Living By The Spirit - 2
Thanks for your comments on the first chapter of my Living By The Spirit. I have finally found out how to post the second installment. Here it is.
2 - NINE CHOICE FRUIT
A recently published book implied that spirituality is what life is all about.
An Internet correspondent shared her search for a life in which the sacred had priority:
I've been reading Thomas Merton. Somehow the reading (coinciding with a place I have reached in my own journey) inspires me to greater simplicity, more uncompromised devotion, a bringing of every aspect of my life under stricter discipline so that nothing is distracting me from God. This includes very practical things like eating, sleeping, exercise, work, reading, prayer, how I discipline my thoughts, what I take into my mind, what I read, and how I use my "spare" time.
I guess what I am working at is a "rule of life."
How does one go about establishing a rule of life? Does it evolve of it's own accord, a by product of a life given over to Christ?
This message arrived the very morning I began to draft this manuscript. Few of us may feel the need these sentences express. Fewer have the courage to ask for help in shaping such a discipline. My correspondent and I have never met face to face, and never expect to do so. We no longer communicate occasionally as we once did in a now defunct faith-sharing group on the Internet. Perhaps some of what we had to say to each other may yield a clearer understanding of the Rule of the Spirit. For many years I have felt that the nine fruit of the Spirit the Apostle Paul lists in his Letter to the Galatians (5: 22-23) contain such a rule.
Our local green grocer displays for sale far more than nine different fruit, some flown in from exotic places far away. Season after season we are treated to a feast of which our parents and grandparents could never have dreamed. We enjoy this blessing in our very multicultural Canadian city because so many people from all over the world have made their homes here. They are familiar with fruit that seem quite exotic to us. The fruit on display in the grocery shop is like this list of spiritual fruit in Paul’s letter.
A Brief Aside about Bible
As you check out the passage from Paul’s letter and other scriptures referred to, make sure you have a reasonably modern version of the scriptures. Many new versions have appeared in the past 50 years. Not all versions may have exactly the same words, however, because of changes to our English language from one century to another and the different preferences of editors. Nor do all modern versions use the word fruit. Some appear to avoid the issue of whether fruit should be regarded as singular or plural. The Greek word Paul used is singular, karpos.
Unless specifically stated otherwise, all the quotations used in this book come from the New Revised Standard Version (NSRV) published in 1989. It is one of the most accurate and most readable.
Here is the selection from Galatians 5:22-23. [Note: When copied to a page, these look better if each one is indented on a separate line so that they appear as a stairway.]
"By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is
love,
joy,
peace,
patience,
kindness,
generosity,
faithfulness,
gentleness,
self-control."
The Language Paul Used
Those are all good strong English words. We probably use them every day without even noticing. Paul wrote to the Galatians about 48 or 49 AD in the common language of the marketplace in most of the eastern Mediterranean world. Scholars call this language koiné Greek. It came from the adjective koinos - meaning "common" - and it was the lingua franca of at least the eastern part of the Roman Empire . Everyone spoke koiné as freely as people from all over the world speak English today. It was as different from the classical literary Greek of Homer, Demosthenes or Plato as the words of this book are from those of Shakespeare, Emerson, or the elegant prose of Canadians like Northrop Frye or John Ralston Saul.
Although born to a Jewish family, Paul’s first language may well have been koiné Greek. He was raised in the eastern Mediterranean seaport of Tarsus in the Roman province of Cilicia, now part of modern Turkey. Before he went to Jerusalem to train as a rabbi, he worked at tent-making, a marketplace craft if ever there was one. If Paul’s mother tongue was not koiné Greek, it was probably Aramaic, the native dialect of Jewish and other Semitic peoples of that period. That was the language Jesus spoke too. It was related to Hebrew in much the same way that koiné was to classical Greek. Today, it is almost a dead language, spoken only in a few villages in the Bekah valley in Lebanon. In recent years, a group of scholars has been trying to reconstitute an Aramaic dictionary to carry on more intensive studies of rediscovered texts.
