Tag: Development

Friends in High Places

To have friends in high places means that you know people in senior positions that are able and willing to use their influence on your behalf, that you know important people who can help you get what you want.
   Another way of describing it is to have a “patron” (which is related to the Latin word for father, “pater”).
   A dictionary definition of “patron” is 1. a person empowered with the granting of an English church benefice. 2. a patron saint. 3. a person corresponding in some respects to a father; protector; benefactor. 4. a person, usually a wealthy and influential one, who sponsors and supports some person, activity, institution, etc. 5. a regular customer, as of a store. 6. In ancient Rome, a person who had freed his slave but still retained a certain paternal control over him.
  In the days when people believed in many gods, most had a sort of “patron god” (somewhat like our notion of the later concept of patron saint).
   You can see this in the earlier books of the Bible with their dozens of references to personal and family gods (e.g., the god of Abraham, the god of Isaac, the god of Jacob) and later to tribal and national gods (e.g., the god of the Hebrews, the god of Israel).
   We still have a vestige of this way of thinking when we speak of different religions today as though each are worshiping their own, and a different, god.
   It’s okay to espouse different customs, religious traditions, forms of governance, and language, but we must not forget that we’re fundamentally referencing the one and the same (and the only) God!
   For example, Muslim or not, any believer can praise God in Arabic, saying “Allahu Akbar” (God is great)—and it’s the same God. And Catholic or not, any believer can thank God in Latin, saying “Deo gratias” (Thanks be to God)—the same God.

   In the words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s beautiful sonnet, all believers should be able to say to God, “How much do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”
   If you aspire to have a friend in high places, remember it’s not something exclusive, just for you. There will be a great crowd of others like you. Surprised you may be, but don’t begrudge them the reward they are receiving. Nothing of their gain has any impact on or diminishes yours.
   The metaphor Jesus used for all this was that of the shepherd and his sheep:

   . . . I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I will lay down my life for the sheep.
   I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. These also I must lead, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock, one shepherd.
   This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have power to lay it down, and power to take it up again.
   This command I have received from my Father. (John 10:14-18)

   Thanks be to God that, notwithstanding all our fumbling and bumbling, our failings and fallings, the love and mercy of God overrides them all.
   In spite of all of our limitations and imperfections and misunderstandings, we’re all still fortunate to have a friend in high places, in the highest of places, in the realm of God.




18 June 2023

Accumulated Meanings

Languages are always changing—in the sense that the meaning of their words often is changing and evolving. That’s why, for instance, that occasionally, in a play of Shakespeare, we may have hardly any idea at all about what certain words or expressions mean (or meant when Shakespeare was alive).
   That’s also why it can be a really tricky business translating a very old document written in a foreign language. It helps a lot to know who the writer was and when and where and why was the document first written.
   Take, for example, a common, familiar word like person. It has evolved a lot.
   It can be traced back to ancient Greek, where it referred to the mask that an actor wore in a play and that identified the role he or she was playing.
   And, sometimes in plays, since there were often few professional actors, the same performer played more than one character, using different masks (and dressed and spoke in different ways) for each.
   That’s why the ancient Greek word for the actor’s mask gradual evolved into our common word person (which has come to mean something else entirely).
   A dictionary definition of person says that it is a noun, derived from Middle English persone, derived from Old French, derived from Latin persona: literally an actor’s face mask (hence a character, person) probably derived from ancient Greek.
   It now has many meanings, including: 1. A human being, especially as distinguished from a thing or lower animal; an individual man, woman, or child. 2. a) a living human body b) bodily form or appearance [to be neat about one’s person]. 3. Personality; self; being. 4. Law any individual or incorporated group having certain legal rights and responsibilities. 5. Theology the Trinity.

