Michael Jordan was a great knower of basketball, but the player-coach role did not fit him well while he played for Washington, because he was not a teacher of basketball anymore than his teammates. He could lead by example, but not also by word. Being a knower is different from being a teacher. John Wooden, in contrast to Jordan, was both a great knower and great teacher of basketball. He studied and taught the principles of teaching. He also had played the game well, when he was a player at Purdue, because he also was a knower of basketball. The reason I bring this up is because I already know that wholeness needs to be addressed. It is a major issue in living. It appears to be even maybe in our time, the issue that needs to be addressed. The thing of wholeness is very prominent in daily existence, but also our speech is gving away the fact that it is also far more prominent in our speaking than most people realize.
What I am studying and hoping to teach soon is how the Bible addresses the topic of wholeness. I want to discover the where and when for this topic. It may be very prominent and may be what holiness in the text refers to. It also may be lower in prominence than that and be found in the Hebrew and Greek words that are already translated as "whole" and many times as "all". In either case, to be a teacher, you first submit to being a studier. There is no shortcut to teaching, especially when the terminal degree of a Ph.D. is becoming much more of a requirement for those who teach.
So, if you were to enter my office, you would find a large heap of material on wholeness, but also on holiness as a word and also whole as a word. I also have studied both set apart and pure as words. I do know wholeness and am seeing already the exciting changes in my life from using it as a principle of nature. The only question that remains is when I will have the qualifications to teach its location and timing in the Bible (the Book) as well! Be whole! Take care.
Sincerely,
Jon
Monday, December 17, 2012
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Wholeness: Something we Know before We Teach
Have you ever driven through an unknown community and wished you had a map or a global positioning application on your cell phone or a global positioning device mounted in your car? Why is that? I thought the reality of the territory should trump any map? Isn't it better to ask the locals who konw?
I was recently in Stevens Point, WI and I learned the value of both people who knew the territory and a good map. When I arrived there my map proved somewhat lacking. For one thing it knew nothing about construction zones and so as a result I could not use the streets that was recommended on my map. So here I relied on some locals, who knew the territory, even without studying my map. Both were helpful in their due measure.
When we are growing up before our years in school, we are learning things that are the territory. We have knowers called parents who should know the territory. We learn from them about wholeness. We learn what the whole of something is before we ever are shipped off to pre-school. I want to distinguish learning from studying or territory from maps in this entry, because we have loss the balance of both in education and because learning precedes studying and learning is also enhanced by studying.
Wholeness is not an unknown. It is the distinction we learn very early in our lives and is high on a child's word frequency list, if we consider the concrete words that children use as well as the abstract idea of the whole. Wholeness itself is abstact, but also wholeness is not so much known abstractly as it is known concretely for children. When a child learns that: "This is the tail of the kitty", then they learn that there are parts to the kitty as well as the whole kitty. In fact, the knowledge of the whole kitty is learned before parents acting as knowers name the kitty's various parts like tails and whiskers.
We live today in a time dominated by studying and learning has fallen onto rather hard times among the educated. It is as though we value maps so much that the territory is rather inferior. I think here of the explosion of earlier and earlier pre-school. I think it is high time that we reverse that trend and create a new priority and a new balance between the two.
In my study of holiness, a key factor is that I have known, even if I cannot teach, the realities of both "wholeness" and "set apart" before I knew them as possible definitions for the biblical concept of holy. I have known both of these things before I even begin to study them in earnest in school. I have learned too that I often I grasp a concept through knowing by learning that idea before I can provide the evidence that teaching by studying requires.
Let me mention one example. I once read the statement "Pride and despair are close cousins". Because of where I found myself living emotionally at the time, I realized immediately the meaning of these words for my own life and in reality. It took a little longer time for me to find the proof through studying for this concept in my Bible. But also I already had a pretty good hunch during my studying that I would find it, because I knew the territory before I found it on my map. I believe the same can apply to my grasp of wholeness in reality and the time after that it takes to find proof in my Bible or on my map. I can already see solutions to probems from knowing wholeness before I can fully reach a better understanding of biblical concepts like holy.
The distinctions I am making here between learning and studying and knowing and teaching, I began studying this distinction quite a long time ago under Dr. Donald N. Larson at Bethel University (then College) in St. Paul, MN. I heard and learned this distinction along time ago, but it took me a little longer in studying it. Try many many years! The way I now visualize the distinction is to think of a vertical line from knower to learner and to think of a horizontal line from teacher to studier (student).
So when I speak of wholeness, you already know what it is. If you lost a limb in a tragic car accident, you know that your body is now less than fully whole. The question is this: Can we teach the idea and get beyond just knowing it? Have we studied it, so that when we see that word and the words that belong in a same meaning class (technically a "semantic domain"), we are able to effectively group them together? Do we see too how often we use words that belong in that same class or category according to the context? That is a different level of being versed on the meaning of wholeness. It is both knowing and teaching together that produce a balanced and educated person.
