00:00:11.440 - 00:00:29.970

what is the chief end of humanity war of? Yeah, I thought I'd follow Gary's weed. Uh huh. I knew that Professor Wolf was hitting the mark yesterday with everyone, not just with me.

00:00:30.840 - 00:00:42.250

When I got a note in the middle of his lecture from someone who said, is he talking about the first question of the Westminster Catechism? And then I walked out of here and someone else came up

00:00:42.260 - 00:00:55.830

and asked me exactly the same question. So I warned him that he might have to say something about that first question today. Maybe in the Q and A. What matters to our lives? What should

00:00:55.830 - 00:01:12.130

matter? What story are we? A part of these are the questions that Professor involve put before us yesterday. And he not only asked them to us , he reminded us that these are the questions we

00:01:12.130 - 00:01:30.330

already have. These are the questions that shape our days that shape our life together, that shape our lives and the life of the world. They are the questions of the theologian whether the academic theologian or

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the lay theologian, they are the questions that matter . Most Miroslav Volf both is the Henry B right Professor of Theology at Yale Divinity School and the director of the Center of Faith and Culture at Yale University

00:01:51.140 - 00:02:07.300

. He is the author of multiple books, one which is highly in claimed is called inclusion, exclusion and embrace. And his most recent book, which I highly recommend to you is called for the life

00:02:07.310 - 00:02:27.820

of the world. It is my privilege to welcome again Professor Volf and we look forward to what you have to bring us today. Thank you. Mhm . Mhm. You know, I have to figure

00:02:27.820 - 00:02:51.790

out do I have to put this on? I think that's a backup but ought to be put on right. There we go. I think I can do that. Good morning to you. I'm delighted

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to be with you here and I'm especially thankful for Cynthia. Cynthia, indeed is a great theologian and uh, Austin is lucky to have her and uh , the entire american world theological communities fortunate to have

00:03:06.230 - 00:03:22.670

her. So thank you Cynthia for the work that you do and uh for your introduction to. So let's see. I think I ought to put my time here in front of you, so I know

00:03:22.670 - 00:03:51.470

where I am. Um so the main argument of the lecture yesterday was that theology is not mainly about resources for life, about means to living, but fundamentally and mainly about the ends, the goals of

00:03:51.470 - 00:04:04.770

our lives. No, this mainly uh, in both of these parts of my sentence, I'm not saying that human beings do not live by bread. I'm trying to say that human beings do not live

00:04:04.780 - 00:04:20.870

by bread alone. I'm also trying to say, I think that we don't live primarily by bread, but that we live most fundamentally by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. That's a

00:04:20.870 - 00:04:36.880

kind of very simple um um bible quotation type of way to put the main argument that I have made yesterday. Uh and I think it's very important for us to remind ourselves because the culture as a whole

00:04:36.890 - 00:04:54.970

is resource oriented uh rather than ends oriented. And I think theology indeed, christian faith as well has primarily become resource oriented. So christian faith becomes mere means to achieve certain ends. Those ants are set

00:04:54.970 - 00:05:10.430

for a by visions that are outside of the faith itself. And then faith serves as a kind of resource as an energizing force that help us achieve those ends that are set outside of it. I think

00:05:10.430 - 00:05:20.410

that's a fundamental betrayal or faith that is, I would put it, I think it's going, it's all over the place. Uh and I even hate to say it uh in those terms, which means

00:05:20.410 - 00:05:39.760

that we all are idolaters if you properly parse this out to the end. Right? So that's that's roughly what is motivating and energizing the kinds of the kind of approach that I that I'm taking, christian

00:05:39.770 - 00:05:58.480

faith and christian theologies about ends rather than merely about means or primarily about means. Now, I could have used vocabulary of the great Church Father Augustine to say that christian faith is about what we should love

00:05:58.490 - 00:06:15.740

above all things, or I could have also added , which is his as well. What should we ultimately trust the two things the love our loves that is to say that toward which we stretch ourselves with

00:06:15.740 - 00:06:28.360

our whole being, not individual bits and pieces of loves that we have, but loves love that unites all of our loves into one. What is it that in every love that we love? We actually

00:06:28.360 - 00:06:42.960

love? That's the custom, discretion. That's the fundamental question of theology. The same is true. What in all the trust that we exercise? What do we ultimately trust? What will affirm us in

00:06:42.960 - 00:06:56.350

our world no matter what? And I don't mean a firm in the superficial sense, as we sometimes affirm each other in just about anything that we do , but a firm in the more fundamental sense,

00:06:56.360 - 00:07:15.130

what will carry our existence and pronounce a blessing over it? That's the question of theology. Yesterday, I had a number of conversations with different, different folks and uh I could I'm going truly enriched.

