has done before in lighting the fires of renewal, revival and reformation. God's blessings on your day.
In Christ,
Jon
Wholeness and whole are classroom material that clearly express the meaning of holiness and holy. If you want to research and study this topic, then you can check out: http://holinessiswholeness.blogspot.com/. That was written to fill the teaching or studying need in our lives.
Healthy and unbroken are the everyday stuff of life that must be addressed, if we are going to make a difference in this world. As only one example, Martin Luther was saved through the teaching of the righteousness of God in Christ, but he delivered a deathblow to the world the way it was by addressing everyday and eternal acceptance topics like indulgences. This everyday stuff is what eventually lit the fires of world transformation! This stuff is about learning and real things.
My desire is to see the world transformed once again through the renewing of our minds and the transforming of our lives (Romans 12:1-3). We need to study and learn. May God make changes in our day, like what He has done before in lighting the fires of renewal, revival and reformation. God's blessings on your day.
In Christ,
Jon
Whole Means Healthy After All Else Fails
Thomas Edison was an incredible example of perseverance. While interviewers wanted to know about his final success, he knew that the key was in the 99 attempts that failed and not in the 1 attempt that succeeded. What we often miss is how normal it is to have to keep going after 99 failures. What we maybe miss even more is that we each have a long path of failures before most of our successes.
We think Edison is the exemption, not the rule. Yet from my own experience, long before I considered that whole means healthy, I tried a barrage of other things that failed. I became a real expert on how to fail. Some ideas failed miserably and some failed gloriously, but in the end they all failed. At the ripe age of 10, I thought I found the resolution to my spiritual struggles. Yet at the next struggle, it was ill-equipped to help me. At age 17, I found resolution again to another struggle. Yet at the next struggle, it actually made things far worse and drove me into the darkness of depression. Then at age 23, I again emerged a little more cautious, yet hopeful as I emerged stronger and I was able to defeat depression through lessons from God's Word. Yet once again, this resolution was poorly suited to my next struggle. Still again, I found resolution to another struggle with still more caution and humility. Yet even with that caution and humility, the next struggle was not resolved by my previous lessons. I had to learn yet more and more and still fail and fail. Finally, in 2004, I found a resolution that brought together the lessons of all that I had been taught previously.
Yet in many ways, I can say that I was perhaps open to this 1 resolution, because I had first failed 99 times. I think my thinking arises from knowing what it is to try something and see it fail before being willing to seek out a success. A lot is learned the hard way. Only after that, does 1 idea come the easy way.
I consider that one of the greatest applications of what I have learned from wholeness is that Edison was right and the interviewer wrong. This world is not a place where everyone is seeking success and just needs to find it. Rather people often have to fail at something else before they will accept a successful option. As long as they see something as potentially successful, even if everyone else knows it will fail, they will hold onto that bound to fail option.
Again, I see this with my own strength or my physical health. I have tried many many options to bring my physical health to where it should be. Yet I still have an unresolved difficulty. A resolution came in 2003 for 6 months, yet neither I nor my doctors to this date, understand what made the difference. So I am still trying options that might potentially work. Like Edison, yet under the inspiration of the hope that God inspires, I am marching on toward what I hope will resolve my health issue for the long term.
Yet it is often a long and lonely path. It seems that so many things I have tried, that I thought would work or a doctor thought would work, have failed. It is also true that the path is lonely, because there are many naysayers that claim to know the answer already. They perhaps think that 99 attempts must mean I am on the wrong path. Yet there lurks the danger for them.
Yet I now know this. Wholeness has brought many successes that were not previously there. It has also continued to meet new challenges the previous failures did not. I think Thomas Kuhn, the sociologist of science, and Imre Lakatos, the philospher of science, both had it right. Old ideas die hard. They must fail before we give up on them. That sounds sort of biblical doesn't it, in light of our sinful tendencies.
Perhaps failure is the soil that then the plant of success can grow in. It is as though the seed cannot be planted until the ground is well tilled. So when people still resist an idea, perhaps it is true, they are still working on a failure. Just wait until they realize the failure. Just maybe then, they will accept the one thing that succeeds after all else fails.
