Click on the above to enlarge:

You can see our travels together today from the photo album by clicking here: Click on slideshow and full screen. Yes, some shots are better than others…look for the ones that float your boat

All of the photos are from today (with the exception of about 18 from last summer). We (Reggie and I) got up at 4:30AM so we could savor the sunrise together in Bend, OR, then went on to Sisters, OR and then out into the Three Sisters Wilderness.

Sometimes, language blows my brain up – blows my hair back. I am going to get to an extensive review of this book here in a few days:  Smart World – Breakthrough Creativity and the new Science of Ideas by Richard Ogle – Harvard Business School Press Boston, MA USA Copyright © 2007 by Richard Ogle.

Until I do, blow your hair back with the essence of the following excerpt:

Imagination is not the poor cousin of reason, trafficking in desire-driven fantasy, dreaming, and delusion, but rather, as Fauconnier and Turner show, the very basis on which intelligent, sense-making thought builds. Independently, the philosopher Colin McGinn has reached a similar conclusion in his recent book Mindsight, arguing that without the faculty of imagination, there could be no thought, rational or otherwise. To think intelligently is to create webs of meaning about how the world might be, and this is the work of imagination. Reason follows, creating the rational links and chains of inference that validate and extend our knowledge of reality. Fundamentally we are, as McGinn asserts, Homo imaginans. P. 72

Photography by Bill Dahl – All Rights Reserved – 2010

by Stanley Hauerwas – Hannah’s Child – A Theologians Memoir. Wm. B. Eerdsman Publishing – Available May 2010

“To become fully human means learning to turn my gratitude for being alive into some concrete common good. It means growing gentler toward human weakness. It means practicing forgiveness of my and everyone else’s hourly failures to live up to divine standards. It means learning to forget myself on a regular basis in order to attend to the other selves in my vicinity. It means that living so that “I’m only human” does not become an excuse for anything. It means receiving the human condition as blessing and not curse, in all its achingly frail and redemptive reality.”

Excerpt above from ——pp. 117-118 An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor HarperOne Publishers Copyright 2009

Photography by Bill Dahl – All Rights Reserved – 2010

Maybe it also means it’s OK to drop to your knees to shed a few tears when life kicks sand in your eyes…..by Bill Dahl

“As he attempts to reappraise his life, a man discovers how much it has been based on illusions, and he is faced with the task of de-illusionment. By this expression, I mean a reduction of illusions, a recognition that long held assumptions and beliefs   about self and world are not true. This process merits special attention because illusions play so vital a role in our lives throughout the life cycle.”

Like I said — look for it at the next used book sale you attend.

]]> http://www.billdahl.net/book-reviews/the-seasons-of-a-mans-life-by-daniel-levinson/feed/ 0 http://www.billdahl.net/featured/the-origins-of-knowledge-and-imagination/ http://www.billdahl.net/featured/the-origins-of-knowledge-and-imagination/#comments Sun, 28 Feb 2010 08:37:32 +0000 bill http://www.billdahl.net/?p=1986

I have been completing some study lately on how we think, where ideas come from, the sociology of knowledge, creativity, innovation and imagination. I stumbled upon the reference to this little treasure in the end notes of another book. I also have a policy of reading one book more than 10 years from the date of its publication for every fourth book I read. Once again, this guideline helps me embrace timeless literary treasures that I would likely overlook.

Excerpt from – The Silliman Lectures – Yale University – 1978 – “Knowledge and imagination are two inseparable aspects of the intellectual experience. The imaginative moment is as central to science as to poetry or to figurative art. The mind acts upon the natural world in the creation of knowledge in the same way as it acts on the elements of human sensibility in bringing forth a poem or a painting or a symphony.” – p x.

“The creative personality is always one that looks on the world as fit for change and on herself as an instrument for change. Otherwise, what are you creating for? If the world is perfectly all right the way it is, you have no place in it. The creative personality thinks of the world as a canvas for change and of herself as a divine agent of change.”