   Theology itself has changes and developments. In the very early days of Christianity, the common meaning of person still was that of an actor’s face mask—while in our day it’s much more that of an individual man, woman, or child.
   This reminds me of my Catechism lesson in preparation for First Communion (which reflected the ancient meaning of person):
   Q: “How many persons are there in God?”
   A: “In God there are three Divine persons, really distinct, and equal in all things—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”
   Of course, as little kids we weren’t taught the etymology of the word, “person.” Even so, it wouldn’t have and couldn’t have adequately explained the mystery of the nature of God—but it could help a little.
   However, in light of the complex etymology of the word, “Three Divine persons” minimally suggests three different roles God plays and three different kinds of relationships God has to human beings and to all the rest of creation:
– God as the loving begetter, maker, creator, and source of all that exists (Father);
– God as the intervenor in human history who uniquely reveals himself and his love through the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus (Son);
– God as the sustainer, guide, and inspirer of our lives, the interior wellspring of our creativity, strength, and love (Holy Ghost).
   This is but one (and not the only) way of describing the one God. No matter what, all believers in the one God are talking about this one and same God whose total complexities are beyond and defy our separate traditions and our so many attempts at description!



4 June 2023

Fumbling and Bumbling

Fumbling and bumbling is probably an accurate description of the course of most of our lives. [It is an accurate description of mine—or at least of these first 90 years of it! But, I am making progress!]
   Fumbling and bumbling is not necessarily bad!
   After all, we learn by doing. You don’t learn how to keep your balance without falling down. You don’t learn how to do the right thing without doing the wrong thing—i.e., making mistakes.
   If you think making a mistake is something bad or to be avoided at all cost, you’re making a mistake about the role of mistakes. Frequently, almost usually, we don’t learn the importance and value of the right thing—as well as how to do it—until we have experienced the wrong!
   Think of a baby learning how to walk. It takes a lot of falling down to learn how to keep your balance, stand, and walk.
   Think of using seasoning at a meal. A little, the right amount, enhances the taste of the food. But, too much can do just the opposite!
   If you keep making the same mistake, again and again, you’re really not learning from your mistakes. At worst, you’re just becoming comfortable and used to them—so much so that after a while you begin to forget that they are mistakes in the first place!
   It’s your prerogative to crawl forever, but you’re missing out on dancing, not to mention really easily getting around!
   No one ever claims that it is a sin to crawl and not walk, but, oh, the so many mistakes and kinds of mistakes that get that label, that branding.
   We learn by our mistakes—which, paradoxically, implies that we learn by our “sins,” our mistakes that are classified as against the will of God, as shameful, as deep personal failings, as evil!

   “Sin” is a special category of mistake, and it usually implies a kind of habitual mistake, the kind that we make so often that we forget that our progress, our growth and development, our holiness are becoming impeded!
   It’s better not to teach a little child to do the right thing by bawling out, rebuking, mocking, condemning, and punishing. The preferred methodology is to assist, reward, encourage, explain, and teach.
   I think it’s safe to presume that God knows the most effective methods for helping us to grow and develop according to our built-in design.
   Alas, unfortunately often some of our religious teachings, counsels, and judgements don’t quite live up to God’s standards and practice.
   God’s way may seem baffling to us at times—e.g., telling a crucified, condemned criminal, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:43)
   God’s approach to judgement seems to be learn by doing. God doesn’t condemn us for our every mistake, only for not learning from our mistakes and falling into the habit of repeating them.
   Does this mean that anything goes? That we never take responsibility for our mistakes? That there’s no such thing as sin?
   Of course not! But there’s a subtle difference between a mistake and a sin. The way God made us, we’re all fumblers and bumblers—we are all limited creatures only gradually learning from our mistakes.
   God isn’t condemning us for our every mistake, for we can’t learn and grow without them. It’s who and what we are today that counts. We all regret our many yesterdays!


27 November 2022

Testing for Orthodoxy

With two, going on three, years of living with Covid, we’ve all become accustomed to certain dangers and also protective measures—and testing procedures and kits.
   Besides concern for physical health and well-being, how about spiritual? Is there any way we can test ourselves about our religious belief and practice? Is it good? Is it right? Is it Orthodox? Is it in accordance with the will of God?
   Especially with the kind of polarization that seems to afflict modern thought, including politics and religion, it gets harder and harder to get things right.
   Is there a simple, easy, and reliable test we can use?
   Believe it or not, St. Vincent of Lérins, a Gallic monk, who lived about 1,800 years ago in what we now call France, proposed a simple and easy test for healthy faith:
   Believe that which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all.
   In other words, test for universality, antiquity, and consent. He identified this as being truly and properly “Catholic” (meaning “universal”).
   He explained, “We shall follow
   -universality if we acknowledge that one Faith to be true which the whole Church throughout the world confesses;
   -antiquity if we in no way depart from those interpretations which it is clear that our ancestors and fathers proclaimed;
   -consent, if in antiquity itself we keep following the definitions and opinions of all, or certainly nearly all, bishops and doctors alike.
   Is this an iron-clad, absolutely effective, always faultless test? Of course not! No human devising ever can be—but it’s pretty accurate and a useful tool for self-examination.
   Remember, St. Vincent of Lérins also wrote strikingly about the difference between development and alteration:

