more on adult faith - or adult wisdom

"(a) Conventional inherited wisdom views all learning as passed down from wiser seniors to inferior juniors, and learning is primarily obtaining the wherewithal to function effectively for the benefit of human society.

(b) Embedded codependency leaves children and adolescents feeling like passive absorbers in conventional learning settings, while adult aspiration and intelligence are grossly neglected and undermined.

(c) Adult empowerment perceives the adult as a full participant in a coeducational process where wisdom is owned by all and the teacher serves as a catalyst facilitating a transformational process of exploration and new discovery.

Diarmuid O'Murchu in Adult Faith - Growing in Wisdom and Understanding pg. 97

I'd like to pass this around the US - schools, churches, and especially businesses. This doesn't mesh with our apparent frontier mentality - does it?

clean lungs

why do some Republicans vote against clean air regulations? Don't they have lungs? Don't they love a few people who might die from unclean air? Or don't they understand the physics of a closed ecosystem?

a woman's faith development

Wouldn't this be a strange yet terrifying adventure?

"Unlike the epic hero, however, the female protagonist does not know her own goal in advance and must discover it through fluid adventure - meditation, memory, prayer, questioning, and associative weavings. And unlike the epic hero, her role is not to support but unravel and rewrite the already-written drama or script of religion and history." (Slee 2004, 98)

quoted in Diarmuid O'Murchu's Adult Faith pg 113

but isn't there a better antonym for epic hero than female protagonist? I understand it has been said that women can't be classic heroes - that our task is different (remember Robert Grave's opinion that a woman can only be a muse and never a poet?) - where is the balance?

Paradox

Quote from Diarmuid O'Murchu -

"This is my favorite definition of a paradox : 'it is a contradiction, with meaning written underneath it.' "
in "Adult Faith" pg. 129

my own favorite definition has been "For what is balance but a complete contradiction" I wonder - there is acceptance involved in both definitions isn't there?

the reluctant dragon

http://windling.typepad.com/blog/2011/09/dealing-with-dragons.html#comments

I love this quote -- "Scared and sacred are spelled with the same letters. Awful proceeds from the same root word as awesome. Terrify and terrific. Every negative experience holds the seed of transformation."
  - Alan Cohen

as I wander down the paths of paradox

talking on

are you impatient
to hear someone
talk on and on and
on and on.....
because you want
to talk on and on
and on..... and can't?

an introvert
might enjoy
that scene.
to not talk on
and on...

commonplace

commonplace?

this is no
common place -
the wheels that turn
are grinding slowly
to a halt.
deep in muddy fields
with only
red wing blackbird
to console.

pseko - 1982 or so


composting reality - don't underestimate red wing blackbirds!