Long before his conversion to Christianity, Paul had immersed himself in the scriptures of his people. Most of these had been written in Hebrew before being translated into Greek in the third century BC. Christians of the lst century CE read the Greek version. It was the only "Bible" they had. The New Testament scriptures had not yet been written. Like many multilingual young people today, Paul seems to have been able to speak and write fluently in any of these languages.
He may well have spoken Aramaic at home and koiné Greek at work. Worship services in the synagogue and the scriptures they read were in Hebrew, but teaching by the rabbi was most likely in Aramaic. Paul used koiné Greek for his letter writing. At times, possibly because of bad eyesight, he also seems to have used the services of a secretary who had even better language skills than he had.
Who were these Galatians to whom Paul wrote this letter? Some of them were Celts, distantly related to the Celtic tribes of Gaul (now France), western Britain and Ireland. Several centuries earlier they had split off from the main Celtic migration trekking westward up the Danube River valley in Europe. After invading northern Greece in the 3rd century BCE, they had been invited to cross the Bosporus Straight into Asia Minor as mercenary soldiers. There they were pacified first by the Greek rulers of the region and later by the Romans. Eventually they settled on the plain around the city of Ankara which served as the capital of the Roman province of Galatia, named for the Celtic tribes as they were then known.
According to Acts 13:14-14:23, Paul visited several cities in southern Galatia - Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe. These cities lay just north over the Taurus mountains from Paul’s home city of Tarsus, in Cilicia, on the Mediterranean coast. Scholars believe that his first visit to these occurred in 47 CE. The letter to the Galatians was written soon afterward.
Spiritual Living in Difficult Times
Paul would be the first to reject the idea that spiritual living consists of following a set of rules. That is why he was so adamant that his Galatian friends engage the freedom of the Spirit. But he certainly did not mean unprincipled behavior. In contrast to an equally powerful set of unspiritual behaviors, he listed these nine fruit of the Spirit as the best means of achieving moral and spiritual freedom.
The mixed communities of Jewish and Gentile Christians in Galatia needed to know how to live free of the restrictive codes of Jewish law and also free of meaningless dissipation. This had been an on-going struggle for them. A group of Jewish teachers had followed Paul into these Galatian communities insisting that before Gentiles could become Christian, they had to be circumcised and follow the strict dietary and rituals laws of the Jewish tradition. Apparently some friction and backsliding had occurred in the Galatian congregations.
Who was right - Paul or these other enthusiasts for Jewish laws? Paul was only interested in who was spiritual and who was unspiritual in their daily living. Despite having been an ardent Pharisee, he had taught them that they could be free from the strict codes of Judaism. Some may have taken this to mean that freedom from the Jewish law meant license to do as they pleased. Paul wanted them to understand that freedom did not mean the rejection of all moral restraint.
In the two paragraphs preceding the one in which he enumerated the fruit of the Spirit, Paul pointed out that the essence of the Jewish moral code had been summed up in the single commandment "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." According to the earliest Christian tradition, that was what Jesus himself had said. Paul defined a standard of conduct which exemplified that principle: "Live by the Spirit and do not gratify the desires of the flesh."
Some later Christians claimed that the human body was evil. They believed that the body was a totally separate entity from the human spirit or soul. This view had been embraced by many Greek philosophers and deeply influenced many early Christian theologians. For Paul, such a view had no validity whatsoever. How we often use our bodies is what is evil. There are certain kinds of human behavior which were manifestly unspiritual and destructive. These very common actions denied the working of the Spirit of God in the individual Christian and among the members of the Christian community.
Paul’s list of destructive activities reads like the sordid, dissolute behavior of misspent life. Jesus’ story about the Prodigal Son who went into a far country and wasted his life in riotous living comes immediately to mind (Luke 15:11-32). Without much imagination we can still identify what Paul was talking about. He warned the Galatians that such behavior was utterly contrary to the will and purpose of God. A life spent that way could never come under the sovereign rule of a loving God. There had to be a better way.
