I think I should comment on my choice of quotations, and perhaps offer some explanation as to why I chose it. Let me first say that I know nothing of Kahlil Gibrain, and thus the quotation from my point of view could be drastically out of context. If your are a reader who happens to know about him, my apologies. The reason why I chose the quote was that the idea that those of us who follow Christ, follow in the footsteps of divinity, and like the quotations says, we have nothing to fear from derision. The Apostle Paul said that the sufferings of this present world were not comparable to the future glory. A fear of man is a prominent problem among christians… I think it stems in some cases from a lack of vision for the future glory. I don’t know if Kahlil Gibrain intended such an understanding from the statement, but the truth is there. If we follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ, God among men, what have we to fear?
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I appreciate your comments in yesterday’s entry concerning this quote. I figured that’s where you were coming from. I guess my *problem* (that’s too strong a word) with it is ‘listening to humanity’. In the intellectual and philosophical worlds there is a lot of ‘people worshipping’ going on. But if one listens to humanity AND follows in the footsteps of Christ, there is freedom from derision–both inward and outward. There are (at least) two ways of ‘listening to humanity’: hearing with an intent to imitate (or reject), and hearing in order to understand. The second one will, of course, protect against deriding ——if combined with following Christ. And, of course, only following Christ will allow us to live forever. Well, that’s about as deep as I get!! :o) Thanks for stimulating my thought processes.
You make a good point, as I had not considered the impact of the phrase, ‘listen to humanity’. His quote is vague enough to allow much interpretation. I would tend to agree with your expansion. Really, to make the quote true, listening to humanity would need to be removed. Although there is merit in simply learning to observe, using humanity as an example would be dangerous. This would be a good example of deceitfulness of worldly philosophy, and how subtly it creeps in.