In Christ,
Jon
We think Edison is the exemption, not the rule. Yet from my own experience, long before I considered that whole means healthy, I tried a barrage of other things that failed. I became a real expert on how to fail. Some ideas failed miserably and some failed gloriously, but in the end they all failed. At the ripe age of 10, I thought I found the resolution to my spiritual struggles. Yet at the next struggle, it was ill-equipped to help me. At age 17, I found resolution again to another struggle. Yet at the next struggle, it actually made things far worse and drove me into the darkness of depression. Then at age 23, I again emerged a little more cautious, yet hopeful as I emerged stronger and I was able to defeat depression through lessons from God's Word. Yet once again, this resolution was poorly suited to my next struggle. Still again, I found resolution to another struggle with still more caution and humility. Yet even with that caution and humility, the next struggle was not resolved by my previous lessons. I had to learn yet more and more and still fail and fail. Finally, in 2004, I found a resolution that brought together the lessons of all that I had been taught previously.
Yet in many ways, I can say that I was perhaps open to this 1 resolution, because I had first failed 99 times. I think my thinking arises from knowing what it is to try something and see it fail before being willing to seek out a success. A lot is learned the hard way. Only after that, does 1 idea come the easy way.
I consider that one of the greatest applications of what I have learned from wholeness is that Edison was right and the interviewer wrong. This world is not a place where everyone is seeking success and just needs to find it. Rather people often have to fail at something else before they will accept a successful option. As long as they see something as potentially successful, even if everyone else knows it will fail, they will hold onto that bound to fail option.
Again, I see this with my own strength or my physical health. I have tried many many options to bring my physical health to where it should be. Yet I still have an unresolved difficulty. A resolution came in 2003 for 6 months, yet neither I nor my doctors to this date, understand what made the difference. So I am still trying options that might potentially work. Like Edison, yet under the inspiration of the hope that God inspires, I am marching on toward what I hope will resolve my health issue for the long term.
Yet it is often a long and lonely path. It seems that so many things I have tried, that I thought would work or a doctor thought would work, have failed. It is also true that the path is lonely, because there are many naysayers that claim to know the answer already. They perhaps think that 99 attempts must mean I am on the wrong path. Yet there lurks the danger for them.
Yet I now know this. Wholeness has brought many successes that were not previously there. It has also continued to meet new challenges the previous failures did not. I think Thomas Kuhn, the sociologist of science, and Imre Lakatos, the philospher of science, both had it right. Old ideas die hard. They must fail before we give up on them. That sounds sort of biblical doesn't it, in light of our sinful tendencies.
Perhaps failure is the soil that then the plant of success can grow in. It is as though the seed cannot be planted until the ground is well tilled. So when people still resist an idea, perhaps it is true, they are still working on a failure. Just wait until they realize the failure. Just maybe then, they will accept the one thing that succeeds after all else fails.
In Christ,
Jon
Whole Means Healthy as in Relationships
Isn't it interesting how some people masquerade as having a connection with people from the past, when they in fact have no connection to those people? Yet I'm not just talking about politicians in Washington claiming ties to Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. I am talking about church leaders claiming ties to Martin Luther or John Calvin. Reformation and revival have clearly happened in the past, when historical figures like those mentioned were alive. Yet is there really a present connection with that past? A very credible book title reads: The American Church in Crisis. That is a long way from revival and reformation.
Likewise, besides knowing about these relationships, we must have an explicit grasp of relationships, so that like the card player, we know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em. In other words, when to connect and when to disconnect with others.
I would like to suggest is a way to see connections with others that seems to have been around around during times of revival. Two of my professors in college referred to it as the cultural processes of language. I would like to expand it into the cultural processes of the church and also compare it to the processes of our American political system.
The Protestant Reformation (or Evangelical Reformation) had a cultural process that perhaps needs to be made more clear or obvious, so that we know what connects us with our past rather than getting side-tracked by processes that claim lineage, but in fact have no such connection. Let's face it. Luther got things done. Calvin got things done. (Richard) Hooker got things done. John Wesley got things done. (Charles Haddon) Spurgeon got things done. They didn't produce crisis through the process they followed, rather they brought renewal. You know what I mean. You've read the history books or heard the stories.
Many church leaders today are not getting it done using the same process. So let me outline my professors' insights, then talk about what went awry and then talk about how the process applies to us.