In Galatians 5:22-26 Paul set out how he believed Christians should live. He knew well enough from personal experience that absolute perfection in this is impossible. We certainly cannot do it on our own. But we don’t need to! We have the Holy Spirit of God to help us. The Spirit of God resides among us in the Christian community as we remain faithful to the Christian way. It is shared with every new Christian at baptism, develops gradually as we grow within the Christian fellowship, brings us to accept Christ as our own Saviour and Lord, and reaches its full potential for each of us as we seek to live the Christian way faithfully in our own lives, in our personal networks and in the myriad relationships of human life.
Of course, neither the Christian or the secular community control the Spirit. Actually, the Spirit controls and disciplines us. Whenever the church departs from the way of Christ, the Spirit leaves the church to carry on its many uncoordinated worthy activities. The Spirit finds new ways to do what God wants done in the world. In these days of great spiritual confusion, many Christians are searching for new ways to experience the life of the Spirit. The best resource for such a search has been right in front of us all along. It is found in that diverse collection of books, letters, poetry and other writings we call the Bible. It is still one of the most widely published volumes in the world. Written in verbal metaphors that may be foreign to our ears, we more often venerate it as holy, but leave it unread and, worse still, we do not understand its message in relation to contemporary experience.
Universally Applicable Too
In this brief list of nine fruit of the Spirit from his Letter to the Galatians, Paul gave as clearly as anywhere what a spiritual life involves in terms of actual human relationships in the any community. Then too, this rule of life can be applied universally regardless of the religious tradition one may follow.
Human relationships do not belong exclusively to the way one person relates to another. Former British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, once declared that there was no such thing as society; there were only individuals. She was wrong, as her party soon let her know when they removed her from office for someone more amenable to cooperating with the developing European community of nations.
The kingdom of God Jesus envisioned is a community of believing people willing to have their individual lives and their corporate life together ruled by love for God and for all of their neighbors. A vision like that is both enticing and challenging as we become more aware that the six billion people of the world are much like ourselves and at the same time very different. We need to find a model that reflects the essential values and universally applicable in a global community. Paul’s fruit of the Spirit provide just what we need in this pluralistic global society.
In her book of meditations, The Story of a Soul, the 19th century French mystic, Thérèse of Lisieux, wrote: "God has no need for anyone to carry out His work, I know, but just as He allows a clever gardener to raise rare and delicate plants, giving him the necessary knowledge for this while reserving to Himself the care of making them fruitful, so Jesus wills to be helped in His divine cultivation of souls."
Cultivating a spiritual approach to life requires discipline; and discipline requires clearly defined boundaries that determine where we are and how we are progressing. The nine fruit of the Spirit Paul named can give us this guidance as we meditate on them and see how they can be applied to the real details of personal and communal life.
"It is impossible to live a spiritual life without living a moral life," wrote Philip St. Romain in his Handbook for Spiritual Growth. He went on to point out that although it is possible to be spiritual without being religious. It is far better if a spirituality is informed by a religious body of truth, supported by a community of believers, and celebrated ritually. Without religion, spirituality can easily lose its focus, becoming too eclectic and confused. Ideally, religion ought to be the means by which people embrace the moral life and enter into the spiritual journey. Religion issues the invitation to the moral and spiritual life and provides the tools, wisdom, and support for living this life.
Fellowship Via the Internet
An Internet acquaintance once told me of something that happened when he was about 11 or 12 years old. He was carrying a long aluminum extension ladder with his father. They had to walk quite a distance, and while aluminum is a lightweight metal, how heavy it is relative to how it is carried. His dad kept asking if he was all right, and he kept stubbornly insisting that he was. Finally he had to ask to stop for a break. When they started up again, his dad suggested that he move a little closer to the back of the ladder. He did, and suddenly the ladder was much lighter. From then on he had no difficulty carrying it. Now he realizes that his dad had taken on more of the burden.