Every day we use hundreds of examples of wholes and their parts and yet rarely notice them, because our studying misses the mark, even while our learning and knowing does not. How many times per day, do we create statements along the line of "the tail of the kitty" and yet we are not taught to see them as other examples of parts and wholes? This is not healty, because the map of teaching needs to match up with the territory of learning. Otherwise, people will discard maps and end up having to learn every lesson for themselves the hard way rather than enjoying life more because they don't have to learn every lesson the hard way because they possess of a map from teachers.
Remember my trip to Stevens Point. It took both the knowers of the community and the studying my map (certainly made by teachers!) to get me to my destination that I was trying to reach. Without either one, it would have been a painful journey and I would have arrived late rather than on time for my appointment.
So what do you think? Is it not knowing wholness that is causing us to miss the mark? Are we as learners and knowers deficient or are we as studiers and teachers deficient or maybe even a a deficiency of both? We need to put wholeness (and its parts) to the forefront (#2 on the priority list behind personal names) of our studying, just like it is in our reality.of living. Then wholeness will be receive justice from the map given to us in school and in our "Holy Bibles".
Sincerely,
Jon
I was recently in Stevens Point, WI and I learned the value of both people who knew the territory and a good map. When I arrived there my map proved somewhat lacking. For one thing it knew nothing about construction zones and so as a result I could not use the streets that was recommended on my map. So here I relied on some locals, who knew the territory, even without studying my map. Both were helpful in their due measure.
When we are growing up before our years in school, we are learning things that are the territory. We have knowers called parents who should know the territory. We learn from them about wholeness. We learn what the whole of something is before we ever are shipped off to pre-school. I want to distinguish learning from studying or territory from maps in this entry, because we have loss the balance of both in education and because learning precedes studying and learning is also enhanced by studying.
Wholeness is not an unknown. It is the distinction we learn very early in our lives and is high on a child's word frequency list, if we consider the concrete words that children use as well as the abstract idea of the whole. Wholeness itself is abstact, but also wholeness is not so much known abstractly as it is known concretely for children. When a child learns that: "This is the tail of the kitty", then they learn that there are parts to the kitty as well as the whole kitty. In fact, the knowledge of the whole kitty is learned before parents acting as knowers name the kitty's various parts like tails and whiskers.
We live today in a time dominated by studying and learning has fallen onto rather hard times among the educated. It is as though we value maps so much that the territory is rather inferior. I think here of the explosion of earlier and earlier pre-school. I think it is high time that we reverse that trend and create a new priority and a new balance between the two.
In my study of holiness, a key factor is that I have known, even if I cannot teach, the realities of both "wholeness" and "set apart" before I knew them as possible definitions for the biblical concept of holy. I have known both of these things before I even begin to study them in earnest in school. I have learned too that I often I grasp a concept through knowing by learning that idea before I can provide the evidence that teaching by studying requires.
Let me mention one example. I once read the statement "Pride and despair are close cousins". Because of where I found myself living emotionally at the time, I realized immediately the meaning of these words for my own life and in reality. It took a little longer time for me to find the proof through studying for this concept in my Bible. But also I already had a pretty good hunch during my studying that I would find it, because I knew the territory before I found it on my map. I believe the same can apply to my grasp of wholeness in reality and the time after that it takes to find proof in my Bible or on my map. I can already see solutions to probems from knowing wholeness before I can fully reach a better understanding of biblical concepts like holy.
The distinctions I am making here between learning and studying and knowing and teaching, I began studying this distinction quite a long time ago under Dr. Donald N. Larson at Bethel University (then College) in St. Paul, MN. I heard and learned this distinction along time ago, but it took me a little longer in studying it. Try many many years! The way I now visualize the distinction is to think of a vertical line from knower to learner and to think of a horizontal line from teacher to studier (student).
So when I speak of wholeness, you already know what it is. If you lost a limb in a tragic car accident, you know that your body is now less than fully whole. The question is this: Can we teach the idea and get beyond just knowing it? Have we studied it, so that when we see that word and the words that belong in a same meaning class (technically a "semantic domain"), we are able to effectively group them together? Do we see too how often we use words that belong in that same class or category according to the context? That is a different level of being versed on the meaning of wholeness. It is both knowing and teaching together that produce a balanced and educated person.
