Posted on by kevin

Beyond Explanation

Yesterday, I experienced a moment of pause when I was speaking about how to let go of control by embracing the mystery of the goodness of God. To me, this is a newer practice, but I already value teaching it far more than I value teaching people how to more effectively control the world around them through a comprehensive explanation or understanding of some academic discipline.

This second objective governs just about every learning experience I have been part of. But if I truly embrace the mysterious position I have found myself in, then my teaching will go beyond explanation to facilitating an experience. The moment of pause came when I realized that the accepted explanations of our limited experience of existence often lead us so far astray from reality that we get lost in a fantasy world of our own creation.

Among the Elements

The true pagans of today are those who believe their minds define the world. The new gods are not pieces of wood and stone as much as they are living breathing brains, who struggle with one another for power, acceptance, and control over human destiny.

This redefinition represents a fascinating exposure of my perspective. I am far more open than many in the Christian tradition to recognizing the natural function of various elements of creation. I think the rocks, the hills, the trees, the stars, all serve their purpose in the life of mankind. It would be foolish to presume that such things can define human destiny, but not more so than to presume we can define it for ourselves.

Humanity has received delegated authority to cultivate these resources, but it does not come from our power to manipulate the elements. Our authority comes from a connection with the same source of life from which the other elements spring. Through our union with the creator, we may redeem what aspects of their function have fallen into futility, but this responsibility does not eliminate their effect on our lives.

In the same way that our internal thoughts define our experience of existence, so the external elements exercise a similar influence. Space and time have an impact regardless of whether or not the individual is willing to recognize it. Humanity cannot be fully autonomous agents in this world apart from the freedom of identity as children of God. Even then, freedom is not defined in the sense of isolated independence, but in the sense of harmonious interdependence through which beauty is released into the world (shalom).

Authority through Identity

Authority flows from this sense of restored identity (because this enables the humility to be under authority). Power flows from information (or what is mistakenly called knowledge). Both provide a means of interacting with the world, but only the first has potential to do so in a way that brings life.

But because we have mistaken information and definition for knowledge (instead of knowing through intimate acquaintance), the human efforts to express power in this world have led far too often to devastating outcomes. The problem is not in the attempt to define our experience but in our attempt to let our experience become the standard of definition. When we have no idea who we are, it is impossible to tell the rest of creation what it should look like.

That is why the restoration of the individual to life must precede the ability of that individual to bring life to the surrounding world. Only those who have found a sense of internal wholeness or integrity can be safely entrusted with the stewardship and authority over that which is external to themselves.

Beyond Explanation

Those seeking to educate individuals who would form culture instead of destroying it, who will build communities instead of fostering prejudice, who innovate with artistry rather than mere functionality…would do well to consider shifting the focus of education from the study of explanations to the study of individuals (that which cannot be divided). One cannot see the unity of the world without first seeing the unity within. One cannot reflect beauty without first having the capacity to encounter it. One cannot walk in authority without first abandoning the illusions of power.

Until the individual has been persuaded of the goodness of the creator – and subsequently the creation (including all of its brokenness), this illusion will be difficult to address. The fundamental choice of humanity is, therefore, one of faith: either in the ability of self to define good and evil on behalf of a broken world or in the ability of love to restore all things through a cultivation of union with the source of life (Colossians 1:19-20).  

For more educational resources and perspectives, please visit the Human Centered Learning Blog.

Posted on by kevin

Something More

Right now it feels like I stand in between the entry point of reality and something more like unreality from which I cannot escape.

I have come one direction for a while, but I need the courage to keep going: to answer the call to see beyond what I already know – beyond what captures the hearts and imaginations of the world around. I would like to illustrate this subtle distinction within a fiction story, but for now, I must be content that something like what I would communicate is present in the works of George MacDonald and many of the great poets who have gone before.

It is not so often present in the modern world where this afternoon I browsed through a free magazine wondering at the portraits of women and men showcasing luxurious clothing and accessories. I had expected to find some taste of beauty,  but I found nearly all of them to contain little more than a weak attempt at capturing the allure of sexuality.

From Defined Un-reality

There must be a way to capture and communicate something more real than this, I thought. Though I still question whether it is possible for the general audience to appreciate the subtle difference enough to demand a change. It is possible to find beauty in the human form, but there are some styles of presentation that lend themselves more easily to lust than to admiration.

Naturally, if the intention of the photographer is to awaken desire within a person for whatever is on the page, then the image has succeeded whether it awakens love or lust. Beauty, where it is present in any measure, demands such a response. However, the context I saw called the individual toward consuming a product, which will neither satisfy the desire awakened by the image nor the overall human desire that is hijacked by the whole interaction.

To…

We all should be craving something. I think that something is wholeness, or connection forged by the nature of love that draws all things closer rather than pushing them further apart. How is it possible to capture that?

In words, I think it could be the real definition of purity: being of one substance without contamination by any other. At least it would be a more effective definition than the idea of purity being the absence of something impure. Such ambiguity is equally unhelpful as defining mortality by the absence of immorality. Both are useless because the definitions communicate only what they are not.

To what, then, are we called? I don’t think it is to the image itself, but to something that it represents. When I discover that the image contains only a shallow deception, I am no longer satisfied by what I see…and so I move on, like most people, seeking something new, something more, something that will satisfy the endless craving for something a little bit more real.

It must be possible to create an image representing a truth that will capture the attention of the observer more powerfully. “Here, at last, is something real!” But even this cannot be tied to a product or the context will short-circuit the fullness of what the image represents.