My professors outlined things this way (with a few modifications by yours truly):
I. Connection and Disconnection (the Whole)
A. Continuity and Change (the Amount)
B. Bond and Liberty/Barrier (the Relationship)
C. Rule and Freedom (the Action)
D. Sense and Nonsense (the Thing)
In the universe of multiple languages these apparently are the cultural processes of language by which messages get communicated. Culture is primarily about relationships and connection. That is central. Processes are the means by which a message is communicated when we wish to connect. That is the next most important insight. If you don't follow these processes, you don't get the job of communication done. Instead, communication fails. By analogy, I think these rules can be applied to the Christian Church not providing the processes of revival, but instead of crisis.
I think there was a Christian cultural process that was whole and therefore healthy that allowed the Protestant Reformation to accomplish healthy things. They also where balanced in another sense, besides being whole. They were balanced in how they saw the process of doing actions that created connection and disconnection.
Their relational process was not all about change, or all about liberty (barrier), or all about freedom or all about nonsense (calling all present thinking that). It was instead a process that people like Luther saw as traveling a middle path between a rock on his right and a hard place on his left. So his process of Reformation also consisted of continuity, bond, rule and sense. He was no extreme radical demonstrating only disconnections by his own profession. He said this repeatedly and many separate times.
Likewise politically and in the United States, George Washington was no radical only demonstrating his disconnections from England. He was very upset with Thomas Paine, the author of Common Sense, who later went to France and contributed to radicalness of the French Revolution and because of Paine's changes to later radical political processes that he supported in France.
Neither the Protestant Reformation nor the American Revolution were as radical in their cultural processes as they are sometimes portrayed in high school or college classes. Often you hear only the themes of change, liberty, freedom and non-sense ("that's hogwash") bantered about with no mention of the other aspects of the process that establish connections. You don't hear that Luther tried to establish continuity (with Augustine, etc.), bond (with the early church), rule (with his concept of law) and sense (with his views on science). He and other Protestants failed at times in both ways without a doubt. They weren't always as balanced as the process of connection and disconnection outlines. Yet they were intent on a whole and balanced process.
Our problem is that the middle path is often not crystal clear enough historically to avoid being mushy. I think my two professors must be creditted with making things clear. I simply add to what they say by further organizing it. Cultural processes needs to be whole to be healthy; and not just a middle path to be balanced. This is a big problem for Anglicans and Episcopals. Second, because it is not clear enough, the middle path has not been regularly strait or straight, but intermittedly distorted or windy. This has contributed to the feeling of crisis, because the process of connection and disconnection were unclear.
I think my professor's systematic approach is healthy, because it looks at the system of language as a whole. But it is not so much overarching as it is focused on relationships and actions. It is also clear compared to much of what is written. You see this because it is balanced in relationships and so it uses both of the parts of a process needed to establish connections or disconnections with others. It realizes that to be balanced, when it comes to relationships you have to be able to say equally who you are connected with and who you are disconnected from.
I think we are partly stuck and partly not getting things done, because some claimed connections are phantom only propping up the current processes with fumes from the connections and energy of the past. It is neither whole and healthy nor balanced and so not getting things done. I think the lack of a balanced system means not getting things done in the real world of relationships, just like the lack of a balanced process in language leads to no communication getting done.
If we are going to claim an historical legacy, we need to establish the process by which connection and disconnection can be clearly recognized. I think my twin professors did a lot toward showing how you or I can recognize true connection and disconnection.
Their work convinces me that traditional liberalism (modernism) and traditional conservativism (fundamentalism) in the context of the church, steer us away from a connection with our own healthy culture as historically grounded in the past. Be careful to use discernment here. You must separate those who are knowledgeable adherents of these camps and those who are ignorant adherents of these camps. While ignorance does not excuse the latter, it does lessen the severity of their error.
Liberalism (rooted in modernism) too often creates the following chart:
I. Disconnection
A. Change
B. Liberty
C. Freedom
D. Non-sense
They see the world of relationships primarily driven by these themes, yet not by the twin themes outlined by my two professors and the culture processes discovered in language. They give speeches that outline the changes needed, but have very little concern with what must also continue and showing connections that way. They stress the need for liberty, but not the need for bond. They stress freedom, yet too often without a sense of rule. They also send a very confusing message here, when it comes to economics, because they seem to play the opposite role. They also see that much of what passed for knowledge in the past is simply non-sense.