Every day we use hundreds of examples of wholes and their parts and yet rarely notice them, because our studying misses the mark, even while our learning and knowing does not. How many times per day, do we create statements along the line of "the tail of the kitty" and yet we are not taught to see them as other examples of parts and wholes? This is not healty, because the map of teaching needs to match up with the territory of learning. Otherwise, people will discard maps and end up having to learn every lesson for themselves the hard way rather than enjoying life more because they don't have to learn every lesson the hard way because they possess of a map from teachers.
Remember my trip to Stevens Point. It took both the knowers of the community and the studying my map (certainly made by teachers!) to get me to my destination that I was trying to reach. Without either one, it would have been a painful journey and I would have arrived late rather than on time for my appointment.
So what do you think? Is it not knowing wholness that is causing us to miss the mark? Are we as learners and knowers deficient or are we as studiers and teachers deficient or maybe even a a deficiency of both? We need to put wholeness (and its parts) to the forefront (#2 on the priority list behind personal names) of our studying, just like it is in our reality.of living. Then wholeness will be receive justice from the map given to us in school and in our "Holy Bibles".
Sincerely,
Jon
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Wholeness: The Topic of Our Emerging Age
Peter F. Drucker and Stephen R. Covey are my favorite "futurists". They may both oppose being assigned that title, but both have had something to say about the age or time period in which you and I live. The age in which we live has also been referred to as a cultural type in the anthropological field. Whatever name you use, it is important to understand the times. I am convinced we live in an age in which wholeness will be the primary focus. I call the emerging age the Wholeness Age.
I don't say this lightly, but I have read a great deal of literature beyond these two writers and I hear them saying the same thing about what will be the primary focus of our current emerging age. Educators like to talk about the need for a wholistic(holistic) model to replace a reductionist model. Many of us have been educated to think that way as we emerge out of the Knowledge Age. People like Rick Warren, who is a pastor who was mentored by Peter F. Drucker, say that health will be the main topic of our age. But also he is only one example out of a multitude of writers including Covey who see the importance of health or a "whole person" model or paradigm.
Covey though misfires in my humle opinion in his book The 8th Habit, when he refers to our time as the "Age of Wisdom." To me this is the just a broader focus of the Industrial Age. A subtle form of pragmatism or practically has been hard for us to shake due to the successes of the Industrial Age. I think that is the main reason why Covey is misled, but also he is misled because he sees wisdom as a practical form of knowledge that follows after the Knowledge Age. This is another common mistake. Knowledge and wisdom are actually are more distinct than that. Wisdom to knowledge is like action to things. They are distinct classes, not a subset of one another or two parts of the same thing.
At this point you need to be told that I greatly admire Covey's materials. I wish I had devoted more time to them in the past. Covey to his great credit speaks in The 8th Habit of a "whole person paradigm". He develops this a great deal in his book, but also he does not make it as central as I think he should have. So I only differ with him in the sense of shifting priorities. After what Drucker famously called the Knowledge Age, I believe we are living in an emerging Age of Wholeness or the whole person paradigm.
I am convinced that this age will one day be called by the name of the Age of Wholeness. This will happen maybe sooner or maybe later. But also time will tell or prove, if I am correct. Please keep your eyes out for this emerging map of reality!
Sincerely,
Jon
I don't say this lightly, but I have read a great deal of literature beyond these two writers and I hear them saying the same thing about what will be the primary focus of our current emerging age. Educators like to talk about the need for a wholistic(holistic) model to replace a reductionist model. Many of us have been educated to think that way as we emerge out of the Knowledge Age. People like Rick Warren, who is a pastor who was mentored by Peter F. Drucker, say that health will be the main topic of our age. But also he is only one example out of a multitude of writers including Covey who see the importance of health or a "whole person" model or paradigm.
Covey though misfires in my humle opinion in his book The 8th Habit, when he refers to our time as the "Age of Wisdom." To me this is the just a broader focus of the Industrial Age. A subtle form of pragmatism or practically has been hard for us to shake due to the successes of the Industrial Age. I think that is the main reason why Covey is misled, but also he is misled because he sees wisdom as a practical form of knowledge that follows after the Knowledge Age. This is another common mistake. Knowledge and wisdom are actually are more distinct than that. Wisdom to knowledge is like action to things. They are distinct classes, not a subset of one another or two parts of the same thing.
At this point you need to be told that I greatly admire Covey's materials. I wish I had devoted more time to them in the past. Covey to his great credit speaks in The 8th Habit of a "whole person paradigm". He develops this a great deal in his book, but also he does not make it as central as I think he should have. So I only differ with him in the sense of shifting priorities. After what Drucker famously called the Knowledge Age, I believe we are living in an emerging Age of Wholeness or the whole person paradigm.
I am convinced that this age will one day be called by the name of the Age of Wholeness. This will happen maybe sooner or maybe later. But also time will tell or prove, if I am correct. Please keep your eyes out for this emerging map of reality!
Sincerely,
Jon
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