Your spiritual development

Ah yes spot on! Shame someone got there already or we could call it the Snoopy effect.
(I know what you're saying: "wants to take all the credit - typical Pisces.")

s.
 
Thomas said:
Hi Chris –

"I think that people start out either inventing, or more likely piecing together a personal mythos."

I have just started to dip my toe in the waters of Paul Ricoeur – I've been looking at 'post-mopdern Christianity' - and specifically I'm looking at Scripture as narrative, both Revealed and reflexive:

"Language contains within itself resources that allow it to be used creatively. Two important ways in which these resources come to light are (a) in the coining of metaphors and (b) in the fashoning of narratives. In The Rule of Metaphor, Ricoeur argues that there is a linguistic imagination that "generates and regenerates meaning through the living power of metaphoricity." For him, fresh metaphors, metaphors that have not been reduced to the commonplace, reveal a new way of seeing their referents. They creatively transform language. Thus they are not merely rhetorical ornaments. They have genuine cognitive import in their own right and are untranslatable without remainder into literal language. In a similar manner, as I will develop more fully below, acts of narrating create new plots and characters, thereby also producing new meanings. Thus to become aware of the metaphorical and narrative resources resident in language is to see that notwithstanding the many rules and codes that govern language usage, it is always able to be used to be inventive, to produce new meanings."
Paul Ricoeur (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
(my emphasis)

Any thoughts, comments, pointers would be welcome ...

Thomas
Click to expand...
I agree. Metaphors are tools by which we can express the interconnectedness and relationships we find. It is basically pattern recognition of a concept, just as scientific hypotheses and laws are pattern recognition of cause and effect. Just as scientific pattern recognition and testing can be employed to invent new things, metaphors can also be employed to invent new concepts, which can be tested, refined, and put into use.
 
Thomas said:
Hi Chris –

"I think that people start out either inventing, or more likely piecing together a personal mythos."

I have just started to dip my toe in the waters of Paul Ricoeur – I've been looking at 'post-mopdern Christianity' - and specifically I'm looking at Scripture as narrative, both Revealed and reflexive:

"Language contains within itself resources that allow it to be used creatively. Two important ways in which these resources come to light are (a) in the coining of metaphors and (b) in the fashoning of narratives. In The Rule of Metaphor, Ricoeur argues that there is a linguistic imagination that "generates and regenerates meaning through the living power of metaphoricity." For him, fresh metaphors, metaphors that have not been reduced to the commonplace, reveal a new way of seeing their referents. They creatively transform language. Thus they are not merely rhetorical ornaments. They have genuine cognitive import in their own right and are untranslatable without remainder into literal language. In a similar manner, as I will develop more fully below, acts of narrating create new plots and characters, thereby also producing new meanings. Thus to become aware of the metaphorical and narrative resources resident in language is to see that notwithstanding the many rules and codes that govern language usage, it is always able to be used to be inventive, to produce new meanings."
Paul Ricoeur (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
(my emphasis)

Any thoughts, comments, pointers would be welcome ...

Thomas
Click to expand...

I think you're probably a good klick ahead of me on most of this stuff Thomas. Here I was flogging away trying to vaguely exlain an idea I have, and you gave me a link to this material that completely illucidates what I was crawling towards. I sincerely appreciate that. It's a tremendous help, thank you!

I'm struggling to understand the nature and ramifications of postmodernity. It's not an easy thing to wrap my brain around. One thing about it, though, is that postmodern "philosophy", if you will, really has more to do directly with art and aesthetics than anything else. It's a way of answering the question: "how do I pose something so it appears unposed?" Or "how can we systemetize randomness?" Something like that (I'm flogging again). Then those principles are applied to other things like control structures and how mythos is created and preserved.

Thanks again for the terrific link. I'm going to have to mull this stuff over.

Chris
 
Hi Chris –

Thanks again for the terrific link. I'm going to have to mull this stuff over.

You and me both!

My course tutor keeps dirercting me towards Postmodernism (that's the big issue for Catholic theology today) as I strive to write my essays in patristic vein. As my 'thing' was symbolism, it's a big key between the two.

