Replying to LO29909 --
Dear Organlearners,
Andrew Campbell < ACampnona@aol.com > writes:
>(snip) Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first
>extended to the utmost their knowledge. (snip)
Greetings dear Andrew,
Yes, it is endless learning which makes all the difference. Here at our
university the academical year is now a couple of weeks old. The
university is vibrant with students willing to learn and keeping up with
it. But how long their free energy will sustain them, is another question.
>Where is love? Let's get to the root of that and put ['learning']
>(in 'parent hesis' away), for a day ;-)
Love is where it is cared for in full. Love cannot be there where, for
example, wholeness hits the dust. It is likewise with the other six 7Es.
(seven essentialities of creativity). Observe people closely when they
begin with their hate talk. At least one of the 7Es will be very inferior.
>Dear At, could you treat us to an examination of the roots
>of 'time'? And please take us slowly from there to the flowers
>and thence to the perfume ;-)....I wondered...is love there?
Dear Andrew, i can speak only for myself. Time is a human construct.
Animals and plants react to changes. It is us who categorise such changes
in time schedules. About twenty years ago, during one of my desert
journeys, i decided that i had enough of this time construct. Time
isolates me from the vital changes of life. I threw my watch away, never
to wear one again.
Two Sundays ago our pastor fell back in his sermon on a dogmatic lecture
without even once mentioning love. So i began to observe the other members
of the parish to see how they react upon this lecture. Most of them were
looking at their watches every couple of minutes. It is then when i
noticed that except for me and a few toddlers, everybody was wearing a
watch -- even children of primary school age. What a shame!!!
Einstein's theory of relativity brought the insight that there is not such
a thing as absolute time. The advance of time (as is measured by a time
device) depends on how fast we move and how fast our communication signals
are propagated. The faster we move, the slower time advances for others
who move slower than us. (The technical term is the "dilation of time".)
All our time measuring devices needs free energy to operate. They measure
time linearly by a constant production of entropy. Thus they confine LEP
(Law of Entropy Production) into a straight jacket. It is no wonder that
the dance of changes becomes the death march of fixed steps. We begin to
follow that death march rather than dancing the changes. I think that the
invention of the clock in the seventeenth century did humankind more harm
than good.
If you go to a wilderness, i want to suggest strongly that you leave all
watches at home. Experience the changes in the wilderness as they come,
fast and slow, erractic and regular, strong and soft. Imagine how all
these changes interact into a gigantic symphony, telling of the Creator's
love for this universe and for you as a human.
How can love be patient when one has to take heed of a clock? How can love
be humble when the clock rules productivity? All the qualities of love
which Paul mentions in 1 Cor 13 become a mockery in the slavery to the
beat of time.
As for your last request "And please take us slowly from there to the
flowers and thence to the perfume ;-". We have become the imbicils of a
consumer society. Go to any nursery and ask the attendent the age of any
flowering plant for sale. He would most probably not even know it. But few
cultivars would be older than three years. And i am pretty sure that none
older than ten years would be available.
Take care of your Adenia pechuelii. (It is a succulent from the passion
flower family.) After another ten years at an age of over thirty years it
will flower for the first time. I hope it is a female since the flowers
will be much more sweetly scented.
Many of the most beautiful lilies of the veld take at least twenty years
to become of flowering age. You will not find them in a nursery (unless
taken from the wild) because it would be utterly uneconomical to grow
them. So you will have to look for them in the wild at their flowering
time. Long before you see one, you will smell the fragrance of its
flowers. Make sure from what direction the breeze comes and then head into
it. Sooner or later you will find the flowering lily.
In the Damara desert it rains once every four to five years. For the other
dry years the bulbs simply sleep under what appear to be solid rock. But
when the rains come, the rock becomes soft soil and the bulbs sprout into
leaves and eventually into flowers. I have observed how gecko's eat the
petals of the flowers as if the best salad ever. Do God not care for these
gecko's? I have slept next to these flowering lilies, dreaming how much
heaven would be like it. Meanwhile i could have become a tasty meal for a
leopard or wolf. But i know Who protects me even in sleep.
Love is there where it is cared for in full.
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
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