Worlds

Editor's Comment: Philosophy? Foreign policy? I chose "Lifestyle" as the category for this piece because just back of it Anne and I have been discussing marriage and how to raise children so they may understand and respect their parent's traditions--Lutheran and Jewish--without either parent erasing that part of the other's identity or removing the faith or solace enjoyed as part of religious affiliation.

My modest proposal: produce an unafilliated ecumenical household sustaining observance of key holidays associated with each tradition and educating the children through books and discussions about divinity, faith, family, and law.  It's either something like that, or we'll find ourselves sharing with much of the Middle East the same "my people" vs. "your people" mentality that has led to so much . . . nothing.

It's not my want to undermine Anne's faith, nor is it my wish to raise my children as Christians.

Couples overcome their differences or split on beliefs so deeply held they're inseparable from who they are and would wish to be.  Countries, I think, may settle for coexistance (everybody sing: "This land is my land"--"That land is your land").

Anne's note here may go us all on step farther by speaking to common cause.

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For this guest blog post, I think I'll refer to one of those embarrassing things that hangs around on the Internet for years and years (since 1994 it's consistently shown up when I selfishly Google myself---come on, some of you must have Googled yourselves at some point or another).

;)

It's from a website copyrighted by someone named Henryk Gajewski, whom I never met nor spoke to---it was one of those moments of graduate school idealism that coincided with a mass e-mail I believe Mr. Gajewski must have sent out to students at Georgetown or universities at large.

As you read it, kindly remember that I was a 20-something at the time, and maybe a bit full of myself to say that a well-known psychologist had crystallized MY thoughts. Maybe what I more accurately meant was that I had thought something along these lines before. Bruner's work, which you'll see mentioned below, was a hingepoint for my thesis and remains one of my favorite "academic" books.

The words, though appearing on Mr. Gajewski's site, are mine, written, as I said, well over ten years ago, but still hanging around on the Internet. Mr. Gajewski asked us to respond to this prompt:

"No/Yes War, No/Yes ______."

My response:

No war, YES LOVE

Love isn't easy, but it's better than bloodshed.

Recently I've been reading a book entitled Actual Minds, Possible Worlds by Jerome Bruner, a psychologist at New York University. In this book he crystallizes what I have thought before: much of what we think is "the way things are" is only "the way things are" because of how we perceive it.

In other words, if I have an idea about what is right or civilized, it may be right for my world (or not). But is it really right, or do I just think it's right?

No one can deny that certain physical realities exist.

I think, for example, that even if no one hears a tree fall in the forest, it DOES still make a sound. But some of what we perceive as 'right', or 'good', or 'beautiful' or 'worthy' is that way to us because we are conditioned to value those things, not because they are intrinsically valuable.

I don't know so much about war, but I venture a guess that many battles are fought over conflicting world pictures. If we can learn the ways we are conditioned, perhaps we can step back and examine those ways, thinking about what we really think, and if it is necessarily in conflict with what others think. Perhaps we can agree to value similar things; perhaps we can agree NOT to do so.

An aside, but related: I think it is possible to be a Christian AND to be tolerant of others. I believe Jesus is the way to eternal life, and that He loves me and died and rose again for me. That should not hinder my love; but rather enhance it.

What does this have to do with different worlds?

That is a perplexing question; I leave it to God to work out. I think it is also possible to step back and examine my beliefs in the hope of understanding and loving others.

Source: http://cis.cnt.pl/C-I-S/cis-INTERNET/NOWAR/nwKATALOG/NW-01E.html.