00:07:15.130 - 00:07:30.790

One conversation was about the relationship between God's will and God's promise, which to me was a very, very important I want I it would take a lecture to explain the significance of that, but it was

00:07:30.800 - 00:07:50.810

very abstract and absolutely concrete question that concerns um experience of suffering. The other um conversation that I had was with nancy and Nancy works for Austin Theological Seminary and she mentioned to me that she works in cancer

00:07:50.810 - 00:08:05.030

war, that she occasionally goes to cancer ward or regularly goes to cancer word, I think. And then told me the story about what happens on ash Wednesday and called cancer wards. People start lining up

00:08:05.040 - 00:08:22.170

at three o'clock in the morning and they don't stop until 10, 11 in the evening. So much so that they have to leave ashes so that they can apply ashes for themselves. I've never heard anything

00:08:22.170 - 00:08:37.640

of the sort and I thought I have to check whether that's a phenomenon that is specific to this one cancer ward in Austin, or is it more broadly felt phenomenon? But imagine what happens when you apply

00:08:37.640 - 00:09:01.940

ashes for dust you are and in dust you shall return and people come for that, seek people suffering . People come for that, who knows that, that's what's going on in their bodies whose fear that

00:09:01.950 - 00:09:20.200

is. But it is articulating that fear in the form of a blessing, that's what it means to affirm right, even then you have to say for dust, you are and into dust you will return

00:09:20.410 - 00:09:39.070

. Even that can be said and it can be experienced above all as a blessing. I have to reflect more about this phenomenon. It's very important and it speaks something of the importance of the faith,

00:09:39.080 - 00:09:58.290

importance of christian faith, not as a mere means here. Again, it's as a form of presence and in the form of a blessing that carries that sustains us in the fragilities of our existence. Some

00:09:58.290 - 00:10:13.480

days, some months ago, I was asked to write in a series of articles that were published in Croatia For main creation daily about religion, about world in 2068, which is to say 50 years from

00:10:13.480 - 00:10:30.150

now. And so I wrote, I was asked to write a piece on religion In 2068. Now , I would like to invite you to think about how religion, how christian faith is going to look

00:10:30.840 - 00:10:50.290

50 years from now with absolutely stunning technological developments that stand before us. And you can see that illustrated for yourself, when you think about how fast knowledge is increasing or doubling Uh in the 19th century,

00:10:50.290 - 00:11:07.940

we're told that knowledge, the entire world's knowledge was doubling once a century. It took a century for knowledge to double. Um it started regularly, speed started accelerating So that some of the calculations suggested by

00:11:07.940 - 00:11:31.500

year 2020, Knowledge will be doubling every 13 hours and acceleration continues. I'm not sure exactly what that means, but that's roughly what is a shared opinion . Um, now, if that's the case,

00:11:33.340 - 00:11:46.880

We cannot even imagine how the world is going to look in 50 years in terms of technological advances. And then the question, because what's going to be role of christian faith of religion in the world like

00:11:46.880 - 00:12:09.240

this? Now, I can assure you if you think of religion of christian faith primarily as a form of knowledge, it's gonna be very soon obsolete knowledge , if you think of christian made faith primarily as

00:12:09.240 - 00:12:24.270

an instrument as a technique and that's what we talked earlier about For achieving certain one and a kind of magic that people used when they couldn't solve their puzzles with other means, technological means that they used religion

00:12:24.280 - 00:12:41.810

. If you think of religion in those terms, it's going to be obsolete pretty soon. But I think there's no reason to think of christian faith in those terms. I don't think christian faith has been

00:12:41.810 - 00:13:03.890

thought in those terms, certainly not by jesus. I think fundamentally christian faith is about goals and ends of our lives and these no amount of scholarly development can inform us about. They're also about, it's

00:13:03.890 - 00:13:26.380

also about the form of presence, about that, which we can ultimately rely on and that, which we can trust in life and in death. Again , that's why I'm very happy theologian because I think

00:13:26.380 - 00:13:45.540

I'm very happy christian also because I think we if we attend to this pearl that we have, it opens up the possibilities of our true humanity. I did end up last lecture on talking about the story

