The hippies aimed at love. They wanted peace. They got together, sang and celebrated, and tried to get people to see another way of life; one of freedom and without violence and strife. Good ideals. But then they just dissolved into untidy, unkept, drugged-out weirdoes who hit the hash pipe and slept around a lot.
The communists aimed at community. They wanted equality and sharing. Now I've never read "The Communist Manifesto" and I only have a loose understanding of socialism, but it seems like on paper it would be a great idea. Nobody is totally rich. Nobody is totally poor. But then they just dissolved into dictatorship, slavery in forced work camps, censorship of divergent thinking and a climate of fear and oppression.
The news-making cults pulled out of the world to single-mindedly pursue a lofty ideal. They usually ended up in mass deaths.
The Mormons commit two years of their young lives to go out and spread their views around the world. They typically leave this venture for lives of greater financial viability...plus, in the mind of this humble blogger, their message is false.
The monastics and hermits/desert fathers left everything behind--the world, possessions, relational ties--to seek spiritual devotion and enlightenment in isolation. They ended up so cloistered and removed that they did a lot less good to the world than they could have retreating and then venturing back into the fray.
Love. Community. Sharing. Forsaking the world. Service. Spiritual devotion. Sound like good ideas, don't they. Sure...they messed up. Sure...one could do it better. My point is, are we trying?
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3 comments:
holy crap - good word.
it's hard to read that critique of our amazing desert fathers, and yet it's good to try and talk about where people might have tried and missed some aspect of a "proper faith" or whatever you want to call it.
of course, our dialogue can prob. go without all the comparison language, and so I really like where you end up - with a question of our present situation.
I don't really know what this means ... but I think it might somehow be kinda true:
All that will really count is that we do try.
oh, and ... I'm gonna look up that book you mentioned on thoseawake!
-s.o
http://www.irresistiblerevolution.org/ - here are some hippies getting it (more-less) right
these guys, too Psalters
i echo s.o.'s sentiment, good word, Jay.
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