[FRIAM] Religious Imagination: The Archer

Sun Apr 11 20:07:37 EDT 2021

Freud would be impressed with your fusion of a strong, male, protective
hunter and a bounteous giving mother to form your god(des).  Everyone longs
for the days when she had an omniscient, omnipotent parent imago.

---
Frank C. Wimberly
140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
Santa Fe, NM 87505

505 670-9918
Santa Fe, NM

On Sun, Apr 11, 2021, 4:22 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hey, Steve, sorry if I appeared to shrug your question off.  My answer was
> meant to be colorful, but not facetious.
>
>
>
> The only god worth having, in  my book, is some sort of an anthropomorphic
> god.  I am pretty sure that no such god exists.  What does exist is a
> longing in people to be held in loving hands and put to a purpose, and they
> may manifest that longing in many ways.  If I care to imagine a Diana-like
> god as a momentary expression of that longing, then I see nothing wrong
> with that, or necessarily facetious about it.  Freud, of course, would love
> it.
>
>
>
> When I am indulging my religious imagination, I generally expend my effort
> on designing the perfect heaven.  Just to reassure you that I am not
> fooling around here, I will quote the ending of my obituary for my brother,
> written 8 years ago and spoken before my august, waspish, mostly atheistic
> family.
>
>
>
> I am a life-long Darwinian.  Like Darwin himself, I believe that no-one
> should be denied the comfort of a religious imagination, particularly if
> she or he happens to be an athiest. Even a non-believer should take the
> time to think what heaven might be.  Where will it be?  How old will you be
> in heaven?  Whom will you see there?  Will those people be as you know them
> now, or as you knew them as a child? What season will it be?  What will you
> wear?
>
>
>
> For me, heaven will be, a doubles match on the court in Ipswich, my
> parents, family and friends cheering from the shade of the grape arbor, and
> me, bent to the net, with my big brother at the base line behind me, ready
> to serve.
>
>
>
> I think that, right there, is the best of religion,  the comforting
> imagination.
>
>
>
> Now, if believing in least action as a fundamental law of nature, as a
> goal that nature is trying to fulfill, gives you that sort of comfort, I am
> all for it.  But I cannot imagine being comforted by that.  Well, I suppose
> I could imagine it like a river, heading toward The Good, and I, lolling in
> a boat, being carried along.  But I think, pretty quick, I would sit up in
> the boat and wonder what this Good Place is  (See the TV series of that
> name)  No religious imagining is going to do me good that isn’t pretty
> specific.
>
>
>
> My own sense of *How Things Actually Are* is actually pretty unsettling.
> As in our politics, I imagine two basins of attraction, one, the
> progressive democratic, the other, the autocratic fascist, and a function
> that goes back and forth, going down to the bottom of each basin until it
> is suddenly flung out into the outskirts of the other from which it now
> descends.  The only question is how deep down into our present cesspit we
> have to go before things start to get better.  Is this a 50 year cesspit,
> or a 400 year one.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nick Thompson
>
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Stephen Guerin
> *Sent:* Saturday, April 10, 2021 6:53 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Instructional scaffolding - Wikipedia
>
>
>
> Nick asks:
> | How do you imagine Her.
>
> I interpret the Archer to be symbolism of an Immanent God in the
> pantheistic tradition of Spinoza and Harold Morowitz. Looking a little into
> Khalil Gibran, he is described as a pantheist and Sufi mystic on Wikipedia
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kahlil_Gibran>..
>
> You've referenced this poem twice now and I was curious what the symbolism
> was for you (Not necessarily if you believe it).
>
> If you want to stick with your original answer, we can return this thread
> to plumbing the semantic depths of "scaffolding" ;-p
>
>
>
> -Stephen
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 10, 2021 at 6:12 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi, Steve,
>
>
>
> She’s about seven feet tall, has two gigantic hounds at her side, wears
> tall boos, short skirt, works out like CRAZY.  When she bends the bow, she
> always say, “Easy now.  Relax.  This may stretch a bit.”  Despite this
> kindly warning, I am never ready for the “twang!”
>
>
>
> How do you imagine Her.
>
>
>
>
>
> Nick
>
>
>
> Nick Thompson
>
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Stephen Guerin
> *Sent:* Saturday, April 10, 2021 5:54 PM
> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <
> friam at redfish.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Instructional scaffolding - Wikipedia
>
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 10, 2021 at 5:48 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Or as Kahil Gibran once famously said: “You are the bow from which your
> children as arrows fly; let you bending in the hands of The Archer be for
> joy.”
>
>
> Nick you turned me on to this poem a couple of weeks ago and I think it's
> beautiful. Who/What do you understand the Archer to be?
> *On Children*
>
> Kahlil Gibran <https://poets.org/poet/kahlil-gibran> - 1883-1931
>
> And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of
> Children.
>      And he said:
>      Your children are not your children.
>      They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
>      They come through you but not from you,
>      And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
>
>      You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
>      For they have their own thoughts.
>      You may house their bodies but not their souls,
>      For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot
> visit, not even in your dreams.
>      You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
>      For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
>      You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent
> forth.
>      The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends
> you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
>      Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
>      For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow
> that is stable.
>
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