Last night I went into central London to meet friends at a restaurant – a co-worker is emigrating to Australia on Sunday – so I took the 'subway' to Leicester Sq. The main road, Charing Cross Road, is all bookshops ... so I thought ... while I'm here ... and hit the philosophy sections ('anything by Paul Ricoeur?')

There's nothing quite so embarrasing as walking into a restaurant late, with a bulging bookshop bag in your hand!

Thomas
 
Hi Seattlegal –

Sorry, been ignoring you a bit when responding to the 'Chris/Thomas mutual appreciation society' – liked the ideas on metaphor ... and other posts recently.

Thomas
 
Hi--

Well, I think that stage 1, of course, is necessarily "seeing through the eyes of a child". I also seriously consider that the stage of greatest understanding, no matter what number one assigns to it, and no matter how many stages one passes through in transit, is "seeing through the eyes of a child." Kind of like the minister and the fishermen you mentioned, Paladin.:)

InPeace,
InLove
 
A small child looks for guidence, and understands that w/o it they could be lost. It's not until we reach our teens that we become rebellious, and come to think we know better than our parents. I think Spiritual development can work the same way. Some keep a child like innocence and humility, while others get to the point where the resist further understanding, getting set in their ways, beliefs, traditions, etc..

I think we all need a foundation to build on, and something pure to guide, as growth never ends. (The eyes of a child)


Love,
 
Would anyone here willingly give the keys of their car [ka] to a child?
Isn't it better to take responsibility for one's own actions as mature people with wide open eyes. Maturity is not without wonder. It has a lifetimes experience behind it, with incredible guidance if we open our eyes to see.

- c -
 
Hi Ciel--

No, I don't think anyone would willingly give their car keys to a child, except to look at them. A baby may examine them, but thankfully, the child doesn't drive. :)

InPeace,
InLove
 
Ciel said:
Would anyone here willingly give the keys of their car [ka] to a child?
Isn't it better to take responsibility for one's own actions as mature people with wide open eyes. Maturity is not without wonder. It has a lifetimes experience behind it, with incredible guidance if we open our eyes to see.

- c -
Click to expand...
I wouldn't even give my keys to my children, the last thing I wanted to do was have to look for them. But I did talk to my children about how things worked;
-why they needed to be in the kids seat,
-how old and tall they had to be before they could be in the front seat,
-why I watch cars that are entering the road, or changing lanes
-how to use all three mirrors and be lookng ahead,
-why you let your foot off the gas rather than just hit the breaks
-how it is easier and safer to let someone in when they try to move in front of me
-why traffic lights and speed limits are there....and on and on and on.

So that when they do go to driving school or drive or when they ride with others they have some working knowledge.

Just as when they step out on their own spiritually, they learn to look ahead, and examine the terrain...and one day I'll be letting them go, and when they come back tell me about thier trip...
 
InLove said:
Hi Ciel--

No, I don't think anyone would willingly give their car keys to a child, except to look at them. A baby may examine them, but thankfully, the child doesn't drive. :)

InPeace,
InLove
Click to expand...


Hi InLove,

Metaphorically reassuring. :)

- c -
 
wil said:
I wouldn't even give my keys to my children, the last thing I wanted to do was have to look for them. But I did talk to my children about how things worked;
-why they needed to be in the kids seat,
-how old and tall they had to be before they could be in the front seat,
-why I watch cars that are entering the road, or changing lanes
-how to use all three mirrors and be lookng ahead,
-why you let your foot off the gas rather than just hit the breaks
-how it is easier and safer to let someone in when they try to move in front of me
-why traffic lights and speed limits are there....and on and on and on.

So that when they do go to driving school or drive or when they ride with others they have some working knowledge.

Just as when they step out on their own spiritually, they learn to look ahead, and examine the terrain...and one day I'll be letting them go, and when they come back tell me about thier trip...
Click to expand...


Wil, I don't see any metaphores here, just plain common sense. And someone who talks to their kids as intelligent human beings, as they are.
I also see wonderful spiritual guidance.........

- c -
 
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