Conservativism (rooted in fundamentalism), on the other hand, too often creates the following chart:
I. Connection
A. Continuity
B. Bond
C. Rule
D. Sense
They see the world of relationships as primarily driven by these themes, yet not by the twin themes I outlined earlier. They outline their continuity with the Reformers, while they diminish the aspect of changes that the Reformers made. They live by a firm bond, while there is no room for an honest quest for truth that bring liberty. They live by a firm set of rules. Yet they also send a confusing message here, because they defend market freedom. It gets more confusing, because they prop up established versus entrepreneurial enterprise. They claim to be the big proponent of freedom, yet their rules are strictly to be observed. They claim common sense for themselves, while they obscure some real non-sense from the past and peddle it as knowledge. Why defend what was ignorance?
Let's find our footing and connections again and establish who is really connected with the past that is applauded, rather than listen to those, who claim such a connection and who have either an overly conventional or overly radical approach, that either heads us into a rock or into a hard place. The phantoms out there are in crisis and need your money to continue, so they claim a continuity that is not there. I can tell you from experience, neither the rock nor the hard place is pleasant.
Use my professors, insights and see if both the connection and the disconnection side of a balanced equation are used. Make sure someone is not just trying to dupe you into thinking they are like Luther, Calvin, Hooker, Wesley or Spurgeon. Use the chart above to examine whether you want to connect with this person or group and whether they connect with a time of revival or reformation you want to connect yourself with. I feel a strong bond with these past leaders and times of renewal rather than crisis, when I have been able to get past some current leaders, who claim to be like them. Healthy connections are vital to this life and so are the processes that build relationships.
Put these connection and disconnection processes to work in real life. Listen to what processes others are using. See, if they are in fact balanced. It is like this with relationships, you need to know when to hold 'em (connect) and when to fold 'em (disconnect). May God richly bless you.
In Christ,
Jon
Likewise, besides knowing about these relationships, we must have an explicit grasp of relationships, so that like the card player, we know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em. In other words, when to connect and when to disconnect with others.
I would like to suggest is a way to see connections with others that seems to have been around around during times of revival. Two of my professors in college referred to it as the cultural processes of language. I would like to expand it into the cultural processes of the church and also compare it to the processes of our American political system.
The Protestant Reformation (or Evangelical Reformation) had a cultural process that perhaps needs to be made more clear or obvious, so that we know what connects us with our past rather than getting side-tracked by processes that claim lineage, but in fact have no such connection. Let's face it. Luther got things done. Calvin got things done. (Richard) Hooker got things done. John Wesley got things done. (Charles Haddon) Spurgeon got things done. They didn't produce crisis through the process they followed, rather they brought renewal. You know what I mean. You've read the history books or heard the stories.
Many church leaders today are not getting it done using the same process. So let me outline my professors' insights, then talk about what went awry and then talk about how the process applies to us.
My professors outlined things this way (with a few modifications by yours truly):
I. Connection and Disconnection (the Whole)
A. Continuity and Change (the Amount)
B. Bond and Liberty/Barrier (the Relationship)
C. Rule and Freedom (the Action)
D. Sense and Nonsense (the Thing)
In the universe of multiple languages these apparently are the cultural processes of language by which messages get communicated. Culture is primarily about relationships and connection. That is central. Processes are the means by which a message is communicated when we wish to connect. That is the next most important insight. If you don't follow these processes, you don't get the job of communication done. Instead, communication fails. By analogy, I think these rules can be applied to the Christian Church not providing the processes of revival, but instead of crisis.
I think there was a Christian cultural process that was whole and therefore healthy that allowed the Protestant Reformation to accomplish healthy things. They also where balanced in another sense, besides being whole. They were balanced in how they saw the process of doing actions that created connection and disconnection.
Their relational process was not all about change, or all about liberty (barrier), or all about freedom or all about nonsense (calling all present thinking that). It was instead a process that people like Luther saw as traveling a middle path between a rock on his right and a hard place on his left. So his process of Reformation also consisted of continuity, bond, rule and sense. He was no extreme radical demonstrating only disconnections by his own profession. He said this repeatedly and many separate times.
Likewise politically and in the United States, George Washington was no radical only demonstrating his disconnections from England. He was very upset with Thomas Paine, the author of Common Sense, who later went to France and contributed to radicalness of the French Revolution and because of Paine's changes to later radical political processes that he supported in France.
Neither the Protestant Reformation nor the American Revolution were as radical in their cultural processes as they are sometimes portrayed in high school or college classes. Often you hear only the themes of change, liberty, freedom and non-sense ("that's hogwash") bantered about with no mention of the other aspects of the process that establish connections. You don't hear that Luther tried to establish continuity (with Augustine, etc.), bond (with the early church), rule (with his concept of law) and sense (with his views on science). He and other Protestants failed at times in both ways without a doubt. They weren't always as balanced as the process of connection and disconnection outlines. Yet they were intent on a whole and balanced process.