00:13:45.550 - 00:14:00.810

, building on Carl Gustav jung's idea on what myth do we live in much story? Do we live ? What story do we situate our lives? As Scindia has indicated in her introductory remarks, we all

00:14:00.810 - 00:14:16.360

have story, we just don't, we just are not often aware of what that story is and do not articulate it to ourselves. And the question is to live into story, that's really worth having to

00:14:16.370 - 00:14:31.650

be in a story that is compelling and would carry us again in life and death. What is the story story in some ways can be set in very simple terms, christian story is the one where the

00:14:31.650 - 00:14:46.750

begins, you can save it creation that goes through fall and redemption, and that ends in consummation. Well, that's the story, kind of as we immediately experience it, right, what we see,

00:14:46.760 - 00:15:00.610

but that's not the whole story. In fact, that's not the most important part of the story. The most important part of the story is that behind that story, that ahead of that story, that

00:15:00.610 - 00:15:26.190

below that story, that above that story is the story of God's engagement with us before we are God is and God who is, As it says in 1st epistle to John who is love, that's the

00:15:26.190 - 00:15:46.400

beginning, and that's the end of that story, God creates God redeems and God brings creation to consummation and our lives a little speck of tiniest dust are situated within that story, as those who are beloved

00:15:46.410 - 00:16:12.690

by God. Now exemplar, we need to not just the story. We also need exemplar. We need to see how that story can be concretely lived in ordinary circumstances of life. I loved the him

00:16:12.690 - 00:16:26.770

that we sang about Saints, right, this my whole lecture is right there. Uh exit gee that him then you got you got the whole lecture, but I think the primary for christian faith, the

00:16:26.770 - 00:16:45.660

primary exemplar is jesus christ. Uh I'm convinced that jesus christ is the key to our humanity, is the word that became flesh and in becoming flesh, manifest to us, what it means to be human

00:16:47.540 - 00:17:06.550

, manifest, the kind of life into which we seek or ought to seek to grow now. It would be, I think a mistake though, to simply think of mainly even think of jesus as an

00:17:06.560 - 00:17:29.080

exemplar, jesus is much more than that. And I think in the biblical traditions, gospel traditions as well as in the apostle paul, you see expressed in varieties of ways. One way that gets to

00:17:29.080 - 00:17:47.000

be expressed is that jesus, life of Jesus himself is a life that is uh kind of lived, are shaped by two fundamental relationships. One is a relationship to God, the father, but the other

00:17:47.000 - 00:18:04.520

one, which we sometimes forget is the relationship to the holy Spirit. When jesus was baptized, the spirit came upon him and the entire ministry was the ministry in the spirit that continues also in the life

00:18:04.520 - 00:18:25.850

of the church, and that's why the same spirit who fell on Jesus falls on the disciples, so that the life of christ cannot be replicated strictly speaking or repeated, but it can be lived that life

00:18:26.740 - 00:18:48.690

under different circumstances and therefore also partly in a different way. Christian faith isn't about trying to achieve statue of sinless nous with jesus exhibited because otherwise in that case it will be an impossible religion, impossible law

00:18:48.700 - 00:19:03.620

, it would be a law that is utterly impossible for us to achieve. It is invitation to participate in his life, I think Apostle paul summarizes it really well when he says, but I no longer

00:19:03.620 - 00:19:26.270

believe christ lives within me. This is the heart of the christian relationship to christ not simply as exemplar but there's a presence that lives which then can become also an exemplar. Mhm. So we've got story

00:19:27.140 - 00:19:45.360

, we've got an exemplar. Yeah but we have a problem, I think we have a problem with that exemplar. I don't know how it is in your life or how it is in the circumstances in

00:19:45.360 - 00:20:08.560

which you live or minister. But when I travel and speak or when I teach my students at Yale , I have come to believe that jesus christ has become a moral stranger in today's culture, a moral

00:20:10.120 - 00:20:30.570

stranger. It used to be the case Maybe in 60s 70's ah that you could say church is bad . No church, no, but christ, I want to embrace christ christ. Yes. In fact

00:20:30.570 - 00:20:49.550

there is a book written by walter KASPER church know christ. Yes. Yeah, but I don't think that's the case anymore. I think that jesus christ himself has become a major obstacle the christian faith.

