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Monday, January 17, 2005
I have an ideal?
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day renews my thinking about an idea. The paradigm of earth-bound humanity is a continuum with cynicism at one end and idealism at the other and a thousand shades of realism between. Like this:

CYNICISM----(pessimism)----REALISM----(optimism)----IDEALISM

The interesting feature is that cynicism and idealism are two shades of the same thing. Cynicism is the ultimate death of idealism. I find this is the continuum that plagues academic places. Academic institutions, in my experience, are filled with cynics and idealists. Ideals are projections of perfection. Most often they are unreal and unattainable. The death of ideals often leads to cynicism. Living in this paradigm usually means vascillating between pessimism and optimism.

The paradigm of "on earth as it is in heaven" is a continuum with faith at one end and hope at the other and a thousand shades of love between. Like this:

FAITH-----(charity)-----LOVE-----(compassion)-----HOPE

What is fascinating about this continuum is these three realities last forever. Though faith is the substance of things hoped for, when the hoped for finally comes faith remains. How does that work? I am seeing with dim clarity at this point. As for the difference between charity and compassion-- charity is giving away your extra shirt-- love gives away the shirt off your back. love is the ever-progressive sacrifice of suffering for the other.

Back to Martin-- his dream, in the hands of earth-bound humans, easily conforms to ideals which, when unattained, leads to cynical outlooks. But his dream flourishes when allowed to live as a marker of the Kingdom of Heaven breaking in on Earth. Martin didn't have an ideal-- but a dream.

The difference in the paradigms is in the simplicity of one word: Jesus. And the secret to living in the reality of the latter is this: Christ in You-- the Hope of Glory.

I welcome help in thinking about this?

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posted by John David Walt | at 1/17/2005 08:35:00 PM

 

1 Comments:

Blogger Michel said...

I love the equations. In many ways your pursuit of faith and hope vs. idealism and pessimism marks the difference between truth and foolishness. You send one into the world holding only idealism as a shield, they learn pretty quickly that such shields are made of glass that are just as likely to rend you as protect you. Idealism is a sort of prison really, as years go by you are eventually embittered and the ideals you sought after so hard. Eventually, they form the bars and walls of the prison that trap you in unhappiness. Instead, when you look to the faith and hope continuum, you have a realization that the world is broken at the outset and that only those things that are beyond us, beyond the world can make a difference. God is in the immediatly in the world, and yet immediately beyond it. Therefore in God we can have hope... dare I say it? In God we can dream...

And afterward,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.

Your sons and daughters will prophesy,

your old men will dream dreams,

your young men will see visions. Joel 2:28

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