Disagreements

Email to a friend regarding disagreements.  

Your last paragraph has had me wondering if my expressing my own views and what might be considered theology, is offending to your own.  A little of this might be inevitable in any relationship that does a lot of sharing of beliefs/theology, which can probably be beneficial or detrimental depending upon various things, including the open-mindedness of each person, and probably above all the faith in the other person's path even if it seems to conflict or is expressed in different words and ways. 

I personally have great faith in what I know of and intuit regarding your path, and would love to hear more about the underpinnings (beliefs/theology) whenever you care to share them.  It is one of the things that has made our relationship so valuable to me.  When you express your beliefs it often expands my own because since I believe in you and your path I also believe in the things underlying it, and this makes me expand my own underlying beliefs/foundation to incorporate yours in some way, which allows me to be whole/unified with a new segment of people and things, which to me is what it is all about. 

I am happily finding that as far as you are concerned I naturally operate on what Fr Rohr would conceptualize as “both, and” rather than “either, or.”  This essentially means that even though our views (beliefs/theology) often are very different my natural assumption (which I also think is correct) is that both of our views are mostly correct and generally what seems like conflicts or contradictions are just a lack of full understanding (we all only know a little/the more we know the more we know we don’t know/etc), which might be due to not having it be revealed yet or sometimes due to it being beyond human comprehension. 

As far as God being the Greek logos or Word that was made flesh with Jesus, I would also borrow concepts from Fr Rohr and say that the Word may have become flesh with Jesus, but that accurately implies it was around before Jesus and operating the same before Jesus.  Jesus may have been it and demonstrated it perfectly for the rest of us to follow, but he did not create it or change what had always been and always will be the Truth and the Path, and I think he says as much a few times when he talks about the Father doing the work and his claim is that he and the Father are one.  He is simultaneously the Word (aka Father/Holy Spirit) and expressing and demonstrating it. 

All of this is to say that from my standpoint please never shy away from expressing your own beliefs/concepts/theology even, or maybe especially, when they seem to conflict or contradict my own.  I doubt I will believe that they actually do conflict or contradict my own and they will probably push me to expand my own and become more whole and unified with larger parts of The Entirety.  Diversity in all its forms somewhat paradoxically is one of the best paths to connection/unity/wholeness.

Now with all of that said, if the way I express things or the things I express seem to wholly conflict or contradict your own beliefs and perspective such that our relationship seems constricting or suppressing towards your indwelling spirit, I hope that you will let me know, thereby freeing your indwelling spirit from the constriction/suppression.