When two people carry something together, they do not necessarily each bear the same share of the burden. Living a spiritual life is often like that. It goes better if one does it in a community fellowship.
I have another Internet friend who lives in northeastern Alberta. He is a teacher, the audiovisual and electronics specialist for his school district, a musician, a choir director and a certified master gardener. He belongs to a Lutheran church in his community and holds theological positions, especially regarding the scriptures, with which I frequently disagree. Yet we write back and forth on a weekly basis. I send him my weekly studies on the Revised Common Lectionary and he sends me his weekly gardening columns published in the local newspaper. He also frequently sends me articles he has read on religious topics. Despite living at such great distance and having our theological differences, we still enjoy a very warm virtual friendship.
The Internet has a massive volume of uncoordinated messages shooting like billions of sparks around the globe. For many like me, it can be a medium for both friendship and community. It is open to people of all races, religious and cultural backgrounds. Distinctions as to who they are and what they believe can only be revealed by the participants themselves. The system lacks the real-time communication people have in a face-to-face conversation. The nuances of tone and body language are missing. That may change as video cameras are linked to computers online at more reasonable prices. Even now, the Internet provides fast communication of ideas which would astonish our grandparents who had to learn how to use the telephone and the radio.
The vast volume of Internet communications has raised the issue of how to discipline ourselves as we share our ideas with one another. Many people quickly unsubscribe from e-mail lists and newsgroups where rude, angry or disparaging comments interrupt the free exchange of ideas. As we shall see, in the lingo of the Internet, such talk is called "flaming." I have found that we Christians seem particularly susceptible to this unusual way of excommunicating anyone with whom we disagree. In a medium of such pluralistic dimensions, a self-imposed rule of life can only enhance the communication of spiritual experiences. The nine fruit of the Spirit could be particularly relevant to this kind of discipline.
Fruit always seems to taste better when it is shared. Let’s taste each one of these nine choice fruit Paul named for us.
2 - NINE CHOICE FRUIT
A recently published book implied that spirituality is what life is all about.
An Internet correspondent shared her search for a life in which the sacred had priority:
I've been reading Thomas Merton. Somehow the reading (coinciding with a place I have reached in my own journey) inspires me to greater simplicity, more uncompromised devotion, a bringing of every aspect of my life under stricter discipline so that nothing is distracting me from God. This includes very practical things like eating, sleeping, exercise, work, reading, prayer, how I discipline my thoughts, what I take into my mind, what I read, and how I use my "spare" time.
I guess what I am working at is a "rule of life."
How does one go about establishing a rule of life? Does it evolve of it's own accord, a by product of a life given over to Christ?
This message arrived the very morning I began to draft this manuscript. Few of us may feel the need these sentences express. Fewer have the courage to ask for help in shaping such a discipline. My correspondent and I have never met face to face, and never expect to do so. We no longer communicate occasionally as we once did in a now defunct faith-sharing group on the Internet. Perhaps some of what we had to say to each other may yield a clearer understanding of the Rule of the Spirit. For many years I have felt that the nine fruit of the Spirit the Apostle Paul lists in his Letter to the Galatians (5: 22-23) contain such a rule.
Our local green grocer displays for sale far more than nine different fruit, some flown in from exotic places far away. Season after season we are treated to a feast of which our parents and grandparents could never have dreamed. We enjoy this blessing in our very multicultural Canadian city because so many people from all over the world have made their homes here. They are familiar with fruit that seem quite exotic to us. The fruit on display in the grocery shop is like this list of spiritual fruit in Paul’s letter.
A Brief Aside about Bible
As you check out the passage from Paul’s letter and other scriptures referred to, make sure you have a reasonably modern version of the scriptures. Many new versions have appeared in the past 50 years. Not all versions may have exactly the same words, however, because of changes to our English language from one century to another and the different preferences of editors. Nor do all modern versions use the word fruit. Some appear to avoid the issue of whether fruit should be regarded as singular or plural. The Greek word Paul used is singular, karpos.