Our problem is that the middle path is often not crystal clear enough historically to avoid being mushy. I think my two professors must be creditted with making things clear. I simply add to what they say by further organizing it. Cultural processes needs to be whole to be healthy; and not just a middle path to be balanced. This is a big problem for Anglicans and Episcopals. Second, because it is not clear enough, the middle path has not been regularly strait or straight, but intermittedly distorted or windy. This has contributed to the feeling of crisis, because the process of connection and disconnection were unclear.
I think my professor's systematic approach is healthy, because it looks at the system of language as a whole. But it is not so much overarching as it is focused on relationships and actions. It is also clear compared to much of what is written. You see this because it is balanced in relationships and so it uses both of the parts of a process needed to establish connections or disconnections with others. It realizes that to be balanced, when it comes to relationships you have to be able to say equally who you are connected with and who you are disconnected from.
I think we are partly stuck and partly not getting things done, because some claimed connections are phantom only propping up the current processes with fumes from the connections and energy of the past. It is neither whole and healthy nor balanced and so not getting things done. I think the lack of a balanced system means not getting things done in the real world of relationships, just like the lack of a balanced process in language leads to no communication getting done.
If we are going to claim an historical legacy, we need to establish the process by which connection and disconnection can be clearly recognized. I think my twin professors did a lot toward showing how you or I can recognize true connection and disconnection.
Their work convinces me that traditional liberalism (modernism) and traditional conservativism (fundamentalism) in the context of the church, steer us away from a connection with our own healthy culture as historically grounded in the past. Be careful to use discernment here. You must separate those who are knowledgeable adherents of these camps and those who are ignorant adherents of these camps. While ignorance does not excuse the latter, it does lessen the severity of their error.
Liberalism (rooted in modernism) too often creates the following chart:
I. Disconnection
A. Change
B. Liberty
C. Freedom
D. Non-sense
They see the world of relationships primarily driven by these themes, yet not by the twin themes outlined by my two professors and the culture processes discovered in language. They give speeches that outline the changes needed, but have very little concern with what must also continue and showing connections that way. They stress the need for liberty, but not the need for bond. They stress freedom, yet too often without a sense of rule. They also send a very confusing message here, when it comes to economics, because they seem to play the opposite role. They also see that much of what passed for knowledge in the past is simply non-sense.
Conservativism (rooted in fundamentalism), on the other hand, too often creates the following chart:
I. Connection
A. Continuity
B. Bond
C. Rule
D. Sense
They see the world of relationships as primarily driven by these themes, yet not by the twin themes I outlined earlier. They outline their continuity with the Reformers, while they diminish the aspect of changes that the Reformers made. They live by a firm bond, while there is no room for an honest quest for truth that bring liberty. They live by a firm set of rules. Yet they also send a confusing message here, because they defend market freedom. It gets more confusing, because they prop up established versus entrepreneurial enterprise. They claim to be the big proponent of freedom, yet their rules are strictly to be observed. They claim common sense for themselves, while they obscure some real non-sense from the past and peddle it as knowledge. Why defend what was ignorance?
Let's find our footing and connections again and establish who is really connected with the past that is applauded, rather than listen to those, who claim such a connection and who have either an overly conventional or overly radical approach, that either heads us into a rock or into a hard place. The phantoms out there are in crisis and need your money to continue, so they claim a continuity that is not there. I can tell you from experience, neither the rock nor the hard place is pleasant.
Use my professors, insights and see if both the connection and the disconnection side of a balanced equation are used. Make sure someone is not just trying to dupe you into thinking they are like Luther, Calvin, Hooker, Wesley or Spurgeon. Use the chart above to examine whether you want to connect with this person or group and whether they connect with a time of revival or reformation you want to connect yourself with. I feel a strong bond with these past leaders and times of renewal rather than crisis, when I have been able to get past some current leaders, who claim to be like them. Healthy connections are vital to this life and so are the processes that build relationships.
Put these connection and disconnection processes to work in real life. Listen to what processes others are using. See, if they are in fact balanced. It is like this with relationships, you need to know when to hold 'em (connect) and when to fold 'em (disconnect). May God richly bless you.
In Christ,
Jon
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