Category Archives: Discernment/Wisdom

STEPPING INTO CONTROVERSY INVITATION

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Here’s the official announcement from Hill House.  And yes, the meals are free!
2104 Nueces Street (Austin, Texas)
Garage parking available across the street and parking can also be found on the street
Simply RSVP to me here.
Starting Wednesday, June 5
and running through Wednesday, July 17 
from 6-8 pm we will be hosting a weekly dinner and study at Hill House
taught by Dave Moore.    
Students and non students alike are welcome to attend. 

STEPPING INTO CONTROVERSY…WITH COURAGE AND CHRIST-LIKE CHARACTER

IS IT POSSIBLE IN OUR DIVISIVE AND TURBULENT TIME?

Taught by Dave Moore

Imagine that you are at your favorite coffee shop.  Everything about the place is great, except the tables are a bit too close to one another.   This, of course, makes it difficult to avoid eavesdropping.  Your reading tends to zone you out from the conversations of others, but not on this day.  To your utter amazement you listen in on a conversation between an ardent Trump supporter and one who gladly voted for Hillary Clinton.  It is not the various arguments that are being mustered for one candidate over the other that intrigues you.  Rather, it is the evident respect each person has for the other even while articulating their significant disagreements. 

It is hard to go back to your reading for the day.  You become preoccupied with why the kind of exchange you just heard is as rare as it is refreshing…even in your local church.

For seven weeks we will discuss several areas that can hurt or help us as we discuss controversial subjects.  A sampling of these include:

*Taking honest inventory of our own failure to be prepared and/or interact with grace

*The need to slow down and pay more careful attention to the definition of words

*Diagnosing how much of an echo chamber we live in

*The need to read and listen to those who make us angry…and to pay close attention to what our “opponents” can teach us

*Why the focus must be on our own challenges rather than being frustrated with those we disagree with

We will also be looking various points raised in How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds by Alan Jacobs.  Copies will be available. 

THE BED OF PROCRUSTES

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From Amazon:
The Bed of Procrustes takes its title from Greek mythology: the story of a man who made his visitors fit his bed to perfection by either stretching them or cutting their limbs. It represents Taleb’s view of modern civilization’s hubristic side effects—modifying humans to satisfy technology, blaming reality for not fitting economic models, inventing diseases to sell drugs, defining intelligence as what can be tested in a classroom, and convincing people that employment is not slavery.
From Me:
Insightful
Entertaining
Overstated
Lots to ponder
Some to dismiss
Glad I read

WHY I AM NOT ON TWITTER OR FACEBOOK

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Image result for FACEBOOK DANGERS

Echo chambers abound.  In other words, on Facebook and Twitter you “gather” with like-minded people who confirm your entrenched views.

Funny name that Facebook.  There is no real face to face interaction and “gathering” or connecting is all virtual.  Real person to person interaction has gone the way of the Dodo bird!

Great pooling of ignorance.  Yes, there are thoughtful people on both Facebook and Twitter, but there are many more who are ignorant, and a large percentage seem not to know it!

The ancient Greeks said that to “learn is to suffer.”  Real learning usually means we have to unlearn something that we believed to be true.  This rarely happens, though I know of a few examples like the Westboro Baptist woman who realized via social media that her views were wrong.  But these kinds of examples are rare, very rare.  Probably not wise to build a case for something based on rare examples.

Let’s say you spend twenty minutes a day on Facebook and /or Twitter.  That adds up to a little over 120 hours per day.  Now think what you could do with 120 extra hours!