How Do You View?

Peter Fitch, St. Croix VineyardJanuary 17, 2016

Polarized Politics

Better . . .

So much depends on . . .

Reality

• Makes sense• Or doesn’t• Depending on perspective and worldview

Honor/Shame Societies

• Must make sense to those within them• Often seem dismal to those who are not• Extreme example: Honour killings of family

members . . .

NA Values

• Compassion and humane treatment for all• Or, freedom and liberty to pursue my own

happiness• Both claim Jesus as an authority for their

perspective• We find within the teaching of the Great

Person the ideas that we value (disregarding others!)

• This reinforces perspective

Terry LeBlanc

Indigenous Worldview

• Community• Time• Genesis 1 versus Genesis 3

Genesis 1:28-31

“Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you;

Genesis 1:28-3130 and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so. 31 God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.

Subdue, rule . . .

• Again, a matter or perspective!• Some see it as we can do whatever we want

with it, destroy it for our purposes• I see it as a special role and responsibility to

care for it wisely as God’s agents and ambassadors on earth

Great example of Power of Perspective

Ignaz Semmelweis . . . Vienna, 1840s

1/6, then 1/84

Anthony de Mello

You see persons and things not as they are but as you are. If you wish to see them as they are you must attend to your attachments and the fears that your attachments generate. Because when you look at life it is these attachments and fears that will decide what you will notice and what you block out. Whatever you notice then commands your attention.

Anthony de Mello

And since your looking has been selective you have an illusory version of the things and people around you. The more you live with this distorted version the more you become convinced that it is the only true picture of the world because your attachments and fears continue to process incoming data in a way that will reinforce your picture.

Jesus and Spinoza

• Polishing lenses . . .• Let Jesus speak: What is the greatest

commandment? . . . Who is my neighbour? . . . The Golden Rule . . . Treatment of others . . .Forgiveness . . . Intimacy with the Father . . . Promise of the Spirit

• In other words, a Life empowered by God to care for others