There are several
pairs of words that illustrate an important distinction when getting to know
God. The simplest is the old one about a glass half-empty versus half-full. The
state of the volume of liquid is not in question, but its significance is diametrically
opposite in the one interpretation versus the other. In a similar way the
abundant life that God grants to all his children could be interpreted by some
people to mean that there is some entitlement to good life, based on
meritorious deeds or service or right-minded habits of thinking and exercises
in spiritual discipline. But by accepting that God's grace means that nothing
you do or fail to do will give you any more or any less of that goodness, then
the interpretation can change from entitlement to enfranchisement; that is,
rather than laboring under the feeling of deserving better (or worse) in one's
life and the lives of those around oneself, the emphasis now is on being
empowered and authorized to partake of all God's abundance, no longer as a reward
for one's external (or the things in one's heart of hearts) life, but now to
participate in the abundant life for internal delight and joy; as an expression
of one's overflowing love.
The same distinction of interpretations
can be seen in the idea of "following Christ." Rather than to reduce
the behaviors, habits, words and so on to conformity with others in the flock
as a way to show to others one's congruence and uniformity, far better instead
to follow as eager seeker; someone who joins the way forward not to imitate the
others on the road, but because one is eager to find out what comes next when
living the Christian Way. From the outside all those on this road may look like
a flock moving down the road, but in the hearts of those walking the walk there
are important differences between moving along as eager seeker versus moving
along anxious not to stand out from the norm.
The same distinction of interpretation can
also be seen in the idea of God's love; a love not of ownership or control, but
of growth and changes. Interpersonal love can easily become either eros [Greek
for the physical, literal love] or philos [Greek for friendly love]. But God's
love more accurately is agape love, the 'charity' in the triad of faith - hope
- love/charity. Whereas the first two, mortal types, of love tend to close,
make exclusive, define boundaries of control and expectation and care, the
agape kind of love tends of open possibilities and release boundaries and
controls. It is about growth and change, rather than containment and
unchangingness.
Still another pair of terms illustrates
the contrasting interpretation: to know something [facts; the Spanish verb
'saber'] versus to know someone [character; the Spanish verb 'conocer']. While
there are some overlapping senses of knowledge between the kind that controls
and contains a subject on the one hand, and the kind that leads to new
relationships and connections to one's own self. By extension from 'knowledge'
to understanding, there is an important difference in interpretation for
'comprehend' versus 'understand'. A person can grasp something intellectually,
but still not make sense of it. And the reverse could be true, too: implicitly
seeing the sense of the matter but not necessarily comprehending how it is
structured, how it all works (function; process), or it's meaning. To
comprehend something carries the meaning of wrapping one's arms around a
subject; containing, defining, dissecting, and generally mastering a thing at
least in terms of structure and function. But to truly understand something
there should be more depth and appreciation of the relationship of part to
whole; and the intersections of one instance with another. To truly understand
is to add the dimension of depth to the flat, 2-dimensional grasp of
'comprehending' a subject.
In all these examples the common thread is
that one perspective seeks to reduce, contain, close-off, and simplify
(half-empty quantity of water in the proverbial glass, entitlement instead of
enfranchisement, following the external features of Christianity not the
internal character, love emanating from mortal foundations rather than
limitless Godly sources, knowing the surfaces of things rather that the core).
The other perspective does the opposite: widen the connections and meanings,
supporting growth and mutual gain, stressing emerging possibilities, saying yes
by default rather than no, being proactive instead of reactive.
But why does this
subtle change in emphasis or attitude to a set of circumstances of the passage
of life matter? Going back to the image of a glass half-empty versus half-full,
one can imagine the different horizon that appears from the one set of
assumptions versus the other. For the one fretting about the amount that
remains, the road ahead is one of scarcity; resources should be guarded,
potential involvements will be defended against, the default response to things
arising on the way is 'no'. By contrast to the person seeing the glass
half-full, there is little thought to what may come tomorrow, so long as there
remains something for today. Life is full of possibilities to share, and to get
involved with others. In place of a default 'no' response to opportunities and
initiatives that life offers up the "half-full" person takes 'yes' as
the default reply to these developments.
In conclusion, to
fully embrace the life of abundance (of the heart, not necessarily of the body
or other material indicators) given by God to all creatures, the subtle shift
in interpretation illustrated here can lead to big differences in the life one
lives. What one may give up is control, but what one my gain is grateful
appreciation of the things that comes to one's world. Perhaps the grateful
heart intersects with one of grace, gratis, gratitude; that is, maybe these
word roots come from the same place.
