Thomas Benjamin wrote on 7 Apr in LO13140
> IMO, One needs to be innocent to trust.
True.
One of the meanings of innocent is to be ignorant of evil. Thus, for
example, does a person who trust a leader without knowing his evil
intents, have no future.
Another meaning of innocent is to be free of sin. Thus, for example, we
need to be cleaned from our sins to trust God unconditionally.
> Blessed are those who trust unconditionally.
According to the bible, God says that a peson should trust only Him. The
word 'only' is a condition. It means that nothing else should be trusted.
It even means that no one should trust what I am saying. However, you ask
me to trust unconditionaly your statement. Sorry, but here we differ
diametrically. I will never do that.
> When however, one misuses the trust, make certain the opponent
> realises that you will reciprocate.
Let us play a mental game. Assume that learners have to trust teachers
unconditionally. Then think of a learner who percieves that the teacher
has misused that trust, whether the perception is correct or not. What
better reciprocation can there be than for the learner to kill the
teacher.
Unfortunately, this is not merely a mental game. It is now a stark,
horrible part of reality - teachers maimed by pupils an pupils maimed by
teachers.
> The world teaches us not to trust.
Every day we are soothed with messages such as trust [not] the information
system, trust [not] the money system, trust [not] the political system,
trust [not] the science system, trust [not] the religious system, etc.
Sometimes the [not] is inluded.
What the world teaches about trust, is simply a mess. What God teaches
about tust, is very clear. Although it is very clear. it is not easy to
follow this teaching. Only with Gods help can we make it.
> We need to unlearn and then learn to trust.
I think that this sentence is incomplete. What should we unlearn? What
should we then learn to trust?
> Learning to trust involves risk.
NO and YES.
NO. To trust God is not a risky business - He is trustworthy.
YES. To trust only in God is a risky businees - all others trying to
become God become themselves extremely jealous.
> A trusting environment I believe utilises the creative
> energy of individuals in the system.
I rather would call such an environment one which sponsors safety. (See my
contribution on sponsored safety about two months ago.)
> It is better to spend creative energy on productive purposes
> than on maintaining trust.
Creative energy is unleashed by the qualities of the highest order.
Maintaining trust in God unleashes immense creative energy, something
which unconditional love also does. Creative energy is not something which
lays around, ready for use whenever it is needed.
> I have personally experimented with trust. I have been hurt. Eventually,
> I think it has paid dividends. As David pointed out in LO13130, to trust
> another is dependent on the trust you have on God. In the Bible, God said
> have faith(trust) in ME. God did not say, having faith in Him means, He
> will keep us from the kicks we get.
God will never kick us for trusting him. He promised that. Up to now no
one can demonstrate that He actually did kick any person, other than Jesus
Christ. The final kick was on Golgota.
It is the gods who kick humans, left, right and centre. God warns us that
they will do it. I have also been hurt many times. All these kicks have
definitely paid dividends. I have learnt through them that to trust in
anythings else than God stiffles my creativity. I know that it sounds
wierd: "To trust in anything else than God stiffles a person's
creativity". Should somebody else have said this to me thirty years ago, I
would have said with thumbs pointed down: "incomprehensible rubbish".
I have said in many contributions that the relationship between entropy,
creativity and learning is incredibly complex. I think that the referance
to trust in this relationship is beginning to show just how complex this
relationship is. (See my recent reply to David Hanson on the role od
entropy.)
Should we be interested in learning organisations, then we have to
consider the possibility of emergent learning. Knowledge on trust requires
emergent learning. Emergent learning happens far from equilibrium in a
non-linear fashion. It is then when the learning organism/organisation
begins to throb in a cyclic manner, rising its chaos of becoming with each
cycle until the bifucation point is reached. Please see my reply to you as
merely the completion of one cycle. Very few emergences happen after only
one cycle.
Best wishes
--At de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre for Education University of Pretoria Pretoria, South Africa email: amdelange@gold.up.ac.za
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>