   Is there to be no development of religion in the Church of Christ? Certainly, there is to be development and on the largest scale.
   Development means that each thing expands to be itself, while alteration means that a thing is changed from one thing into another.
   The understanding, knowledge, and wisdom of one and all, of individuals as well as of the whole Church, ought then to make great and vigorous progress with the passing of the ages and the centuries, but only along its own line of development, that is, with the same doctrine, the same meaning, and the same impact.
   Vincent compared this kind of development with that of the body: Though bodies develop and unfold their component parts with the passing of the years, they always remain what they were.
   If you sometimes feel uncomfortable with certain changes and developments in the Church, which you may consider to be too “newfangled” to be trusted, it may be of some consolation to realize that change and development have always been part of the life of the church—and part of the growth of the church.
   St. Vincent was trying his best to assure his monastic brothers and others who read his writings that all is well.
   Growth, development, and new insights and understandings can be very valuable, healthy, progressive—and vice-versa! Sorting out the differences is a pretty tricky business.
   It’s reassuring to realize that this is not a new or exclusively recent phenomenon. St. Vincent was trying to clarify a similar situation centuries ago. His test is still good!


13 November 2022

Vatican II Pandemic

A key factor in the development of my life was Vatican Council II—not because of studying about it, but because I was there!
   No, I wasn’t a member of the council (that was for bishops only), and I wasn’t an appointed theological expert. But I did attend half the council—the second and third of the four annual sessions (1962-1965)—as an “assignator loci” (“usher” you could say; actually, a sort of staff attendant).
   It was held in St. Peter’s Basilica. Each tiered section of bishops had one priest assigned to assist them and do whatever needed to be done: distribute documents to the bishops; distribute blank voting cards (IBM punched cards) and collect them and bring to a central processing office in the basilica; deliver messages during the council sessions to the presiding officers of the council, even to the pope in his quarters.
   I also heard all the speeches during these working sessions of the Council, had copies of and studied all the working documents, and was fortunate to learn from the so many distinguished bishops and priests that shared their views in talks to us U.S. priest-students at our residence in Rome.
   Happily, I had arrived in Rome a week before the start of the Council to begin my studies for a doctorate in Canon Law.
   I was in Assisi when Pope John XXIII made an unprecedented trip there to pray at the tomb of St. Francis for the success of the Council just before it started.
   I was in St. Peter’s Basilica for the opening of the Council, a pontifical Mass, fortunately standing very near the main altar.
   An unforgettable and moving thing for me that day was to see Pope John, the celebrant of the Mass, kneeling down over the burial place of St. Peter to recite the Nicene Creed before the bishops of the world, professing his and their and the whole Church’s common faith: Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentum . . .

   Some commentators describe the Council as contentious, but this was not my experience. Overwhelmingly the Council was a spiritual event for all concerned.
   Every morning I saw bishops kneeling on the cold marble floor of the transept of the basilica in silent prayer before the Blessed Sacrament in preparation for the day’s work.
   Every daily session began with a Liturgy at a modest altar table in the central aisle of the basilica between the banks of seats on both sides; all the rites of the Church had their turn and some were surprising—for example, the Geez rite used drums and dance!
   During my three years in Rome, although the Council was in session only for a few months each Fall, it dominated church life.
   My assigned personal duty was to develop some expertise in the law of the Church, but the vitality and excitement of my life in Rome was the amazing and wonderful experience of the Council.
   What a sad surprise it was, back in New York during the final session of the Council, to discover that most people there didn’t realize what an astounding event in the life of the Church was taking place.
   In some small way I brought some of the Council spirit to my work in the Chancery Office. Many evenings and weekends I would visit convents in the diocese to talk to women religious who were eager to learn about the Council and the new perspectives it was bringing to their lives.
   Priests in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where I lived, were also glad to know more of the Council and its teachings.
   I was severely infected by Vatican II. For the past 60 years I keep trying to remain contagious!