Here are some other excerpts I thought were poignant:

Thinking of the human being as a special kind of animal ‘and of the animal as a special kind of engine. P.7

“Imagination” is a word which derives from the making of images in the mind, from what Wordsworth called “the inward eye.” But the very fact that Wordsworth could use such a phrase makes it very clear how much the intellectual activities of man are eye-conditioned. P.10

The sense of sight dominates our outlook on the outside world, whereas the sense of hearing is used by us largely in order to make contact with other people or with other living things. There is a very clear distinction in the way in which most of the time we use vision to give us information about the world and sound to give us information about other people in the world.  p.10-11

The world of science, however, is wholly dominated by the sense of sight.p.11

The place of the sense of sight in human evolution is cardinal.p.11

You must realize that not only does a machine go wrong every so often, but so does any apparatus that man or God can devise. P.15

But you must also realize that every machine of this sort always pays a price for the things it can do very cleverly-namely, by not being able to do other things. P.17-18.

It is sight which dominates this kind of sequence, how we think of things that appear in the mind. (imagination) – It is an ability which human beings possess and which no other animal shares with them. P.18

We pass knowledge to one another, that is, information which does not have the preprogrammed force of an instruction. Animal signals, by and large, are pure instruction. P. 43

I believe that the world is totally connected: that is to say, that there are no events anywhere in the universe which are not tied to every other event in the Universe. P. 58

We simply cannot get out of our own finiteness. P.58

No formal system embraces all the questions that can be asked. P. 80

Most of human sentences are In fact aimed at getting rid of the ambiguity which you unfortunately left trailing in the last sentence. P. 105

And that reorganization is the central act of imagination. The act of imagination is the opening of the system so that it shows new connections. Every act of imagination is the discovery of likenesses between two things which were thought unlike. P. 109

He sees more ridiculous alternatives. P. 111 —-re: chess player

Progress is the exploration of our own error. Evolution is a consolidation of what have always begun as errors. And errors are of two kinds: errors that turn out to be true and errors that turn out to be false (which are most of them). But they both have the same character of being very an imaginative speculation.” P. 112

We ask “Why do we know more now than we knew ten thousand years ago, or even ten years ago?” the answer is that it is by this constant adventure of taking the closed system and pushing its frontiers imaginatively into the open spaces where we shall make mistakes. p.113

You do not invent a new world s world system by being satisfied with what other people have told you about how the world works. 121

If you accept the fact that science is not a finished enterprise — that  knowledge is not a finished enterprise, that literature is not a finished enterprise. To go looking for the truth only has a point if the truth has not already been found. P. 121

And naturally if you suppose that the truth is a thing, that you could find it the way you could find your hat or your umbrella, then none of this makes sense, then you just look for a good finder. But that is not how truth is found. It is not how knowledge is created, and it is not how it works to quicken and leaven and create socia1 change. The kind of questioning personality that I am describing is one who is appropriate to our changing society only because he is the self-correcting mechanism. He is the thermostat built into the system. He is the man who says, “That is not right, we will try it another way.” P. 123

Jacob Bronowski – The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination, Yale University Press Copyright © 1978 by Yale University, p. 123.

A fascinating read that presents new twists on timeless truths. The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination is a treasure.

If The Church Were Christian – Rediscovering the Values of Jesus by Philip Gulley,  Published by HarperOne, an Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers NY, NY Copyright (c) 2010 by Philip Gulley.

From the author of If Grace Is True, Philip Gulley does a masterful job in crafting a heartfelt call to re-imagine, reform and rediscover the values of Jesus in how the “Church” carries out its role. Of course, that would include those who claim affiliation with a church (attendees) along with the paid professionals.

This is distinctly NOT one of those church-bashing books.  Gulley has insights on this subject that others have yet to write about.  It’s good — very good. Of course, the observations he makes about the church will be unsettling to say the least for some. However, if you listen for the author’s heart, you will not identify a vengeful motive. On the contrary, I found the writing to be an expression from one who deeply wants the institutional church (and Christians) to truly rediscover the values of Jesus in their respective lives.

