One of the most perplexing mysteries of our current state of perception is how we can live in a world so alive with possibilities, so deeply relational and connected, so absolutely NOT fixed but walk around with a perception the world is fixed, solid, stable and unchanging.
Jesus invited people to realize there was a wider envelop of existence available to them, a bigger reality, a hidden wholeness where they could live and move and have their being. When we grasp this fundamental shift, a shift in our identity occurs. In this world of possibilities and potentialities (you will do even greater things than I, said Jesus) another shift occurs as well.
[read more...]
Share on Facebook
We need some new metaphors. I think it is quite clear the two bucket theory is untenable, and the owners manual for life metaphor reduces the bible to a behavior manual. Both the theory and metaphor generate so many problems that it is time we start searching for an alternative approach to the text.
This is always how paradigm shifts occur. When a paradigm is initially adopted it answers a variety of questions very well. Those adopting the paradigm realize it doesn’t answer all questions and those unanswerables go on a shelf for further reflection and research. No paradigm is perfect, no model can answer all the questions.
Eventually the current paradigm, always historically and contextually rooted, answers fewer and fewer questions well and the shelf with the unanswerables becomes overloaded and near collapse. This is when a new paradigm begins to emerge. We are undoubtedly living in such a new paradigm time.
[read more...]
Share on Facebook