23 October 2022

Guinea Kids

Guinea pig: 1. A short-eared, tailless rodent often used in scientific experiments or kept as a pet.  2. The subject of any sort of experiment.

   You know, you’re a sort of guinea pig yourself. Don’t be offended. It’s not a put-down. I am, too. Everybody is.
   Isn’t every child born a kind of subject of an experiment? The experimenters—the mother and the father—are not well-trained professionals with extensive schooling and training in the fine art of having and raising children.
   The experimenters range from historically, socially, educationally, culturally similar people to widely diverse.
   This means that the newborn child often may be similar to his/her extended family members and easily welcomed. On the other hand, the newborn child sometimes may bear little resemblance to most of his/her extended family members and perhaps be hesitatingly welcomed.
   In every case, every child born is unique and a blend, a combination of many diverse genes, cultures, and personal traits. Every newborn child is a kind of subject of an experiment on the part of his/her parents.
   First of all, every newborn child is part woman (mother) and part man (father). Also, every newborn child learns what it means to grow up not only from these two diverse parents but also from diverse others in his/her immediate and extended family as well as friends, neighbors, acquaintances, and still others—who may be somewhat similar or widely diverse.
   In view of the inexperience of parents, the diversity of positive and negative influences, and the vicissitudes of early life, it’s amazing that each one of us survived, not to mention flourished.
   (Of course, thanks be to God, our birth and development did involve God, too!)

   If your parents were very different from one another and others in your neighborhood as well, you probably grew up being comfortable and at home with a high degree of diversity—and vice-versa!
   The experiencing of diversity and the challenges of understanding are not confined to childhood alone. They usually continue all through our lives.
   Thanks be to God for the diversity of our contemporary world and the different languages, traditions, cultural mores, and people that are part of our daily life!
   We all were used to diversity all the time in our early life. Whatever happened to us that we often seem to have lost our ability to live with and accommodate ourselves to it?
   Remember, we’re all “guinea kids”. We’re all subjects of a great and never-ending experiment. We’re all different from one another to one degree or another.
   We’re all special and unique with special and unique talents and gifts, special and unique capacities and abilities, and special and unique roles to play in life.
   What’s really dumb, wasteful, and deadly is for us to seek to avoid diversity, change, and challenge and to cling to what was instead of dealing with what is and what’s next.
   Each one of us is an experimental model, each one of us is constantly changing, each one of us lives by observing, studying, and experimenting.
   If a guinea pig were asked, “Aren’t you tired of being tested and experimented with? Don’t you want to be left in peace?”
   The pig might well reply, “Are you crazy? You want me dead? That’s who I am and what I do! My nature is to be experimental.”
   Yours and mine, too!


17 July 2022

Building Faith

Building faith has some similarity to other kinds of construction. It takes initiative, imagination, skill, science, professionalism, commitment, collaboration, hard work, trial, error, patience, perseverance, endurance, toil, toll, tools, and teamwork.
   Most constructions start with a rough sketch, then a detailed design, then the architectural drawings, and finally the detailed plans.
   Architects don’t construct; that’s the job of engineers and skilled and experienced technicians. Many diverse and specialized workers are needed to complete the job.
   The growing construction is constantly being monitored, and original plans may need to be adjusted and revised in light of lived experience.
   And, you know how architecture can be. The style of many a great work may become dated; the artistic standards may change and fluctuate. But, no matter what, the construction must be apt to serve its primary purpose—and even reasonably compatible with other, nearby, and similar buildings.
   Faith is one of those great enterprises that take more than one lifetime to complete. That means that at times it’s hard to discern where things are going, what is the importance of certain aspects of it, what the completion really will look like.
   The foundations of faith are necessary to support the whole building, but they’re not meant to be the be-all and the end-all of the construction. Homes may have basements, but they’re not usually designed to be the preferred living quarters.
   Foundations must bear the weight of what is yet to come, and the construction needs to continue.
   In the Bible there’s a warning about building, the Tower of Babel: some things are ill-planned and exceed the possibilities of human construction.