Gulley writes: If my hope in this book is the rediscovery of the values of Jesus, it seems odd to suggest the church might not be the vehicle for that regeneration. But if history has taught us anything, it is that renewal blossoms in the most unlikely places. P.8.

This is a man who deeply reveres Jesus. Perhaps that’s the reason for the sub-title to this work. Gulley yearns for a renewal and transformation of both the Church and the Christian. His desire is for Christians to be known by their behavior, as identified by others, as reflecting Christ. He says, The highest compliment we can ever pay anyone is our desire to be like that person. P.27 For the joy of Christian faith is not to be found in the rote recitation of dogmas about Jesus, but in modeling his mercy and love, which alone have the power to transform us and our world.”p.28

Yet, he poignantly characterizes the challenges as well. Listen to the following:

This is the state in which we find ourselves today—judgment and blame are believed by many to be God’s will, the tools by which God’s holy purposes are accomplished, and in that odd equation, coldness is treasured as much as compassion. P. 57

Today, the church is hemorrhaging members, as more and more thoughtful people look outside the church for enlightenment. Efforts to stem this flight are usually superficial, changing the church’s outward appearance but remaining inwardly the same, wedded to a worldview  many have found unhelpful in their search for meaning. Though more and more people seem interested in spirituality, they look less and less to the church as a setting for their search. What if the church began to understand itself as a seedbed of inquiry, as a place where persons could gather to consider what it means to be human? What if the church understood itself less as the conveyor of an unchangeable truth and more as a community of seekers, eager to think, grow, and explore? Pp.110-111.

I have often wondered if some forms of religion couldn’t more accurately be classified as a mental illness, given their power to distort the human mind and spirit. Were one determined to damage someone’s life, I could imagine few things more destructive than regular exposure to some churches. P.32

Bad beliefs persist because the “true believers” who spread them have made dissent unpleasant and difficult. They persist because the popes, priests, and pastors who promise to deliver us from the grip of sin, enjoy the institutional power these myths and doctrines confer. But, chiefly, these negative, pessimistic worldviews persist because we the people have been too fearful and too compliant, too willing to endure the spiritual abuse they engender. P.40.

Gulley cries for reform, renewal and transformation:

It is long past time for the flowering of a life-giving Christianity. Indeed, our future as a race might well depend on our willingness and ability to abandon the Christianity that divides and degrades us so we can embrace a new a new way of thinking about God and ourselves, a spirituality that more accurately reflects the values and priorities of Jesus. Pp. 44-45

In a similar vein to Brian McLaren, Philip Gulley shouts about established religion’s penchant with being an “answer machine.” He suggests an alternative: Religious institutions committed to communal uniformity seldom ask questions. The risk of straying beyond conventional answers is too great. Jesus asked questions because he believed in their power to engage his hearers, and he wanted his disciples to consider the reality of God in other ways, not regurgitate past platitudes that had lost their meaning and vigor. His frequent encouragement for others to embrace a new manner of being reveals a man quite comfortable with independent thought and action, who urged his hearers to flourish and grow and not be spiritually root-bound. Pp.117-118

From an organizational behavior standpoint, Gulley’s observations are insightful:

This might be a universal given with any institution – every organization inevitably forgets the values that inspired its start and focuses instead on its’ own perpetuation. P.123 Anyone who believes in the institutional purity of any Church has not been deeply and thoughtfully involved with organized religion. It is only possible to maintain the delusion of institutional purity by remaining willfully ignorant of the many ways religions have forsaken their core values. This delusion transcends denominational boundaries. P. 124 This blindness to the institutional failings of the church causes irreparable harm, perhaps as much or more harm than the failings themselves. For until we are mindful of the church’s failures, we’ll do nothing to mend them. P. 125 This blindness is perpetuated when the church insists it is not a human institution, prone to error, but a divine institution and therefore, infallible.  What a divorce from reality this assertion requires! P.125

What’s the solution? Gulley has some biblically based wisdom that is difficult to argue with:

To be a follower of Jesus is to choose, at every ethical crossroads, to serve people above structures. P. 137 If the church were Christian, we would do what Jesus did – equip one another to live better in this world and stop fretting about the next one. P.184

What is the theme that seems to run throughout this book? I believe the following is an accurate characterization, in the author’s own words:

The central task of this church would not be convincing us to believe doctrines about Jesus. Rather, it would help us live out the priorities of Jesus – human dignity, spiritual growth, moral evolution, and the ongoing search for truth and meaning. P. 190

I truly enjoyed this book. You will too. It’s as much about the challenge for personal growth and renewal as it is about the necessity for change within the institutional church.