The only exception I see is a product that somehow extended a similar invitation to pursue that which the image represented. True beauty, as a ‘purchasable’ product, might become the bait that lures individuals out of the matrix into the joy of life in all its chaos and hardship. Unlike a sexual high, this undefined thrill cannot be clearly articulated as each one must encounter the reality from a particular vantage point of maturity or immaturity.

Mysterious Reality

Can the invitation be offered to those who are not ready to receive it? Jesus said, “do not cast your pearls before swine” or they will be destroyed along with you (Matthew 7:6).

Must truth, then, be hidden in plain sight? It’s hard to know what you don’t already know.

Can a pathway to discovery be synthesized from the journey of all those who have gone before? The process seems almost exclusively individualized.

Perhaps it is possible to make space for the process and encourage its progress, though it is impossible to tell what this might look like. Perhaps the outcome could be defined as wholeness, but I think for most this is a lifelong journey.

Education as the Invitation

So what kind of structure could be designed to support it throughout a lifetime? Education toward wholeness cannot happen in a moment or else whatever hardens holds the extreme risk of shattering into nothing, taking life with it. Within the constraints of time and place, I consider it possible only to serve the individual with tools, examples, and inspiration – forms of learning and the freedom to customize their design and use.

Perhaps instruction toward some end common to most of humanity might be beneficial. However, too much of this tends toward defining what humanity is, and such a feat is impossible if not destructive. Still, I think there must be some allure – some truth that has the power to overwhelm the deception with an invitation to reality. Even if it evades definition, it must be possible to find.

I have not discovered it, though I have thought myself close to it. I have seen something of it, I have tasted it, shuddered at its presence, felt overwhelmed by something yet beyond my reach though it seemed momentarily tangible. It – whatever it is – speaks to something fundamentally and mysteriously human. A call or invitation echoing through its invisible chambers might invade the waves of light and sound that flood the contemporary human experience with a hint – just a hint – of something real behind what we think we know.

To Seek Something More

To the one blessed with the ability to translate from one world into the other, all the riches of the world might begin to flow. For that which is, is. And to lay hold of it just partially is to align with the current of history and humanity in a way that invites the inevitable to participate with the possible in the presentation of something more beautiful.

Such an invitation could not be overlooked, ignored, or refused, except at the expense of the one who remains blinded by that which has no substance. But the choice of ignorance must still appeal to those who lack the diligence to investigate what is real. The invitation is the only thing that can be received without effort. The reality must be acquired through effort. The first may be free; the second will cost the life of the one who desires it.

The response, therefore, will not only be strongly favorable for those who answer, it will be strongly distasteful for those who try to pretend it never came. There is no unhearing what has been heard or unseeing what has been seen, but the struggle to forget may seem more accessible than the struggle to forge a life, and those who acquiesce to indolence soon hate those who have chosen otherwise.

A clear invitation thus becomes a detestable reminder to those who continually reject the offer. The one who extends it, therefore, must do so with the cunning of a serpent and the gentleness of a dove. Otherwise, there will be no occasion to enjoy the benefit or reap the fruits of what has been unlocked.

Posted on by kevin

The Truth About Sunset

Last night I saw the sunset blazing orange through the deep gray-blue of the surrounding clouds. Light broke the hazy darkness and scattered its rays over the felted mountain tops and valleys of pine. My own eyes lit up against ruby red and violent gold of the western sky then melted into the purple hue of the eastern sky, which was also visible across the expansive overlook. Color, space, time and place became an invitation to look beyond the expression of beauty into beauty itself.

Time-locked, the moment still exists within a photo for memory, but what I can see of it in a picture is only part of what was actually there. Furthermore, the experience of the moment was still only partial. I was distracted by the light and the shadows from the reality they expressed.

Word Pictures

Just like the mysterious truth about sunset goes beyond the motion and the color, I am finding it more difficult to capture the experience of my life in words. Truth is a way of life. Words may carry some of its expression, but the story they tell is much more powerful at communication.

To transfer from one to another; to form a relationship – that is what it means to communicate. The characteristics of one become the characteristics of another. Incommunicable diseases cannot be caught and so nobody is afraid of them. That which is communicable, however, spreads and grows from one to another becoming part of their experience of life for good or for evil.

I want to communicate the freedom of the kindness of God to the world around me, but this cannot happen until it first becomes part of me, then flows through me. The words that I write are ineffective at capturing my experience – except in so much as they are an expression of my heart’s desire to invite others into this way of life.

The invitation itself is an attempt to translate the desire that now flows from me because it flows from Him. No one wants the connection more than the Father Himself. His own name invokes the idea of relationship in terms that humans can relate to – though they may not fully understand.

Art As Invitation

My desire to introduce others to this way of life must be what drives my creative expression. It is impossible to capture, but greater skill produces greater clarity, so I must develop my craft in order to worship and praise more fully through it.

Furthermore, I must develop perspective so that the focus does not slip from what the art is meant to communicate onto the art itself – or worse, onto the artist.

Every poet and musician and artist, but for Grace, is drawn away from love of the thing he tells to love of the telling till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only in what they say about Him. For it doesn’t stop at being interested in paint, you know. They sink lower – become interested in their own personalities and then in nothing but their own reputations. – C.S. Lewis “The Great Divorce” p.85

How can I see the invisible reality to which the tangible experience of my life gives witness? The truth about sunset is not the sunset itself, but the invitation it offers into a reality that cannot be seen with the eyes. The truth about writing is not found in the words themselves, but in their invitation to seek something yet beyond.