Is the Kingdom of Heaven a LO? LO29882

From: AM de Lange (amdelange@postino.up.ac.za)
Date: 02/03/03


Replying to LO29876 --

Dear Organlearners,

Alan Cotterell <acotrel@cnl.com.au> writes:

>I sometimes wonder about the sort of statement that the
>good and just will get their reward in heaven.

Greetings dear Alan,

I di not know how you got such an impression from what i wrote, but i was
afraid of such impressions ascribed to me which i do not held.
Nevertheless, i want to give my own thoughts on this issue.

Heaven is not a pie in the sky. Heaven is not purely an afterlife
business. Heaven becomes when living in love with others coming on your
path. Helping someone who is desperate and have no hope becomes heaven
even before that person acknowledges his/her gratitude. Such treasures
cannot be destroyed and whatever becomes of us, such treasures stay with
us.

>I don't have a need for the expectation of an afterlife. There
>are some things I am passionate about and my reward lies in
>perceiving the changes I have achieved in my life and the life
>of the community.

I agree with you. But if there is an afterlife, which i believe in, then
these changes affected will be part of such an afterlife. The fact that
you do not expect an afterlife does not worry me. In fact. somebody who
does good without trying to gain a foothold in afterlife, has done
something good unconditionally.

>Personally I don't respond well to half-baked incentive
>schemes. Dogs and monkeys seem to respond well to
>training when reinforcement includes a 'reward', so perhaps
>there is a difference between training and education?

Neither do i like incentive schemes. They are intended to fuel a person
from the outside with free energy. Whether it works or not is besides the
point. What the person lacks is in fuelling him/herself with free energy
through own creative accomplishments.

A major difference for me between education and training is that in
education one learn to do things self, not waiting for someone else to
take the lead. What is a great pity for me is that education of
individuals lack so much that it does not lead to the spontaneous
transformation of organisations into learning organisations. It has too
much of training in it. The word which we use in Afrikaans for training
means that it has too much dressing in it -- too much outward appearances
and too little inner conviction -- too much information and too little
knowledge.

It is now 25 years since i had anything to do with the training of
teachers. I wonder how much in teacher training students are exposed to
the Fifth Discipline and the concept of a Learning Organisation. Here in
South Africa i think that it is only the University of Natal who considers
it as part of their strategy, but not necessarily their teacher's
curriculum. See < http://www.nu.ac.za/strategic/ >

With care and best wishes

-- 

With care and best wishes --

At de Lange <amdelange@postino.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa

Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>


"Learning-org" and the format of our message identifiers (LO1234, etc.) are trademarks of Richard Karash.