   Our personal faith is a never-ending construction. Collectively, faith is an enterprise so vast and complex that it gradually is shaped and grows over interminable generations.
   The fruit of centuries of endless reflections, revisions, and development, it exceeds any one merely human plan or model.
   Faith grows, so to speak. It has foundations, continual construction following the plans of the creator, and occasional revisions and reconstructions when we workers mistakenly misconstrue or don’t follow precisely the plans.
   Faith not only grows. Faith evolves. Faith develops. Faith challenges.
   Looking back, we may realize that we learned some things in a childish way. That doesn’t mean that they were wrong or bad, just that we needed to develop from a childish faith to an adult one.
   Some prayers and religious practices that used to be very important to us once upon a time may not be quite so important now. They had a value in our spiritual growth, but in some ways we’ve outgrown them.
   The Spanish poet, Antonio Machado, wrote: “Caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar”, which could be translated as, “Wayfarer, there is no way; you make your way as you walk.”
   That’s not a good description of a life of faith, since it leaves out the action of God in our lives. But, it’s a reminder that each of us must make our own way through life with the help of God.
   We have foundations for our faith from long ago, we have updates and models galore, we just need to risk it and live it!


17 April 2022

Seeing, Knowing, and Understanding Better

Your eyesight might not be so very bad, but, even so, being fitted with the right pair of glasses can be a revelation. You may discover that you haven’t been seeing things so clearly as you thought you were.
   The same thing happens with more knowledge about different things or more detailed knowledge about the same thing—that is, being surprised by the value or importance or the lack thereof of someone or something you thought you knew well.
   But seeing better and knowing better are still not quite the same as understanding better. You can see something more clearly and know something in more detail without necessarily understanding better.
   Christopher Columbus suspected that the world was round, not flat. That why he was convinced that he could find a better way to India and the East Indies than the long route south to the remotest tip of the African continent, around it, and sailing still further East.
   He felt vindicated once he saw the islands (of the Caribbean) and their native people who he was mistakenly sure were Indians!
   Columbus’s contributions were still great: he saw and knew important things even if he misunderstood some of them.
   That may be a pretty good description of most of us. We may see things and people, get to know them, and still profoundly misunderstand them.
   That’s why life is a never-ending process involving seeing, knowing, and understanding—which involves a never-ending process of change and development.
   It’s okay if you don’t mind not seeing so clearly—or not knowing that much about other things or people—or not understanding the what or why or how of so many things.
   But, you may be getting somethings wrong. Like Columbus, you may encounter something new and mistake it for what it is.

   Living things are changing things. Living people are changing people. You’re always going to be challenged to see more clearly, to know more and better, and to understand things and people more deeply.
   Insights change and develop. Knowledge expands and deepens. Understanding grows and develops—and so do you and everyone else still alive and kicking!
   This includes beliefs, religion, God, right, wrong, good, and bad. Our customs, faith, and understandings constantly change and develop.
   Like Columbus, we may celebrate that some of our ideas were fundamentally right, even though we still may mistake a lot of the details about where we are and who really are the people we’re encountering.
   We may venerate the Bible and still at the same time no longer believe some of things people believed many centuries ago. Hopefully, that’s progress and development—even though sometimes we get it wrong, not right!
   What do we really understand about God? Who really is Jesus? Does everything his followers say, teach, and do really reflect his teachings? Do we always, frequently, sometimes, or rarely get it right when we encounter a new place, new people, new ideas, or new directions?
   Our change and development in all things is never-ending. New people, new things, new insights are our daily diet.
   Are you tired of it all, do you wish it would stop, do you want everything to be just like you remember it? If you do, beware! You may be yearning for life’s end.
   Life involves change and development. If you stop changing and developing, it’s over!


10 April 2022

Studying Life

The (Greek) root meaning of Biology is Life-Study. In other words it is the study of life and living things.
   In high school, I had a great Biology teacher. He taught us to use a microscope to study unicellular organisms.
   Amoebas were fascinating, especially their ability to move about, change their shape, and reproduce by dividing into two!
   Some of us liked the Biology class so much that we persuaded the teacher to offer us an additional elective course in Zoology, one of three traditional major branches of Biology. (The others are Botany and Microbiology.)
   Although Biology means the study of life, studying and learning about life embraces much more than Biology, Zoology, or other related sciences. In the broadest sense, every thinking living person is studying, experiencing, and learning about life all the time.
   We’re usually preoccupied by aspects of life, especially of our own lives—physical, emotional, intellectual, psychological, and spiritual to name a few.
   And, it’s a course of study that never quite ends. No matter how old or experienced we may be, we’re still studying, experiencing, and learning about life!
   Faith and religion are part of learning about life, too. They involve studying, experiencing, and learning about the universe we live in, life itself, living things, their relations, and their creator’s designs.
   Hopefully, you had the good fortune to have had good examples and teachers of faith and religion and to have learned to use religious teachings, theology, and scripture to study the meaning and purpose of life.
   Religion is more than a matter of customs, social standards, rules, and regulations that dictate and even restrict personal behavior.
   Social standards, rules, and regulations are changeable and even arbitrary. A good example of this is the ten commandments.