Unless specifically stated otherwise, all the quotations used in this book come from the New Revised Standard Version (NSRV) published in 1989. It is one of the most accurate and most readable.
Here is the selection from Galatians 5:22-23. [Note: When copied to a page, these look better if each one is indented on a separate line so that they appear as a stairway.]
"By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is
love,
joy,
peace,
patience,
kindness,
generosity,
faithfulness,
gentleness,
self-control."
The Language Paul Used
Those are all good strong English words. We probably use them every day without even noticing. Paul wrote to the Galatians about 48 or 49 AD in the common language of the marketplace in most of the eastern Mediterranean world. Scholars call this language koiné Greek. It came from the adjective koinos - meaning "common" - and it was the lingua franca of at least the eastern part of the Roman Empire . Everyone spoke koiné as freely as people from all over the world speak English today. It was as different from the classical literary Greek of Homer, Demosthenes or Plato as the words of this book are from those of Shakespeare, Emerson, or the elegant prose of Canadians like Northrop Frye or John Ralston Saul.
Although born to a Jewish family, Paul’s first language may well have been koiné Greek. He was raised in the eastern Mediterranean seaport of Tarsus in the Roman province of Cilicia, now part of modern Turkey. Before he went to Jerusalem to train as a rabbi, he worked at tent-making, a marketplace craft if ever there was one. If Paul’s mother tongue was not koiné Greek, it was probably Aramaic, the native dialect of Jewish and other Semitic peoples of that period. That was the language Jesus spoke too. It was related to Hebrew in much the same way that koiné was to classical Greek. Today, it is almost a dead language, spoken only in a few villages in the Bekah valley in Lebanon. In recent years, a group of scholars has been trying to reconstitute an Aramaic dictionary to carry on more intensive studies of rediscovered texts.
Long before his conversion to Christianity, Paul had immersed himself in the scriptures of his people. Most of these had been written in Hebrew before being translated into Greek in the third century BC. Christians of the lst century CE read the Greek version. It was the only "Bible" they had. The New Testament scriptures had not yet been written. Like many multilingual young people today, Paul seems to have been able to speak and write fluently in any of these languages.
He may well have spoken Aramaic at home and koiné Greek at work. Worship services in the synagogue and the scriptures they read were in Hebrew, but teaching by the rabbi was most likely in Aramaic. Paul used koiné Greek for his letter writing. At times, possibly because of bad eyesight, he also seems to have used the services of a secretary who had even better language skills than he had.
Who were these Galatians to whom Paul wrote this letter? Some of them were Celts, distantly related to the Celtic tribes of Gaul (now France), western Britain and Ireland. Several centuries earlier they had split off from the main Celtic migration trekking westward up the Danube River valley in Europe. After invading northern Greece in the 3rd century BCE, they had been invited to cross the Bosporus Straight into Asia Minor as mercenary soldiers. There they were pacified first by the Greek rulers of the region and later by the Romans. Eventually they settled on the plain around the city of Ankara which served as the capital of the Roman province of Galatia, named for the Celtic tribes as they were then known.
According to Acts 13:14-14:23, Paul visited several cities in southern Galatia - Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe. These cities lay just north over the Taurus mountains from Paul’s home city of Tarsus, in Cilicia, on the Mediterranean coast. Scholars believe that his first visit to these occurred in 47 CE. The letter to the Galatians was written soon afterward.
Spiritual Living in Difficult Times
Paul would be the first to reject the idea that spiritual living consists of following a set of rules. That is why he was so adamant that his Galatian friends engage the freedom of the Spirit. But he certainly did not mean unprincipled behavior. In contrast to an equally powerful set of unspiritual behaviors, he listed these nine fruit of the Spirit as the best means of achieving moral and spiritual freedom.
