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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968

Posted 3/13/2008 2:44 PM (GMT -6)

I've got to leave town, and I'll be away from the www for a few days. In the meanwhile, how do you guys relate, to probability, Jesus' claim that "he who is faithful in little will also be faithful in much. But who is not faithful in a little will also not be faithful in much."

Talk at you in a few days.

Tom
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 3/16/2008 4:03 PM (GMT -6)

I take Jesus' words as confirming the general truth that character solidification works from the inside out and from the less significant to the more significant. Small compromises orient a character early on and influence its direction. Over time, well-worn paths become more ingrained attitudes that in turn exert greater influence over decisions and character development.

Tom

Post Edited (Tom) : 3/16/2008 4:11:18 PM (GMT-5)

One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 3/20/2008 8:08 AM (GMT -6)

Thought:

True love can NEVER be given by "autopilot". Love REQUIRES freedom! It MUST be chosen for! And the only way that true love can be given is in the PRESENT MOMENT by a MINDFUL CHOOSER.

Love can only happen "now"!

And when we love "now", the Son is born(e) in our hearts by the Father's Spirit.

Habitual egoic thought patterns of remembered self-perception can NOT do this! This is why it's possible for someone to do all kinds of loving "acts" without love (1 Cor 13)

Only the free individualized SELF that is grounded in God's LOVE can.

Make sense?

Whoever knows and recognizes how near God’s Kingdom is to him may say with Jacob, “God is in this place, and I knew it not.”
Meister Eckhart, "The Nearness of the Kingdom"

Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, "The coming of the kingdom of God is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the Kingdom of God is within you.

One Love
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 3/20/2008 8:14 AM (GMT -6)

Tom...

I KNOW that you have to agree with this!

You are the "love requires freedom" major proponent!

Whoever knows and recognizes how near God’s Kingdom is to him may say with Jacob, “God is in this place, and I knew it not.”
Meister Eckhart, "The Nearness of the Kingdom"

One Love
Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 3/20/2008 8:19 AM (GMT -6)

VERY PRACTICAL CONCEPT.

Usually, familiarity breeds contempt. We are SO USED to seeing the everyday miracles of life...that we don't see them as divine moments of miraculous grace anymore. It becomes "same s#it, different day" type of thing. Also...We go into various levels of "autopilot" where we OVERIDENTIFY with our self-created fictions of CULTURE, NATIONALITY, FAMILY OF ORIGIN, etc. Well, this is how MY mama did things...Well, this is how MY church did things...etc. etc. And we just live these out.

Put all this together...and you have human beings who easily take life and themselves FOR GRANTED.

And it plays out in MARITAL relationships all the time. Spouses take themselves and each other for granted over time. And what happens? Yeah...

(This is probably why God set up the Sabbath. In God's marriage to us, we needed a friggin PATTERN INTERUPT of some type. We were so narcissitically idolizing OURSELVES...that God could barely get the time of day from us!)

The trick is to BE IN THE PRESENT...such that this kind of "desacralization of life" doesn't occur.

To be in the present is to FREE ONESELF to be truly what they are meant to be: Eucharistic, being a loving gift, enjoying loving gifts from a Loving Gift-giver. (Never forget. We are "gifts" to and for each other!)

Whoever knows and recognizes how near God’s Kingdom is to him may say with Jacob, “God is in this place, and I knew it not.”
Meister Eckhart, "The Nearness of the Kingdom"

Post Edited ("I am-in-I Am") : 3/20/2008 8:22:51 AM (GMT-5)

Similitude
Registered Member

Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968

Posted 3/21/2008 9:30 AM (GMT -6)

I still haven't forgot about posting Noah Porter's comments on states of choice. When I get time, I'll try to tie it in with Christ's comments about faithfulness vs. unfaithfulness.

In the meanwhile, Tom, how would you assign a particular probability, other than virtually one or zero or the reciprocal of possibilities, to difficult choices you could imagine yourself confronted with. How would the logic work?

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