Having been in social work and in private practice as a therapist, .. and in our global and complicated society, I also consider the word Identity. It is a term that is kin to Belonging, but not identical. A sense of identity is not just about belonging to a community, but speaks about knowing who we are, where we come from, maybe sharing history with others, both in our lives and with traditions, beliefs and a culture that came before us. For those that feel lonely and isolated, stripped of family and history, they may feel a lack of belonging, but also a broken identity. Where does this fit in theology?
I have been considering the obsessios already mentioned. Many are suffering, including myself, from what I am seeing in this country - the new administration, the inequality, demise of what there is of democracy, declining empathy, and changing values...alienation, the decline in ethics... and believing that many of the changes are the result of unregulated capitalism, technology, private and public policies as well as other things. There is a moral injury that is not just grief from the loss of the "good ol' days" although that is included. It is not just the loss of identity, although included. Not just the loss of belonging, although certainly included. Does this fall under a category you mentioned and I just need clarification?
I like your elaboration of the 9 obsessio’s. Two questions:
1. Is a key value of this sort of categorization an
acknowledgment that people occupying different theological worlds are passing each other by?
2. I have been making a biblical case to myself and to others for about 20 yrs that the deepest and truest obsessio is death, with the “good news” antidote being intimate connection with the God of Life. Any thoughts about my premise and my project?
A part of the idea is the recognition of differences and that the different obsessios resonate differently. Like you, one of my obsessios is Death, so I'd resonate with your project. But I also know, from my own experience, that this obsessio isn't shared by everyone. So I do think there will be a struggle to "convert" people to a single world rather than being pastorally sensitive and attuned to the world they are coming from. The point of investigating theological worlds is to recognize the diversity among us.
I reluctantly would add the obsessio of distraction, escape, and disengagement. I would be hard-pressed to pick a single word, as each of these represent a different dimension of the same thing, which is a turning away from life altogether, either involuntarily or intentionally. Escape from reason, peculiar stoicism (which would be an escape from feeling), generic addiction (which would represent a wilful incapacitating of all senses which connect us to reality) All these would represent an existential crisis, but one which simultaneously blinds us to the reality of that existential crisis.
And there is personal rejection. This was my biggest experience of brokenness for most of my life, and now I see it working negatively in my adult son who is extremely intelligent, and on the high-functioning, but yet still not neurotipical, end of the autistic spectrum. Where does rejection fit in?
I would separate guilt and shame, with the distinction that guilt is the what we generate inside ourselves concerning our moral failures, while shame is socially imposed upon us, and then internalized. I'm thinking, of course, of the Korean concept of "han," which I'll just use the St. Andrew's Encyclopaedia of Theology to describe:
"Although it is difficult to exactly define the term in English, han can be referred to as deep-seated grief, sorrow, despair, resentment, regret, or bitterness. More specifically, han refers to a sentiment in which anger, bitterness and resentment accumulate and are internalized in the face of continuing hardship and injustice: ‘it is the collective feeling of the oppressed in the face of their social fate and the social contradictions they experience’ (Park 2016: 6). James Cone, a leading proponent of Black liberation theology, in characterizing the experience of African Americans as ‘blues’, attempted to compare it with Korean experience of han (see Commission on the Theological Concerns of the Christian Conference of Asia 1983: xi). Han articulates not only personal griefs, such as poverty, illness, or discrimination but also bitterness felt collectively as members of a group, including a nation (e.g. suffering under the Japanese colonial rule). As the historian of Korean Christianity Donald N. Clark (1986: 44) argues, ‘the history of the Korean people is a history of oppression, of sadness and frustration, which has given rise to a unique mind-set called han’. Although not every Korean theologian agrees, minjung theology can be said to be ‘the theology of han, the inner dynamics of the oppressed Korean minjung.’
1. Guilt: I feel this from time to time for I err. I’m fallible. I’m selfish. I act stupidly more often than I’d life. But I believe in grace and I extend it to others…I think. This isn't my obsessio.