The mixed communities of Jewish and Gentile Christians in Galatia needed to know how to live free of the restrictive codes of Jewish law and also free of meaningless dissipation. This had been an on-going struggle for them. A group of Jewish teachers had followed Paul into these Galatian communities insisting that before Gentiles could become Christian, they had to be circumcised and follow the strict dietary and rituals laws of the Jewish tradition. Apparently some friction and backsliding had occurred in the Galatian congregations.
Who was right - Paul or these other enthusiasts for Jewish laws? Paul was only interested in who was spiritual and who was unspiritual in their daily living. Despite having been an ardent Pharisee, he had taught them that they could be free from the strict codes of Judaism. Some may have taken this to mean that freedom from the Jewish law meant license to do as they pleased. Paul wanted them to understand that freedom did not mean the rejection of all moral restraint.
In the two paragraphs preceding the one in which he enumerated the fruit of the Spirit, Paul pointed out that the essence of the Jewish moral code had been summed up in the single commandment "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." According to the earliest Christian tradition, that was what Jesus himself had said. Paul defined a standard of conduct which exemplified that principle: "Live by the Spirit and do not gratify the desires of the flesh."
Some later Christians claimed that the human body was evil. They believed that the body was a totally separate entity from the human spirit or soul. This view had been embraced by many Greek philosophers and deeply influenced many early Christian theologians. For Paul, such a view had no validity whatsoever. How we often use our bodies is what is evil. There are certain kinds of human behavior which were manifestly unspiritual and destructive. These very common actions denied the working of the Spirit of God in the individual Christian and among the members of the Christian community.
Paul’s list of destructive activities reads like the sordid, dissolute behavior of misspent life. Jesus’ story about the Prodigal Son who went into a far country and wasted his life in riotous living comes immediately to mind (Luke 15:11-32). Without much imagination we can still identify what Paul was talking about. He warned the Galatians that such behavior was utterly contrary to the will and purpose of God. A life spent that way could never come under the sovereign rule of a loving God. There had to be a better way.
In Galatians 5:22-26 Paul set out how he believed Christians should live. He knew well enough from personal experience that absolute perfection in this is impossible. We certainly cannot do it on our own. But we don’t need to! We have the Holy Spirit of God to help us. The Spirit of God resides among us in the Christian community as we remain faithful to the Christian way. It is shared with every new Christian at baptism, develops gradually as we grow within the Christian fellowship, brings us to accept Christ as our own Saviour and Lord, and reaches its full potential for each of us as we seek to live the Christian way faithfully in our own lives, in our personal networks and in the myriad relationships of human life.
Of course, neither the Christian or the secular community control the Spirit. Actually, the Spirit controls and disciplines us. Whenever the church departs from the way of Christ, the Spirit leaves the church to carry on its many uncoordinated worthy activities. The Spirit finds new ways to do what God wants done in the world. In these days of great spiritual confusion, many Christians are searching for new ways to experience the life of the Spirit. The best resource for such a search has been right in front of us all along. It is found in that diverse collection of books, letters, poetry and other writings we call the Bible. It is still one of the most widely published volumes in the world. Written in verbal metaphors that may be foreign to our ears, we more often venerate it as holy, but leave it unread and, worse still, we do not understand its message in relation to contemporary experience.
Universally Applicable Too
In this brief list of nine fruit of the Spirit from his Letter to the Galatians, Paul gave as clearly as anywhere what a spiritual life involves in terms of actual human relationships in the any community. Then too, this rule of life can be applied universally regardless of the religious tradition one may follow.
Human relationships do not belong exclusively to the way one person relates to another. Former British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, once declared that there was no such thing as society; there were only individuals. She was wrong, as her party soon let her know when they removed her from office for someone more amenable to cooperating with the developing European community of nations.
