Out on a Limb of Controversy

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Only the fear of the Lord begins a process of wisdom.

There is no wisdom in any other sort of fear, only poor choices that seem right in the moment. All other fears are cast out by that awe-some, jaw-dropping, knee-popping, head-bending, body-trembling unveiling experience of His power, holiness, and love. Then, in that love, all fear is cast out.

So, fear of anything or anyone else produces bad decisions whether personal or policy driven. We live by the liberating law of love.

Fear and love cannot coexist equally in our attitudes toward others. Fear imprisons us and constricts us.

Love sets us free. God’s love intervenes when we are inclined to retreat from Him and the hand of Jesus draws us toward Him. His Spirit fills us and we come. And we come that we may go, fearless into the world.

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Several years ago, I posted, in social media, some provocative comments about a controversial topic. I used the term, “dominant narrative.”

Even that was controversial as a concept.

The next day, I wrote the following response:

I find myself getting a few comments on my provocative observations from last night’s forum — Good! Some reflect an honest belief in what we are calling a “dominant narrative” of reality. We generally believe the story in widest circulation among people who share our common experience. Then, some exposure or new information from sources outside our own experience challenges our embrace of that narrative and creates new conversation.

Most narratives are based upon some truth, but none, by human limitation, on all the truth or necessarily the most determinate truth. As the old cliche speaks to me about my assumptions of reality, “Follow the money …” whatever “money” means in a specific context.

Who benefits and how?

Do we get the results we really want for what we really want and do we really want what we should be wanting?

What if we are getting neither what we want or ought to be wanting? What many good people are working for something that we think is getting what is not being delivered and there is enough temporary reinforcement to train our thinking and behaviors to keep things as they are?

Well, then, we have described the human condition at any given time in history.

So, we must dialogue, seek, challenge our thinking, and create a new story for a future reality. For those who walk in the light of the Kingdom of God as proclaimed by Jesus Christ, this is always an imperative because He always challenged the narrative with a completely new, yet old way of looking at everything.

I’ll probably comment on the comments at some point, but the specifics, while important, are secondary to the principle. All were given with honest conviction and all hold or reflect at least some part of the reality we must consider as we move forward. All have to be considered, respected, addressed, challenged, and/or/and examined beyond the first layer of reality.

Jesus told us to seek first the Kingdom and its righteousness which a entirely different from the kingdoms of the world which are systems that can usually boil down to self interest and perpetuation of someone’s sense of need to preserve wealth, power, or a false sense of security and safety.

In like manner, it is a different sort of righteousness that is based upon a paradigm flipped over to draw a new picture of laws and principles that all must hang upon our call to vertical and horizontal love of God and neighbor.

Who is my neighbor?

That becomes the question with which we must wrestle in all of our personal and social ethics as they touch our relationships with people and communities.

So, it is no small consideration to ask the right questions and continuing to stir the pots.

I have often wrestled with the difficult consequences of not stirring the pots on my stove adequately.

Stirring is hard work, but scraping the bottom of a burned pan is sheer torture!