2. Union with God: I wish I felt this, but I don’t. I’ve known times of intense unity. I’ve known times deep serratedness. This doesn’t drive me. Seeking it directly seems like a mirage.
3. Injustice: I reactive negatively to this. Perhaps I’m just a contrarian, but, pragmatically, the more I see this focused on—at some systemic level—the more it leads to worse outcomes.
4. Suffering: This bothers me a bit, but I find all suffer and much of life is suffering. Shrug.
5. Belonging: I do find this important. What truly binds people, families, and communities? How do you unite differences without dissolving them?
6. Meaning: This is probably the most important to me. Even with our vast and diverse world it all feels so small and vapid. Meaning-making—rich culture—is perhaps the most important to me.
7. Self-Alienation: I see this only as a symptom of ‘meaning’
8. Ecological Grief: This too (as with all the others) seem a symptom of ‘meaning’
9. Death: I’m not sure death bothers me. A life without meaning is much worse than any death.
My first instinct in reading Paul’s taxonomy was also that he is confusing/mixing things—however, I’m given to combining things versus further division. Perhaps I’m reacting against the tendency to tribalism. Perhaps I fear that attacking symptoms or secondary causes never works.
To me there is some primal exile, separation, disruption of order/harmony that obfuscates and confuses. This is couched in a primordial transgression, but our experiences are all a result of this separation.
Perhaps I’m wrong, but I assume this ‘obsessio’ is mostly subconscious and unacknowledged. So sure, people are fixated on or most moved by social justice or suffering, etc., but this is still a species of some cosmological separation.
I get the idea that seeing these temperaments can help understand ourselves and each other as we live out different facets of life. My obsessio in world 1 makes me anxious at the split into different worlds…
Having been in social work and in private practice as a therapist, .. and in our global and complicated society, I also consider the word Identity. It is a term that is kin to Belonging, but not identical. A sense of identity is not just about belonging to a community, but speaks about knowing who we are, where we come from, maybe sharing history with others, both in our lives and with traditions, beliefs and a culture that came before us. For those that feel lonely and isolated, stripped of family and history, they may feel a lack of belonging, but also a broken identity. Where does this fit in theology?
I like Identity as an obsessio, it seems to pull together Meaning and Belonging.
I have been considering the obsessios already mentioned. Many are suffering, including myself, from what I am seeing in this country - the new administration, the inequality, demise of what there is of democracy, declining empathy, and changing values...alienation, the decline in ethics... and believing that many of the changes are the result of unregulated capitalism, technology, private and public policies as well as other things. There is a moral injury that is not just grief from the loss of the "good ol' days" although that is included. It is not just the loss of identity, although included. Not just the loss of belonging, although certainly included. Does this fall under a category you mentioned and I just need clarification?
I like your elaboration of the 9 obsessio’s. Two questions:
1. Is a key value of this sort of categorization an
acknowledgment that people occupying different theological worlds are passing each other by?
2. I have been making a biblical case to myself and to others for about 20 yrs that the deepest and truest obsessio is death, with the “good news” antidote being intimate connection with the God of Life. Any thoughts about my premise and my project?
A part of the idea is the recognition of differences and that the different obsessios resonate differently. Like you, one of my obsessios is Death, so I'd resonate with your project. But I also know, from my own experience, that this obsessio isn't shared by everyone. So I do think there will be a struggle to "convert" people to a single world rather than being pastorally sensitive and attuned to the world they are coming from. The point of investigating theological worlds is to recognize the diversity among us.
I reluctantly would add the obsessio of distraction, escape, and disengagement. I would be hard-pressed to pick a single word, as each of these represent a different dimension of the same thing, which is a turning away from life altogether, either involuntarily or intentionally. Escape from reason, peculiar stoicism (which would be an escape from feeling), generic addiction (which would represent a wilful incapacitating of all senses which connect us to reality) All these would represent an existential crisis, but one which simultaneously blinds us to the reality of that existential crisis.
