6 Comments
User's avatar
Bradford Pope McArthur's avatar

A reading usually warms the first time someone you trust holds it openly, so the temperature is a room condition more than a private one.

Which turns the first task of hermeneutics into a question about company. Who you read beside decides what can become imaginable.

Tom aka Volkmar's avatar

I am warmed by this perspective.

Ryan C's avatar

It's a lovely truth here to draw on Pascal. That intellectual disagreements lead nowhere. That we all need to arrive at new constellations for ourselves. That we really learn through our heart.

I have much to learn from Pascal (placing Hamann to the shelf). I always run in like the ass with a smattering of logical leaps.

“The wise do not instruct; they warm. Now, let me instruct you in the art of warming.”

Cathy Smith's avatar

I found The Shape of Love compelling! It's on my re-read list. :-)

Frederic Larsen's avatar

I just read those very words yesterday as I started your book. It has occurred to me along the way (in my mid 80's now) that the changes in how I think, perceive, and interpret things like life itself, philosophy, theology, etc., are influenced by the constituency network upon which I depend for connection and identity. A constituency network cost will often accrue to me for even considering alternatives to the way the "group" thinks. Having been at this as long as I have, I have learned it is a cost worth incurring. Parker Palmer has posed two questions particularly apropos to this experience: "Who am I?" and "Whose am I?" Thank you for what you do and how you do it!

The Trinitarian Universalist's avatar

I like this image! I think that "feeling our heart strangely warmed" is an experience many of us can relate to--and that this was the point at which we felt things really starting to change for us.