After all, churches, like any other form of organization, are inhabited by us. If we don’t change, the “organization” won’t either. Change from within – the essence of the invitation of rediscovering the values of Jesus – isn’t it?

Hauerwas says, “Theology is not best understood as a system — narrative might have something to do with theology.” (emphasis is mine-p. 63). This book is a narrative you should not overlook.

This book is like a curry…you need to savor what is written here with the taste buds of your mind AND your soul. For Hauerwas, “theology is a discipline whose subject should always put in doubt the very idea that those who practice it know what they are doing.” (p.ix). Anyone who has the honesty to write this in the first paragraph of their memoir is worth reading further. I did — I’m glad I did — and you will too.

Hauerwas is a thinkers writer. He is also a writing thinker. You get the distinct impression the two are inseparable, as evidenced by the following:

“I believe what I write, or rather, by writing I learn to believe. But then I do not put much stock in “believing in God.” The grammar of “belief” invites a far too rationalistic account of what it means to be a Christian. “Belief” implies propositions about which you get to make up your mind before you know the work they are meant to do. Does that mean I do not believe in God? Of course not, but I am far more interested in what a declaration of belief entails for how I live my life” (p. x).

The book provides legitimate glimpses of what it means to be human, a person of faith, thoroughly seasoned with humility. Note the following: “It is not that I lack faith, but that I always have the sense that I am such a beginner when it comes to knowing how to be a Christian.” (pp.x-xi).

The style of the writing truly draws the reader in. You feel like a “friend” of the author as the reader. Near the end of the book, Hauerwas writes: Friendship is a central theme in my “work.” More importantly, friendship is a reality in my life.” (p. 286). You simply cannot tell a story like this one without having lived the truth of the previous statement. This fact permeates this work — provides a heartbeat, a pulse, a face, and a down to earth authenticity that cannot be manufactured. It is a memoir written from the heart.

There is something very central to this book for writers, as illustrated in the following: “My writing is exploratory because I have no idea what I believe until I force myself to say it. For me, writing turns out to be my way of believing. That my writing has taken primarily the form of essays is not only because of the exploratory character of my work, but also because, given my other responsibilities, essays have always seemed “doable.” P. 136. Another testimony about the essence of expression as a fundamental tool in building a meaningful life.

The courage of Hauerwas to write candidly, without unseemly self-loathing populates the text. Frank admissions like, “Thank God, however, that I have never gotten used to being a Christian. I think that is why I cry. I simply cannot get over what a surprising and wonderful life God has given me.” (p. 280).

This is not to suggest that the life of Hauerwas was not inhabited by incredible challenges he faced during his life. The relationship with his first wife Anne who struggled with severe mental health issues during their entire relationship is a shocking reality that is crafted with realism, dignity and love. The effects Hauerwas’s mental illness had on their son are terribly powerful. Hauerwas writes, “I think what is most destructive for living truthful and good lives is not what we do , but the justifications we give for what we do to hide from ourselves what we have done. Too often the result is a life lived in which we cannot acknowledge or recognize who we are.” (p.246) He goes on to note elsewhere, “Learning to live out of control, learning to live without trying to force contingency into conformity because of our desperate need for security, I take to be a resource for discovering alternatives that would otherwise not be present.” P. 137

Hauerwas is truly a Questian (although the term may be unfamiliar to him) as one might imagine from the following:

I wanted to change the questions because I thought these answers were suffocating the church. P. 209.