00:20:51.840 - 00:21:11.010

Unless you don't domesticate, jesus christ imagine this everything that matters to us a great deal just about everything did not matter to him at all. Uh He for instance, what did he do when he got

00:21:11.010 - 00:21:22.060

up in the morning? What I do is I go to the bathroom to take a look in the mirror, I put some clothes, take a shower , put some clothes on, make sure that everything

00:21:22.060 - 00:21:37.480

kind of fits that. I'm kind of presentable to the world. Mhm. We have zero information about how jesus looked. We have zero information how he dressed. Yeah. Yes, we spent quite a

00:21:37.480 - 00:21:55.610

bit of time and energy some of us more, sometimes less depending on our vanity in front of the mirror. He had no possessions, nowhere to lay . Imagine how much time we spend in order to

00:21:55.610 - 00:22:22.440

acquire possessions. Family relationship was kind of broken nation . Lot of our energies organized too. Make America something some of us to make it great. Again , some others of us to make it more inclusive

00:22:22.440 - 00:22:33.270

. Again, you can name various things that we're concerned about about the nation. And then of course , comes sex. So far, we can tell if you never had sex. Now we have a

00:22:33.270 - 00:22:45.660

lot of bad sex that all the all the information tells us in contemporary, a lot of bad sex but try to take it away from us as achieved goal of our lives. And you'll see what happens

00:22:47.640 - 00:23:04.370

. It seems like that dominates the entirety of our good deal of our imagination. We know nothing but his sex life. And from all we can tell he never had sex. And then of course,

00:23:04.370 - 00:23:33.430

I haven't even mentioned the worst thing. What kind of hero gets him such crucified. We like winners . So we have at the center of our faith , a person with whom we are having a hard

00:23:33.430 - 00:23:52.850

time identifying as I was thinking about this. I was I thought, okay, so imagine that actually lives can be swamped and I can travel back in time. Would I take the deal? My life

00:23:52.740 - 00:24:18.900

becomes his and his mind, would you when I was teaching to teach a class at you called christ and being human and we go through some of these things and I sense also hesitation, hesitation in myself

00:24:18.900 - 00:24:33.280

as well as I illustrated with his swapping idea. But it's felt mostly when it comes to our Children , do we want to raise them to be like christ. And if I asked that question to most

00:24:33.280 - 00:24:51.080

people say no. Yeah. Now, of course , those of your ministers here will tell me well , you got to do some translating, you know , he was unique in many ways. Uh,

00:24:51.090 - 00:25:06.660

and I agree with you, I don't I don't doubt that for a moment that we need to do translating. But what are the goods that are being expressed in these strange ways in which he acted?

00:25:07.640 - 00:25:25.880

What do they mean for us or they just peculiarities ? A weirdness is of this one human who we think is exemplary, but we can't find anything to emulate. Almost. I'm exaggerating, obviously to make

00:25:25.880 - 00:25:56.340

a point. And one of the reasons why I am exaggerating is to say that when it comes to the basic orientation of our lives, we have a fundamental and a difficult decision to make. And this

00:25:56.340 - 00:26:17.800

is where the topic of my today's stock comes in about lives of theologians. What kind of life do you need to live to be a proper theologian? That's my question, what kind of life do you

00:26:17.800 - 00:26:38.060

need to live in order to think to think rightly about your faith, christian faith? I'm talking about academic theologians and I'm taking talking about lay theologians, which we all christians are now obviously one way to

00:26:38.060 - 00:26:55.670

describe theology and that's how I describe theology at the beginning of lecture yesterday, is to say that christian that theology, which is to say set of convictions that we have about christian christian faith, christian life

00:26:56.240 - 00:27:15.160

, that theology is shapes and accompanies our life as well. Live it right? It's not separate from life, it's embedded, but it's a kind of a critical accompaniment. I talked about us discerning right

00:27:15.540 - 00:27:30.210

theologians, haven't us to discern theologians having a task to articulate, articulate it to ourselves, also in compelling ways, and then to commend it, commanded to ourselves to commend it to others. This discernment

00:27:30.210 - 00:27:45.670

articulation and commendation. That's a process that goes within us, applies to us as well as applies to others, happens at the level of academic theology happens and ought to happen at the level of ordinary life

00:27:45.840 - 00:28:00.460

as we live our christian life. But notice how I portrayed it right now. It's life is being lived and theologies, there's kind of a critical intervention into that life that kind of accompanies the life and

