This is http://www.essayz.com/a9809081.htm Previous-Essay <== This-Essay ==> Following-Essay Click HERE on this line to find essays via Your-Key-Words. {Most frequent wordstarts of each essay will be put here.} ========================================================== %UNTIE GORDIAN SIMPLE KNOT FEAR COLLUSIVE REPRESS+980908 %TRUE EXPRESSIONS NEIGHBORLY AFFECTION LOVE EVILS 980908 It is not a simple thing to untie the Gordian Knot of our fears of collusive repressions of God's Call to truly express neighborly affection and love. Some people are convinced that for them untying their Gordian Knot is a simple thing to do; and in keeping with their conception of the simplicity of life they demand and prescribe that other people be like them. They demonstrate through their failures how difficult it is to untie the Gordian Knots of our fears of collusive repressions of God's Call. Many of God's unique creatures do not find their lives to be simple! When we demand, prescribe and/or proscribe any patterns of feelings, thoughts, attitudes and behaviors --- we engender alienation which ties us into complex Gordian Knots of collusive repressions, suppressions, depressions, etc. Endless quoting of our favorite offensive/defensive scriptures---does not do us or our neighbors any good. Usually such quotations engender additional alienation, estrangement, dishonesty, deceptions, and collusions. Some powerful but mis-guided blind people are endlessly preoccupied with issues of how to control: evil- feelings, evil-desires, evil-thoughts, evil-deeds, evil- situations, evil-opportunities, evil, etc. Other weak but perceptive people experience and understand the alienations which are nurtured by the efforts of people who are endlessly preoccupied with issues of control of the various forms of evil. We cannot be well and do well so long as we regard evil as something which must be controlled; rather than as being rooted in: neglect, abandonment, alienation and estrangement. These all entail: the absence of affection, the absence of love, the absence of light, the absence of knowledge, the absence of listening, the absence of understanding, and the absence of LOVE. Evil has much more to do with what is ABSENT --- than with what is present. If we seek to fight what is present because we feel and think that "evil" is present; we are unable to recognize that wise people more prudently deal with what is ABSENT FROM RELATIONSHIPS which seem to be "full of evil" as a powerful force. Such EVIL RELATIONSHIPS are not full of anything which is powerful. Rather they are LACKING in true affection, love, light, knowledge, listening, understandings and Love which are central in God's reconciling work. The people in such EVIL RELATIONSHIPS have banished what is absent from their EVIL RELATIONSHIPS --- and need to welcome back what they have banished. (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy) ==========================================================