Waves.

Wave motion can be instructive.


If you have a chance to go to a wave tank, you might see sometihng interesting. Go to one end of the tank, and start churning the water with your hand. At the other end of the tank, have another person do the same. The waves that are created will move in opposite directions toward each other, and if you stand in the middle of the wave tank, you should see several things:


(1) some of the waves cancel each other out


(2) some of the waves augment each other, and


(3) some of the waves don't seem like they do anything, and merely pass right through each other without getting cancelled or augmented.


I am beginning to see my life in a community in a similar manner. Assuming that we are all just splashing around in a pool, our actions result in waves that are formed in the pool. If I act in concert with the other waves, my actions are augmented, and if I do not, my actions either have no effect or are muted by others acting in opposition.


So the question is really about vision. Do I share in the vision of others in the community I have chosen to be my own? At work, the answer is, of course. I only keep my job by working in concert with my colleagues, my staff, and my superiors. We work together, and so I keep my employment. The same thing goes with my personal life, with my family. I try my best to stay in sync with them, and most of the time, we try to work in concert so that we are not working against one another.


The last community to be examined is the community of believers to whom I have chosen to be close, to work together and to engage in fellowship. How do the waves look, from this position.

The problem is, of course, one cannot see what the effect is, of what one is doing. You just can't be a part of a community and be able to judge it effectively in real-time.

And this means that you have no idea of what you are doing, what the community is doing, and whether what you are doing is having a positive effect on the whole.

-David

The Humanity of Oppression

I think the best way to describe the interrelationship between and among humans, is oppression.


It starts with the parents and the child, and then it propagates outward to between siblings, and then outward again between strangers, who then cycle backward to between husband and wife, who then renew the cycle when they become the first part of the equation with parents and the child.


We seek to control others for our own gain. Even when the gain benefits others, or when it is benevolent, there is still gain to be had, and the extent of the oppression depends on weakness of the other, the strength of the oppressor, and the ability of the other to escape.


Where does such weakness come from? That is to say, why is there oppression at all? There would not be oppression (or very much of it at all), if there wasn't the weakness in mankind that allows for oppression to be developed. We are the cause of our own oppression, in other words. What are we lacking, that we cause it?

There is much to ponder.

-David