00:28:00.460 - 00:28:12.130

guides it and leads. Now. That's one important way to think about theology. Theology does that, and that's why it's important. But I want to invite you to flip this around and to answer the

00:28:12.130 - 00:28:33.400

question, what kind of life do you need to lead for the discernment, articulation and commendation process. That is theological work for it to be able to happen in the proper responsible. Why? So you

00:28:33.400 - 00:28:51.640

might say, well that's a puzzling kind of question . Why would anybody want to ask questions of this sort? So, but think of it this way , you remember in the mhm in jesus life at

00:28:51.640 - 00:29:06.580

one point as people are kind of scandalized about him and by the way, straight morals, jesus was not moral stranger just to us. He was equally immoral stranger to his contemporaries and to the uh early

00:29:06.580 - 00:29:18.050

centuries of the of the christian church, no less strange than he is to us, which is a source of certain certain sort of sort of sort of hope. People were scandalized at him and then he

00:29:18.050 - 00:29:37.400

said, he quoted actually from zika, they have eyes to see, but they don't see, they have ears to hear, but they do not here . Now when he says they have eyes to see

00:29:37.400 - 00:29:55.830

and ears to hear, basically what he's saying, the organs of perception, eyes, they function perfectly fine years. They hear every single word I say , but yet they don't hear, they see everything

00:29:55.840 - 00:30:17.460

, but yet they don't see. Now. My question to you is what does it take to see in addition to having properly functioning eyes, properly functioning ears. And my proposition is that what is necessary

00:30:18.140 - 00:30:41.940

is kind of the entire orientation of life that will let you perceive a pearl of great price in what other people might see as just some little shiny stone and that that's necessary, not just in recognizing it

00:30:41.950 - 00:31:03.790

as such, but in everyday life, proceeding to discern how christian life should be lived. So let me take this too steps. One step is becoming a christian, recognizing something as a pearl of great

00:31:03.800 - 00:31:21.260

price. And then the second step is well continuing to articulate how that Pearl of Great Price might need to look like in particular circumstances, right? That's the task of theology. But for that, I

00:31:21.260 - 00:31:41.460

think we need to have a fundamental commitment of orientation toward that which we consider to be Pearl of great price. Now, let's think about coming to faith . Let's think about coming to recognize that this strange

00:31:41.840 - 00:32:00.760

that this moral stranger is in fact the Lord of Life is in fact the paradigmatic human. How do I come to and see that? How do I recognize this? And there's a lot of popular christian

00:32:00.770 - 00:32:22.470

theology operates on the assumption that if you have a proper apologetic, if you can adduce proper reasons, then we can provide a kind of intellectual foundation on which the commitment of faith can take place on which

00:32:22.470 - 00:32:43.330

we can show that Jesus ought to be follow. I don't want to disparage apologetics, but I think no matter what reasons we give, we will never have sufficient reasons because they concern the goal of our

00:32:43.330 - 00:33:02.560

lives and goals are not set by reasons simply, they are set by an act of will. Let me read to you what Marx Veber great sociologist says about just that question And he's giving him one example

00:33:04.740 - 00:33:27.160

of the teaching of Jesus. It doesn't take jesus as a whole, but of the teaching of jesus that seem utterly strange to many people and example that he gives is resist no evil. He says,

00:33:28.740 - 00:33:50.270

Jesus says, resist no evil. And yet it is clear in the ordinary maintain perspective that this is an ethic ethic ethic of not resisting evil of undignified conduct. one has to choose between the religious dignity

00:33:50.740 - 00:34:16.060

which this ethic confers and the dignity of manly conduct , which preaches something quite different, resist evil lest you be core responsible for an overpowering evil. And then then max labor ads according to our ultimate standpoint

00:34:16.440 - 00:34:34.860

, The one is the devil And the other one is the God and the individual has to decide which is God for him and which is the devil. And so it goes through all orders of life,

00:34:37.040 - 00:34:57.910

whose God and whose devil for you. Our decision has to be May. Now in Apostle Paul's writings . You see that very clearly saying first Corinthians first Corinthians two, where he talks about the message of

00:34:57.910 - 00:35:22.030

the crucified christ, um being wisdom and power, but from the perspective of the world, they look like utter weakness and foolishness. Or he may speak about in Philippians, he would speak about folks who

00:35:22.040 - 00:35:40.650

have made belly to be their God and there therefore enemies of the Cross. That seems to be perfectly reasonable thing. If you consider the most important thing in your life to be a sophisticated cuisine so that

