{"id":10223,"date":"2016-11-10T16:54:55","date_gmt":"2016-11-11T00:54:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dminlgp.com\/?p=10223"},"modified":"2016-11-10T16:54:55","modified_gmt":"2016-11-11T00:54:55","slug":"want-to-want","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/want-to-want\/","title":{"rendered":"Want to Want"},"content":{"rendered":"

Where are we headed as a __________? This question is being asked over and over in almost every aspect of my life. \u201cWhere are we headed as a school?\u201d \u201cWhere are we headed as a church?\u201d \u201cWhere are we headed as a family?\u201d \u201cWhere are we headed as a country?\u201d By building a 13.5 billion year historical arc, Harai in Sapiens<\/em> attempts to answer the question, \u201cWhere are we headed as a species?\u201d I think this is an important discussion because, for me, one\u2019s direction is everything. Unfortunately, Harai\u2019s future for us is a bit like the movie Blade Runner<\/em> (It is honestly, completely coincidental that I am listening to the Vangelis soundtrack of the film as I read this book\u2026eerie). In the film, a washed-up cop is asked to arrest and \u201cretire\u201d cyborgs. It is a variation of what Sapiens<\/em> describes as where we are headed.<\/p>\n

After taking the reader through many causes and consequences of various revolutions (a great directional word by the way) like, the \u201ccognitive\u201d revolution, the agricultural revolution, the scientific revolution that triggers the industrial, informational, and current biotechnological revolution, as a way to explain this \u201cprogress\u201d of Sapiens, Harari closes by asking a great haunting question that doubles as a prophecy. His concluding question, \u201cWhat do we want to want?\u201d is the ultimate question for determining one\u2019s personal and community direction. What we want to want determines where we are headed.<\/p>\n

For Harari, the answer lies within our past, via revolution and delusion and imagination. His conclusion regarding the meaning of life and happiness is written on page 292, \u201cSo perhaps happiness is synchronizing one\u2019s personal delusions of meaning with the prevailing collective delusions. As long as my personal narrative is in line with the narratives of the people around me, I can convince myself that my life is meaningful, and find happiness in that conviction.\u201d It\u2019s almost as if, up-to-this-point in human history we have been cyborgs already; our controlled by an intelligence, that is not our current and future understanding of \u201cartificial,\u201d but Harari is basically asserting that so far, everything we know and understand and believe is imaginary and some type of delusional dream. Actually given the tone of this book, nightmare! This difference here is, in a nightmare I can usually force myself to wake up. Harari paints a picture where instead of waking up, we are going to substitute, perhaps as an A-transubstantiate, one artificial project for another. I disagree.<\/p>\n

For me, wanting what we want, finding meaning, and happiness rests with Jesus and his kingdom. Harari would probably call this another monotheistic myth, but the narrative I live under and try to faithfully share with others is that humans contain part of the image of God within them and besides our imaginations and our awesome cooperating skills, we have invisible parts to us. The Bible calls this our heart and sometimes soul or spirit.<\/p>\n

The overarching story I live with and that gives my life direction is that this God became fully human and offers us a revolution he called repentance so that we could walk in the same direction as Him. Every space and every action that is consistent with Jesus is part of his kingdom. It is Jesus himself, who makes the way for anyone and everyone to enter into this revolutionized-kingdom life.<\/p>\n

St. Ignatius of Loyola is helpful here. The narrative that Ignatius lived under consisted of more than spoken and written language as a result of some type of cognitive revolution. Our language is one that involves feelings, moods, intuitions, and senses. Cognitive yes, but also conative (our will) and affective (feelings and emotions). The traditional word for the power found in the affective part of us is usually called our heart. For Ignatius, feelings have spiritual meanings. And the meaning of life, according to Ignatius is to praise, reverence, and serve God. It is when we are free to praise, reverence and serve Jesus we find meaning and happiness.<\/p>\n

This a result of grace . We need to receive the gift of grace to be able to break free from our disordered attachments. Ignatius called things that hold us back from praise, reverence, and service disordered attachments because they are things that our hearts are attached to that lead us away from Jesus and his kingdom. This is quite a different view of humanity than the one Harari describes.<\/p>\n

Once we are on the path to this freedom, we can talk about what we want to want. Notice that I said on the path and not totally free. Again, it is about direction and where we are headed. Harari\u2019s invitation to wrestle with that question is spooky and dismal. For Ignatius, it\u2019s the opposite. It is a grace-filled process, ultimately leading to God and His will, and that is a wonderful thing to want to want.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Where are we headed as a __________? This question is being asked over and over in almost every aspect of my life. \u201cWhere are we headed as a school?\u201d \u201cWhere are we headed as a church?\u201d \u201cWhere are we headed as a family?\u201d \u201cWhere are we headed as a country?\u201d By building a 13.5 billion […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[701,760,763],"class_list":["post-10223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dmlpg6","tag-harari","tag-sapiens","cohort-lgp6"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10223\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}