Do look back - unless you are plowing


[ Replies to this Post ] [ Post a Reply ] [ Journeys ] [ exFamily.org Home ]

Posted by Miguel on December 19, 2012 at 03:47:01

I was thinking about one of the tenets in TFI about “not looking back”. This was part of the curios doctrines they strongly and consistently affirmed. It was not until fairly recently when I came face-to-face with its real ugliness. Seemingly innocuous it is actually insidious because it takes advantage of the very human characteristic that seeks escaping and evading pain and suffering due to negative memories. The idea that it is okay to not look back gives us permission to look the other way and elude any discomfort in dealing with events, circumstances, people or anything else from our past.

In fact, an effect of this attitude, very well nurtured in TFI, is that it eliminates one of the major components of critical thinking: our also very human ability to learn from our good and bad decisions of our past. Jesus said of the householder who brings out new and old things from the treasure. The past is like the householder’s treasure.

Of course, the doctrine of “not looking back” is scriptural but only in the sense that is clearly in the context of those words. Jesus said that of a farmer who was plowing, who was in the process of forging ahead with a task. The not looking back is the avoid distractions, or to cast away all weight, and the sin that so easily beset us. We must be light to run the race. This is the interpretation.

The exaggeration and expansion was subtle, as so many of the other lies of the liar. Even though the idea is to forget the things that are behind, it was clear that it was to be done only insofar it benefitted the plowing. In fact, the idea of resting in the Lord and meditating in the Word is paramount all through God’s words. There is a time to plow and there is a time to rest, and sit to the Master’s feet and learn.

Looking at the past, into one’s memories, is so obvious that it becomes easy to miss. Jesus and the prophets constantly referred to God’s Words, to their history, to their accumulated knowledge as well as to their individual knowledge, which includes all of their individual memories. In fact, our own faith rests on what the past tells us as it was recorded. We can make the point that important is only that which is eternal, but the past is eternal.

Nullifying the importance of the past, hence of our memories, hence of our looking into the past, Berg made the institutional policy to avoid anything and everything that would shed some light on some issue that brought about questioning things. Because questioning anything was the biggest sin in TFI, critical thinking was simply destroyed at the roots and prevented to exist under the guise of promoting positive thinking.

So, let us look back not as a way to feel sorry for ourselves but as a way to learn and be like the householder who brings new and old treasures.


Replies to this Post:



Post a Reply



[ Replies to this Post ] [ Post a Reply ] [ Journeys ] [ exFamily.org Home ]