00:35:40.650 - 00:35:59.510

you can be kind of the only one that tastes the best wines and the best uh best foods. Uh a kind of message of the cross which invites you if need be to sacrifice your entire life would

00:35:59.510 - 00:36:15.320

be complete foolishness to you. You'd never do that . If you think that ultimately you must trust knowledge , then the cross will end up also a foolishness . If you think that ultimately you must have power

00:36:15.320 - 00:36:31.710

in order to secure your existence. Because only then you can stand, then this would look like foolishness to you. What makes you choose one over the other. Mhm. Now, I don't want to

00:36:31.710 - 00:36:45.740

go into psychology of conversion here, we can talk about my point that I wish to make here is a more limited one is to say you have to have a certain orientation, however you come to it

00:36:45.740 - 00:37:05.910

orientation of life to embrace them. Now, I think the same is true when you take your everyday life experiences and living your ever their life as a christian. Unless we have an orientation toward the kind

00:37:05.910 - 00:37:23.720

of life exhibited in christ, we won't be able to articulate what it means to live alive as christ did for ourselves, right? So we need this accompaniment, so to speak, of. Our orientation

00:37:23.730 - 00:37:43.140

is a condition of possibility of discerning what's right and what's wrong in every situation. You see then, why many theologians through the centuries have thought that saints are our best theologians. Now you can debate about

00:37:43.140 - 00:37:58.870

who's sent and what does it mean to be a saint. But the basic idea behind it is that it takes this orientation of life to be able to discern and articulate what is to be thought and what

00:37:58.870 - 00:38:16.780

is to be, how how one is to act in concrete situations. Apostle Paul Speaks in Romans 12 one about not being conformed to the schema of the world, right? Basically, you can put in

00:38:16.780 - 00:38:37.530

his terms, you can put christian life in this way. Christian life is taking a new schema of life and making it your own and then continuing to live according to that schema and the tasks and of

00:38:37.530 - 00:38:53.410

christian discernment is to be able to know what your new schema demands of you to do in every situation in which you find yourself obviously you have to want to live according to schema in order to get To

00:38:53.410 - 00:39:10.080

the wisdom and to the knowledge of how one or 2 live. And I think these two things that I have mentioned, one is becoming a Christian and the other one is living as a Christian, Discerning

00:39:10.080 - 00:39:27.690

as a Christian. They are ultimately United into one . And the reason for that is is that you cannot have a schema of life, that you cannot have a goal for life without living into that goal

00:39:29.320 - 00:39:40.220

, you can put a kind of abstract goal, but life is not abstract, right? Life is not, I have a goal. Now, having a goal means moving toward that goal. If you

00:39:40.220 - 00:39:55.090

aren't moving toward the goal that you say is the goal, you don't have a goal, right? It's somewhere they're sitting in your head, but it's not your goal, it's a goal. So the

00:39:55.100 - 00:40:14.770

directionality of our lives in time requires that we constantly keep in mind this schema and adjust our steps so that we can be actually acting according to that schema , which is to say in order to be a

00:40:14.770 - 00:40:30.550

theologian, in order to be able to discern articulate and commend, you have to have this prior commitment , fundamental life commitment to orientation, not holiness, in the strict sense of the term. You don't

00:40:30.550 - 00:40:47.480

have to, nobody of us does fully live up to the goal that we have, but one has to be oriented. That would be argument that I want to right, and that means attending both to

00:40:47.480 - 00:41:05.140

our interior lives and to the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Now. For one you can say kind of schema is imposed upon us. We have a schema because we choose a schema, but on

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the other hand, you can also say that we participate in the worldly schema. It comes to us because we are parts of the community, we are part of national community. Were part of economic community

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, were part of other communities. They all have their own schemas according to which they operate. And we are colonised by the scheme or we are taken up into service of the schema by participating in the

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life in which we, which we live, which means kind of critical distance that we need to have in order to continue discerning rightly and therefore living rightly . And there's a kind of dialectic between orientation of

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life and articulation of that life. That's a job of uh any questions and the great ones who have preceded us our great example, ear's just of that and sometimes their lives and our lives are smarter than

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our words and sometimes our words are smarter than our lives. Both can be the case. And the job of us in our daily life is to figure out how do we live into that pearl for which

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it is worth selling everything that we have. Thank