David, your work really stirs so much for me, and I long for the opportunity to follow these threads with you. As you wonder about law I wonder about the market, and I keep coming back to this image of atrophied leg muscles. That we have been casted and crutched for so long and our neighboring muscles have become so weak that we begin to lose faith in our deeply human capacity to be generators of relational beauty. If there's anything in this metaphor, the question becomes, how do we wiggle our toes or dare to set the crutches down for a moment and fall into one another. I have a small group of folks who are interested in working through your Romans course with you next winter. I'll reach out by email to explore that possibility. Blessings, Adam
Yes, I resonate deeply with this. If the law exists to manage a lack of trusting relationships, then the more heavily we rely on it, the more unnecessary good relationships seem to become. I don't need to know you, because there is a law that defends me against the wrong you might do to me, and vice versa. We lose the muscle of virtue, because the muscle of the State does it for us. Fascinated to think about how this plays out in the market. I recall one of your earlier posts talking about adopting an undefended posture, which feels very atuned to how I'm thinking of goodfaith here.
Please do email about a winter Romans thing. Would love to explore the idea.
Reading this morning from Job and am sitting with this passage (38:33) - “Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on Earth?”
I love how God talks to Job throughout this book. The tone of loving admonishment and the use of questions to help Job really interact with this process are beautiful and similar to how I feel I’ve received gentle but firm reprimands from the Divine.
There is so much I DONT know and only so little of the “wisdom in the internal parts and understanding of the mind” (38:36). This is a great reminder to remain cautious when issuing any form of law. We must proceed with utmost humility and awareness of our limited understanding of what is intended.
“Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on Earth?”
I guess Job is a book about apophasis, in a way: living well in the light of all we don't know. Job's friends struggle to understand his situation because it doesn't fit what they understood to be the law of things. I think what is left to us is something like faithful improvisation, against the temptation to freeze things into one law or another.
Thanks so much for this Peter. I'm just back from camping and playing catch up with work, but looking forward to reading this. It looks fascinating and your work sounds very resonant.
All of this reminds me a whole lot of....
When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.
When goodness is lost, there is morality,
When morality is lost, there is ritual.
Ritual is the husk of true faith,
the beginning of chaos.
Therefore the Master concerns himself
with the depths and not the surface,
with the fruit and not the flower.
He has no will of his own.
He dwells in reality,
and lets all illusions go.
Oh yes this rings wonderfully
David, your work really stirs so much for me, and I long for the opportunity to follow these threads with you. As you wonder about law I wonder about the market, and I keep coming back to this image of atrophied leg muscles. That we have been casted and crutched for so long and our neighboring muscles have become so weak that we begin to lose faith in our deeply human capacity to be generators of relational beauty. If there's anything in this metaphor, the question becomes, how do we wiggle our toes or dare to set the crutches down for a moment and fall into one another. I have a small group of folks who are interested in working through your Romans course with you next winter. I'll reach out by email to explore that possibility. Blessings, Adam
Yes, I resonate deeply with this. If the law exists to manage a lack of trusting relationships, then the more heavily we rely on it, the more unnecessary good relationships seem to become. I don't need to know you, because there is a law that defends me against the wrong you might do to me, and vice versa. We lose the muscle of virtue, because the muscle of the State does it for us. Fascinated to think about how this plays out in the market. I recall one of your earlier posts talking about adopting an undefended posture, which feels very atuned to how I'm thinking of goodfaith here.
Please do email about a winter Romans thing. Would love to explore the idea.
Reading this morning from Job and am sitting with this passage (38:33) - “Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on Earth?”
I love how God talks to Job throughout this book. The tone of loving admonishment and the use of questions to help Job really interact with this process are beautiful and similar to how I feel I’ve received gentle but firm reprimands from the Divine.
There is so much I DONT know and only so little of the “wisdom in the internal parts and understanding of the mind” (38:36). This is a great reminder to remain cautious when issuing any form of law. We must proceed with utmost humility and awareness of our limited understanding of what is intended.
O yes, I love this.
“Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on Earth?”
I guess Job is a book about apophasis, in a way: living well in the light of all we don't know. Job's friends struggle to understand his situation because it doesn't fit what they understood to be the law of things. I think what is left to us is something like faithful improvisation, against the temptation to freeze things into one law or another.
Wonderful! I had been describing myself as “spiritually off-roading” but I’m now adopting your term to say I’m “faithfully improvising” 😂
In all seriousness, I love this phrasing and will be carrying it with me to remind myself of the need for flexibility and compassion.
love the faithfully improvising! I think ill keep it too
echoes of an essay I wrote in 1975:
"Law is Terror Put Into Words" — https://www.academia.edu/316481/Law_Is_Terror_Put_Into_Words_A_Humanists_Analysis_of_the_Increasing_Separation_Between_Concerns_of_Law_and_Concerns_of_Justice
Thanks so much for this Peter. I'm just back from camping and playing catch up with work, but looking forward to reading this. It looks fascinating and your work sounds very resonant.