“When you are trying to change the questions, you have to realize that many people are quite resistant to such a change. They like the answers they have.” P. 208

The following is my absolute favorite excerpt:

When Christianity is assumed to be an “answer” that makes the world intelligible, it reflects an  accommodated church committed to assuring Christians that the way things are is the way things have to be. Such answers cannot help but turn Christianity into an explanation. For me, learning to be a Christian has meant learning to live without answers. Indeed, to learn to live in this way is what makes being a Christian so wonderful. Faith is but a name for learning how to go on without knowing the answers. That is to put the matter too simply, but at least such a claim might suggest why I find that being a Christian, makes life so damned interesting.  Pp. 207-208

His insights into the human condition and the life of faith populate the text throughout, as evidenced by the following tidbits:

You do not get to make Christianity up, and 1 have no desire to be original. If I represent a wholly different Christianity, I do so only because I have found a way to help us recognize as Christians what extraordinary things we say when we worship God. P. 135

Increasingly I have come to believe that “believing in God” is not a description that helps us know much about what it means to be Christian. P. 87.

Intellectually, my greatest strength is that there is nothing in which I am not interested. Intellectually, my greatest weakness is that there is nothing in which I am not interested. P. 12

Clearly demonstrated in this book, Hauerwas has lived a life that is true to the aforementioned excerpt. A marvelous gift to share forthrightly with others through this book.

This book is peppered with insights that will please the palates of a wide variety of literary diners. Hauerwas says he has “made a career of trying to think through the complexities and ambiguities of the relation between thought and behavior. And I can say with complete confidence that we are subtle creatures capable of infinite modes of self-deception.” (p.242).

Of course, how Dr. Hauerwas perceives himself, others and life around him were extremely precious to me. I truly enjoyed this work for a myriad of reasons. It’s a really well written story. The personal/human side of the book is forthrightly and honestly shared with the reader. The insights into the intellectual life, the academic environments of Notre Dame, Duke etc. are  invaluable for anyone considering the rigors of doctoral work in theology or the humanities.

The publisher (release date is May 2010) is William B. Eeerdsman Publishing Company of Grand Rapids, MI and Cambridge, U.K.

Congratulations to ALL! A truly incredible man, a marvelous journey — A testament to the truth that a life dedicated to learning blesses such a tremendous number of people — in ways the theologian has absolutely no comprehension regarding the magnitude of the positive impact.

Thank you Stanley Hauerwas! I am blessed by you and your life.

Wow! This work is true to it’s subtitle: Breakthrough Creativity and the New Science of Ideas.  Anyone interested in imagination, creativity and the emergence of leaps in innovation —- this book is for you.

I studied this book. It is one that makes you think beyond how you thought as you come to each page.

I will share more specifics later. However, I wanted to strongly endorse this work. It is likely the best text I have digested on these particular subject areas. Come prepared to learn, to ponder, to be invigorated.

Samir Selmanovic

Samir is also the director of a Christian community in New York City called Citylights and serves on the Interfaith Relations commission of the National Council of Churches and speaks nationally and internationally.

Author of:

Watch This Video About The Book

TheWinner of The  Porpoise Diving Life’s – Editor’s Choice -

# 1 Best Book of 2009

Here is the context of the question I posed to Samir:

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life recently came out with a remarkable observation in a recent study they conducted about faith in America. The study basically pointed out: “The religious beliefs and practices of Americans do not fit neatly into conventional categories.” In George Barna’s recent book, The Seven Faith Tribes, The Barna Group research reveals that; “Every person we have interviewed on these matters has held a hybrid worldview — that is, a perspective that combines pieces of two or more worldviews into something that makes sense to that person.” Harvey Cox wrote: “We stand on the beautiful threshold of a new chapter in the Christian story – Christians on five continents are shaking off the residues of the second phase (the Age of Belief) and negotiating a bumpy transition into a fresh era for which a name has not yet been coined. I would like to call it the Age of the Spirit.”  — In your opinion, what is referred to as the “state of the biblical worldview?”