June 19, 2023 – B

Reedy River Falls 06 07/16/2015 Oil Paint Rendered — Greenville, South Carolina
We have to develop our own eyes!
We cannot allow anyone else
to do our seeing for us!
Yet, how many of us "see"
with other people's eyes?!

The entire thrust of Christianity--
and all other religion--
is to talk us into
allowing "those who know best"
to do our seeing and our thinking for us.

We have to take our eyes back!
And cultivate minds of our own!

The church that is really the church
would enable that
in an
"Inclusive, open-minded and home for your soul"
kind of way.

The trouble is that kind of insight
can rarely be passed along 
from generation to generation,
and each generation has to learn 
to see for itself
in a "Who do YOU say that I am?" kind of way.

And those who know
are hardly ever
those who boast and brag about knowing,
and burn at the stake all those
whom they say do not know.

Knowing is a very personal--
and individual--thing,
and those who stumble upon it
are few.

More often than not,
those who say they see
are "the blind leading the blind"
straight onto the meandering 
pathways of the wasteland.

We have to learn to see for ourselves,
listen to ourselves,
know and trust ourselves,
and what else is living for?

How are you coming along
with seeing, hearing, knowing and trusting
yourself on the field of action?

Everything is practice!
Practice, practice, practice!

It is the way!

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Published by jimwdollar

I'm retired, and still finding my way--but now, I don't have to pretend that I know what I'm doing. I retired after 40.5 years as a minister in the Presbyterian Church USA, serving churches in Louisiana, Mississippi and North Carolina. I graduated from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, in Austin, Texas, and Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana. My wife, Judy, and I have three daughters, five granddaughters, one great granddaughter, and a great grandson on the way, within about ten minutes from where we live--and are enjoying our retirement as much as we have ever enjoyed anything.

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