When: Friday, February 9th at 8:00 PM
Where: Muggswigz (Click the link for directions. This is just a bit past Belden in downtown Canton. I hope that’s ok with everyone.)
Topic: I’ve decided to write a short essay that will attempt to weave together some of the things that we discussed last time with some of the potential topics that have been suggested, in hopes of spurring thoughts for our next conversation. Please read this essay, think about it, and then come ready to discuss your own take on the subject(s). We’ll start the conversation there and then see where it goes. 
Many of us are involved in the emergent conversation because we have a different way of looking at things than many others around us. Gathering with people who see the world in similar ways is like coming home to the place where everyone speaks your language. Occasionally, and often when we least expect it, we come across someone who is obviously uncomfortable with popular modes of thinking, acting and being, but can’t articulate what is behind their sense of unease. Like Morpheus awakening Neo, we share with them the journey that we have already begun in hopes of getting them moving along the path (or freeing them from a prison of the mind!). It’s easy, and exhilirating, to talk to those people, isn’t it?
But how do we talk to people who think differently from us? If, for example, I’m speaking with a Christian who is admantly arguing that we have access to objective truth, and I disagree, how should I respond? If you are conversing with someone who thinks that they can simply read the scriptures without interpreting them, how should you respond? Or more practically, if people are critical of the ways that our faith communities are organized or operated, how can we best respond? What if it is we who have tendencies toward being critical of them? How can we bridge these gaps, or should we even try?
Ludwig Wittgenstein said:
Telling someone something he does not understand is pointless, even if you add that he will not understand it. (That so often happens with someone you love.) If you have a room which you do not want certain people to get into, put a lock on it for which they do not have the key. But there is no point in talking to them about it, unless of course you want them to admire the room from outside!
The honorable thing to do is to put a lock on the door which will be noticed only by those who can open it, not by the rest. (Quoted in How to Read Wittgenstein, by Ray Monk)
If Wittgenstein is correct, then it’s silly to argue with people who are functioning within a different paradigm because they will never be able to understand what we have to say while inside that paradigm. All we will do is talk past each other. We should stop trying to disabuse the moderns of their modernism, and just focus on those who are not completely comfortable with modern ways of thinking, acting and being. In this way we can keep our message positive and work with those who see things differently than we do (to the extent that they will partner with us), thriving in the spaces which they have left largely unoccupied. This would make for a more peaceful, and symbiotic, coexistance.
So there’s your prompt. I’m not sure if I agree completely with myself… how about you? That’s where we’ll pick up the conversation.
