Replying to LO26891 --
Dear LO'ers
At de Lange told me/us wise things about idealised pictures of the future,
some of which are possibly a Paradise. The following words had an
important impact on me:
"I understand Paradise, in the sense of liveness, as the perfect increase
in "becoming-being". Thus the future of Paradise is even more of Paradise
-- what an incredible paradox! Paradise is like a tree which does not
produce its fruit once a year as usual, but once a month as the Revelation
to John on Patmos tells it."
At, maybe I was somewhat provocative with my earlier contribution. I could
live very well with your understanding of Paradise. I think we all have
had moments of delight and feelings that we picture as the feelings of
living in Paradise. At had those feelings in the desert, I had them in the
mountains. Both environments with such an overwhelming beauty of nature.
Maybe I should have changed again the title of the subjectheader. But I am
afraid that than the slowly growing thread of this subject becoms broken.
With your permissions, I like to switch slightly from the believe in
Paradise to
UNCONDITIONAL LOVE - AGAPE
Until recently I had a good feeling with this subject. A feeling of
understanding. But since the dialogue on the Paradise there was a slight
uncertainty in the backyards of my mind. This uncertainty was triggered
last weekend by a paper that my youngest son wrote for is university study
in sociology. That paper described the drama/catastrophe of Jonestown
(Guyana) where more than 100 adults and children were killed by suicide -
the followed the advise of their leader. That happened november 1978. And
this morning I saw also what At wrote about leaders:
"Obviously, it is not only the LO which may be thought of as Paradise. It
can happen to any kind of organisation. I remember clearly how during the
days of apartheid many leaders (economic, cultural, political) of our
people tried to convince their followers that the system (ideology and
policy) of apartheid will bring Paradise to our country. A peculiar
problem of apartheid was that we were too APART from the other peoples to
realise how much the system was Hell to them."
The question is: 'does unconditional love sometimes leads to a catastroph,
a Hell?'
Is there not a serious danger in *unconditional love*? Should there not be
some conditions added to the *unconditional love*?
All these questions remind me too on a discussion on this list long ago.
That dialogue was about *faith*. I hope that you, dear readers and
learners, could refresh and refill my thoughts on these topics. Topics
that are very close to 'paradisic dreams'.
dr. Leo D. Minnigh
l.d.minnigh@library.tudelft.nl
Library Technical University Delft
PO BOX 98, 2600 MG Delft, The Netherlands
Tel.: 31 15 2782226
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Let your thoughts meander towards a sea of ideas.
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--Leo Minnigh <l.d.minnigh@library.tudelft.nl>
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