The kingdom of God Jesus envisioned is a community of believing people willing to have their individual lives and their corporate life together ruled by love for God and for all of their neighbors. A vision like that is both enticing and challenging as we become more aware that the six billion people of the world are much like ourselves and at the same time very different. We need to find a model that reflects the essential values and universally applicable in a global community. Paul’s fruit of the Spirit provide just what we need in this pluralistic global society.
In her book of meditations, The Story of a Soul, the 19th century French mystic, Thérèse of Lisieux, wrote: "God has no need for anyone to carry out His work, I know, but just as He allows a clever gardener to raise rare and delicate plants, giving him the necessary knowledge for this while reserving to Himself the care of making them fruitful, so Jesus wills to be helped in His divine cultivation of souls."
Cultivating a spiritual approach to life requires discipline; and discipline requires clearly defined boundaries that determine where we are and how we are progressing. The nine fruit of the Spirit Paul named can give us this guidance as we meditate on them and see how they can be applied to the real details of personal and communal life.
"It is impossible to live a spiritual life without living a moral life," wrote Philip St. Romain in his Handbook for Spiritual Growth. He went on to point out that although it is possible to be spiritual without being religious. It is far better if a spirituality is informed by a religious body of truth, supported by a community of believers, and celebrated ritually. Without religion, spirituality can easily lose its focus, becoming too eclectic and confused. Ideally, religion ought to be the means by which people embrace the moral life and enter into the spiritual journey. Religion issues the invitation to the moral and spiritual life and provides the tools, wisdom, and support for living this life.
Fellowship Via the Internet
An Internet acquaintance once told me of something that happened when he was about 11 or 12 years old. He was carrying a long aluminum extension ladder with his father. They had to walk quite a distance, and while aluminum is a lightweight metal, how heavy it is relative to how it is carried. His dad kept asking if he was all right, and he kept stubbornly insisting that he was. Finally he had to ask to stop for a break. When they started up again, his dad suggested that he move a little closer to the back of the ladder. He did, and suddenly the ladder was much lighter. From then on he had no difficulty carrying it. Now he realizes that his dad had taken on more of the burden.
When two people carry something together, they do not necessarily each bear the same share of the burden. Living a spiritual life is often like that. It goes better if one does it in a community fellowship.
I have another Internet friend who lives in northeastern Alberta. He is a teacher, the audiovisual and electronics specialist for his school district, a musician, a choir director and a certified master gardener. He belongs to a Lutheran church in his community and holds theological positions, especially regarding the scriptures, with which I frequently disagree. Yet we write back and forth on a weekly basis. I send him my weekly studies on the Revised Common Lectionary and he sends me his weekly gardening columns published in the local newspaper. He also frequently sends me articles he has read on religious topics. Despite living at such great distance and having our theological differences, we still enjoy a very warm virtual friendship.
The Internet has a massive volume of uncoordinated messages shooting like billions of sparks around the globe. For many like me, it can be a medium for both friendship and community. It is open to people of all races, religious and cultural backgrounds. Distinctions as to who they are and what they believe can only be revealed by the participants themselves. The system lacks the real-time communication people have in a face-to-face conversation. The nuances of tone and body language are missing. That may change as video cameras are linked to computers online at more reasonable prices. Even now, the Internet provides fast communication of ideas which would astonish our grandparents who had to learn how to use the telephone and the radio.
The vast volume of Internet communications has raised the issue of how to discipline ourselves as we share our ideas with one another. Many people quickly unsubscribe from e-mail lists and newsgroups where rude, angry or disparaging comments interrupt the free exchange of ideas. As we shall see, in the lingo of the Internet, such talk is called "flaming." I have found that we Christians seem particularly susceptible to this unusual way of excommunicating anyone with whom we disagree. In a medium of such pluralistic dimensions, a self-imposed rule of life can only enhance the communication of spiritual experiences. The nine fruit of the Spirit could be particularly relevant to this kind of discipline.
Fruit always seems to taste better when it is shared. Let’s taste each one of these nine choice fruit Paul named for us.
posted by John at 6:54 AM
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