In Reply to: An interim response to Allan and all posted by Eva on January 06, 2004 at 14:42:35:
"What is really happening here is that...I am recklessly shooting down all your sacred cows just for the fun of it, and you are whipping yourself into a Scriptural frenzy to try to prove me a doctrinal heretic'."
Eva, if you look through my posts on Journeys, you'll see very quickly that I stand much closer to your worldview than to Alan's. That said, I don't understand "recklessly shooting down sacred cows just for the fun of it." What are you trying to accomplish? You seem much too spiritually evolved to bait someone to the point "a scriptural frenzy" just for the fun of it.
I've taken a few shots at Alan's sacred cows myself, but in a very calculated and measured fashion. I have no expectation of getting Alan to see and experience the world my way--I just want him to understand how threatened I sometimes feel by his perspectives.
It occurs to me that my liberalism and high tolerance for ambiguity can be just as threatening to Alan as his conservatism and authoritarianism are to me. So no matter how much I disagree with him conceptually, I try to find common emotional ground. What I try to communicate through the search for common ground is simply this: Here is where I respect your boundaries, and here is where I need you to respect mine.
I believe in finding common emotional ground for a very selfish reason: I want to feel safe talking about my spiritual journey and exploring my questions and experiences. It's very hard to share such sensitive and deeply personal things in a space like this. I wish Alan were a little more inclined to "live and let live" but then, he seems to have gotten better at it (where I am concerned) in the short time I've known him. But maybe it helps that I don't put as much energy into gunning down cows as I do into finding ways to share the pasture.