[Mark Harragin]

Two excellent essays John. Thanks so much for posting. Something to take forward into the new year.

[Mark Harragin]

Hillman: etymologise a word to recover some of its original “angelology”. e.g. as mentioned, “belief” comes from love. “Belief in God” (LH) becomes “love God” (RH), as covered by McG in TMWT Chap 28.

Jung: Analogise – mythology, alchemy, synchronicity, dreams, active imagination, astrology, numerology – trust the Unconscious. Like an octopus temporarily covering itself with a mantle of sea-bed detritus, reflecting and glinting in all sorts of ephemeral ways. Soul momentarily glimpsed.

And then in a moment I drop all this learned stuff and risk naked, vulnerable exposure (like the octopus). This forum, the sense of the sacred, demands my un-knowing and un-making, I seek to put into practice what I’m learning from TMWT. To re-orient to RH I drop all my intellectual baggage (LH) and trust to… love.

[Mark Harragin]

I’ve never read anything by Wendell Berry. This is lovely. I really liked the way I felt the ripples of my mind gently subsiding as I read, the punch line coming just as I was about to drift off. The rhetorical form illustrating, embodying the point.

[Mark Harragin]

Happy New Year!

I’m so grateful for the intro to BBT. I love her! As I drift into my latter years (I’m 66) I find myself reverting to Christianity of the Church of England variety to which I was exposed at school from 8. Not the Christian Science to which my mother and grandmother were espoused. A new year question: how might I open my mind so my heart falls out?

This digresses from McG’s DBH…or does it?

Can you explain to an Englishman the Milwaukee joke in her talk?

[Mark Harragin]

Thanks very much for your comment on my last post Don. In the intro to this group Mark D has “thoughts about how it should be possible to be a professing Christian and appreciate the insights of the divided brain hypothesis.” I trust Mark D you are happy to widen the scope to include professing anything and appreciating the insights of the DBH. I notice this group has 25 members. I’d love to hear more from others on how they’ve been impacted by McG’s chapter 28, the DBH with respect to whatever religious affiliation or none.

[Mark Harragin]

Correction: reading TMWT has sustained me.

[Mark Harragin]

Reading TMWT has sustained my intellectual interest for most of 2022. The experience was similar to climbing a mountain, like Kilimanjaro (Kenya childhood), the lower altitudes arduous, too weighed down with science, then more wondrous as the chapters progressed, culminating with chapter 28, the air thin but champagne fresh and sparkling, the view infinite. McG constructed this book with so much meticulous care, attention to detail. Reading was like being held in a warm loving embrace. My intellect baulked and grumbled (“too much science!”). My body held, my soul nourished.

[Mark Harragin]

Thanks Mark, and thanks for the invitation. I’ll see. Navajo flaw – nice! I understand Gnosis as knowledge (same root) of God – kennen not wissen as McG puts it. So, joining things up, I mentioned to Don in the other stream McG’s idea of “God” as an un—word, Don responded with unGod (which I fancy as a verb), and I come to Agnosis (you describe yourself as agnostic) as valid an approach to God as any other. McG mentions about the Queen telling Alice to get there by running in the opposite direction. Am I in Wonderland? How has reading TMWT affected you and or informed your agnostic stance?

[Mark Harragin]

Hello Mark,

Thanks for organising this. For me, the most important chapter in TMWT. My LH wants you to add a d to an in the title of this thread.

“I wish more Christians were…” : I enter this discussion in sacred communion. I would want to forgive Christians any misguidedness in the light of their fundamental avowal to a faith. I wander if strident literalistic interpretations are to do with needing to hold God close in times of fear and insecurity…

Mark

[Mark Harragin]

Hi Don,

You’ve been on an amazing life journey.

Informing and enlivening my sense of the sacred, yes, two things(!):

1. Iain introduces “God” as an un-word – standing for that which is ineffable.

2. The word belief etymologised back to the root word for love.

These two linguistic deconstructions help open me to, well, love, or God, myself, my loved ones, and all.