   For example, Exodus 20:8-10 says, Remember the sabbath day [day of rest]—keep it holy. Six days you may labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God…
   Devote Jews observe this, but Christians do not. Instead their day of rest is the first day of the week, Sunday. Literally, this is disobeying one of the commandments.
   Our understandings of many things religious always have been changing: what’s right and wrong, good and bad, virtue and sin as well as our understandings of God and the will and designs of God, the purpose and destiny of life, the meaning of scripture, theology, and church teachings.
   Sometimes our changed understandings are misunderstandings; sometimes they are rediscoveries of lost or misunderstood original meanings; sometimes they are new or enhanced understandings, new insights into the will and designs of God.
   If we really are studying life and living things, then we are necessarily experiencing change, for better or for worse, and, hopefully, developing and evolving.
   All this is of the very nature of life. The simplest of living things—for instance, the amoebas, move about, change their shape, and reproduce and multiply.
   How much more complicated and complex are our lives, our understandings of our purpose, and our limited insights into the nature of God and his designs and will.
   To bewail and avoid change, always clinging to what is familiar, comfortable, and secure, is to behave like an immobile caterpillar who is reluctant to break out of its enfolding cocoon, never realizing that its ultimate destiny is to fly!


20 March 2022

Experiencing and Experimenting

It’s important to know how words shift, change, and develop in their meaning as centuries pass. If we understand where they came from and how they have evolved, we can use them better and more accurately. For instance:
   The Latin verb experior basically means to try, test, prove, put to the test. Hence it can mean:
   – to make trial of a person
   – to know by having tried, to know by experience
   – to try to do a thing
   – (as a present participle, experiens) enterprising, venturesome
   – (as a past participle, expertus) tested, tried, approved or with experience, experienced
   It’s at the root of the English word, experience, which can mean:
   – a particular instance of personally encountering or undergoing something
   – the process or fact of personally observing, encountering, or undergoing something
   – the observing, encountering, or undergoing of things generally as they occur in the course of time
   – knowledge or practical wisdom gained from what one has observed, encountered, or undergone
   It’s also at the root of the English word, experiment, which can mean:
   – a test, trial, or tentative procedure; an act or operation for the purpose of discovering something unknown or of testing a principle, supposition, etc.
   – the conducting of such operations
   – (as a verb) to try or test, especially in order to discover or prove something

   Generally, the methodology of science includes almost all these meanings, since it involves observing, researching, theorizing, testing, analyzing, and concluding.

   Generally, the methodology of religion includes some of the meanings associated with experience, but hardly at all those associated with experiment.
   In scientific methodology, experiments are necessary to verify the validity and truthfulness of a theory. Whether the experiment succeeds or fails, it has value in the learning process.
   However, in religious methodology, a failed experiment is not usually appreciated as a value in the learning process. Usually it is identified as a moral defect, a negative judgement of the experimenter, and as a violation of accepted rules and regulations.
   Human nature being what it is, most people have grown and developed, instinctively using a methodology that is more “scientific”. In other words, we’ve learned by trial and error.
   We either try and err ourselves or we trust the shared conclusions of others who have tried and erred before us.
   The very essence of our learning process involves making mistakes.
   Actually the trial and error methodology works in religious matters as well. There, too, we learn by trying and erring ourselves or trusting the shared conclusions of others who have tried and erred before us.
   However, in religious affairs often the learning process is thwarted since our trying and erring may be censored and identified as evil and sinful. The expectation usually is that we should totally and exclusively trust and be guided by the wisdom of others who have gone before us.
   Hopefully, our “Last Judgement” won’t confuse our in-good-faith erring with our stubbornly repeating failed experiments!


13 March 2022