Understanding
Flipping through a book of devotionals today I came across a quote that said, "we can only understand what we love."
Quite a deepie. Been thinking about it all day.
Quite a deepie. Been thinking about it all day.
posted by PeaceBang at 10:05 PM
3 Comments:
I love my french press. And I understand it -- it wants to make me happy.
(insert cutesy 'just kidding' emoticon)
That is interesting. And it's not a ... oh, what the word ... "a phrase that is equally true backward or forward."
Just ask any kid. Their parents may deeply love them, and not understand them a-tall.
Hmm. Gotta think about what I love. And understand. Beyond my french press.
PB, that quote I think is why there will always be a disconnect between our folks in the UUA, and I am sure in other religious arrangements of initials, on Jesus. All the Jesus Seminar scholarship and understanding, bless its heart, still won't take you there. Or one of my favorite sayings that I first heard from Burton Carley than found it all over the scriptures, "our knowledge won't save us." Maybe it works to a large degree the other way around too and is why so many in the Jesus-spouting world don't get it either, refusing to go deeper into an understanding for fear it will cost them their current experience of "love."
Brett, I think Ron is referring to the limits of the contemporary search for the historical Jesus.
I think he's saying that if you start from a place of trying to intellectually pin down who Jesus was, it's kind of pointless (at least in terms of a foundation for Christian life). You have to love Jesus before you can understand him. Or, perhaps, you have to love Jesus to be a Christian, while understanding him as a historical figure is much less important to the life of discipleship (and perhaps not important at all).
That's what I think he's saying. And insinuating that a lot of UUs start from that place of intellectual engagement, which is like going to the conversation about Heaven rather than going to Heaven.
Ron? Did I get pretty close?
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