Thoughts?
And there is personal rejection. This was my biggest experience of brokenness for most of my life, and now I see it working negatively in my adult son who is extremely intelligent, and on the high-functioning, but yet still not neurotipical, end of the autistic spectrum. Where does rejection fit in?
I suppose it would be covered by belonging, but the word "belonging" masks the very real alienation of the word "rejection", doesn't it?
I would separate guilt and shame, with the distinction that guilt is the what we generate inside ourselves concerning our moral failures, while shame is socially imposed upon us, and then internalized. I'm thinking, of course, of the Korean concept of "han," which I'll just use the St. Andrew's Encyclopaedia of Theology to describe:
"Although it is difficult to exactly define the term in English, han can be referred to as deep-seated grief, sorrow, despair, resentment, regret, or bitterness. More specifically, han refers to a sentiment in which anger, bitterness and resentment accumulate and are internalized in the face of continuing hardship and injustice: ‘it is the collective feeling of the oppressed in the face of their social fate and the social contradictions they experience’ (Park 2016: 6). James Cone, a leading proponent of Black liberation theology, in characterizing the experience of African Americans as ‘blues’, attempted to compare it with Korean experience of han (see Commission on the Theological Concerns of the Christian Conference of Asia 1983: xi). Han articulates not only personal griefs, such as poverty, illness, or discrimination but also bitterness felt collectively as members of a group, including a nation (e.g. suffering under the Japanese colonial rule). As the historian of Korean Christianity Donald N. Clark (1986: 44) argues, ‘the history of the Korean people is a history of oppression, of sadness and frustration, which has given rise to a unique mind-set called han’. Although not every Korean theologian agrees, minjung theology can be said to be ‘the theology of han, the inner dynamics of the oppressed Korean minjung.’
Existential: 1,2,5,7
Collectivist: 3,4,7,8
Both/And: 5,9
A quick personal inventory:
1. Guilt: I feel this from time to time for I err. I’m fallible. I’m selfish. I act stupidly more often than I’d life. But I believe in grace and I extend it to others…I think. This isn't my obsessio.
2. Union with God: I wish I felt this, but I don’t. I’ve known times of intense unity. I’ve known times deep serratedness. This doesn’t drive me. Seeking it directly seems like a mirage.
3. Injustice: I reactive negatively to this. Perhaps I’m just a contrarian, but, pragmatically, the more I see this focused on—at some systemic level—the more it leads to worse outcomes.
4. Suffering: This bothers me a bit, but I find all suffer and much of life is suffering. Shrug.
5. Belonging: I do find this important. What truly binds people, families, and communities? How do you unite differences without dissolving them?
6. Meaning: This is probably the most important to me. Even with our vast and diverse world it all feels so small and vapid. Meaning-making—rich culture—is perhaps the most important to me.
7. Self-Alienation: I see this only as a symptom of ‘meaning’
8. Ecological Grief: This too (as with all the others) seem a symptom of ‘meaning’
9. Death: I’m not sure death bothers me. A life without meaning is much worse than any death.
My first instinct in reading Paul’s taxonomy was also that he is confusing/mixing things—however, I’m given to combining things versus further division. Perhaps I’m reacting against the tendency to tribalism. Perhaps I fear that attacking symptoms or secondary causes never works.
To me there is some primal exile, separation, disruption of order/harmony that obfuscates and confuses. This is couched in a primordial transgression, but our experiences are all a result of this separation.
Perhaps I’m wrong, but I assume this ‘obsessio’ is mostly subconscious and unacknowledged. So sure, people are fixated on or most moved by social justice or suffering, etc., but this is still a species of some cosmological separation.
I get the idea that seeing these temperaments can help understand ourselves and each other as we live out different facets of life. My obsessio in world 1 makes me anxious at the split into different worlds…
Whoa, I'm undone! I feel them all!