WOENSDAG 11 MEI 2005
09:25
“Now we know that animals get bored, and that they try to enrich their environment so that they don’t feel it.” ~ uit ’n program op Animal Planet
15:38
“Brand” het vanmiddag opgedaag by sy Woensdagklas, soos hy doen elke week. Hy’t vandag sy swart broek aangehad – want hy het gedink dit gaan reën, en ’n nat kol op sy agterent sou nie so prominent vertoon op die swart materiaal nie, en ’n grys T-hemp – want dit het nie knope nie, wat dit die maklikste item gemaak het waarmee hy sy bolyf kon bedek.
18:35
[Rick Warren is ’n “Evangeliese Christen” met konserwatiewe politieke en sosiale waardes. Ek het daai sosio-kulturele groep meer as twintig jaar gelede al verlaat. Maar beteken dit dat iemand soos hy nooit enige iets kan sê wat enige waarde kan hê vir ’n persoon met ignostiese* oortuigings en progressiewe politieke en sosiale waardes nie? Dit sal redelik kortsigtig wees, dan nie?
Soos duidelik blyk uit die volgende notas, haal die religieuse verwysings uit, en genoeg bly oor van heelwat stellings wat hy maak in sy boek, The Purpose Driven Church, om handige advies daaruit te kry.]
Rick Warren skryf in The Purpose Driven Church dat mense nie moet vra wat hulle kan doen om hulle kerke te laat groei nie, maar eerder watse struikelblokke groei inhibeer. ’n Goeie punt vir my eie lewe ook, veral vir doelwitte wat jare gelede al gestel is.
Ook: “For the past twenty years, I have been a student of […]. In my travels as […] I have visited hundreds of […] around the world. In each instance I made notes on why some […] and why others […]. I’ve talked to thousands of […] and interviewed hundreds of […] about what they’ve observed […]. Years ago I wrote to the one hundred largest […] and spent a year researching […]. I’ve read nearly every book in print on […].”
[Of of hy nou regtig met duisende mense gesels het oor X, Y of Z of nie, gee bogenoemde mens ’n idee van hoe navorsing behoort gedoen te word oor enige onderwerp rakende die menslike kondisie.
Dit gee ook bietjie insig in hoekom mense my soms met minagting hanteer as ek met hulle verskil oor godsdiens. Hulle dink dalk aan ’n boek soos Rick Warren s’n wat hulle gelees het, of besig is om te lees, en dan kyk hulle na my en dink: Wie de hel dink jy is jy? Op grond van wat dink jy jy weet beter as ek?]
“Everything seems new if you are ignorant of history.”
“I started [an institution] in 1980, and spend the next fifteen years testing, applying and refining the principles, processes and practices in this book. Like a research and development center, we’ve experimented with all kinds of approaches […]. [The institution] has served as a laboratory for everything written in this book […]. I’ve waited twenty years to write this book because I did not want to write it prematurely. Instead, I’ve let the concepts percolate and develop and mature. Nothing in this book is theory. […] What is needed are answers to real problems that have been proven effective in actual […] settings.”
“If I didn’t believe pastors have the best chance of making a difference in our world, I’d be doing something else; I have no intention of wasting my life. […] The key is to never stop learning.”
“My bookshelves contain more than a dozen books written by people I’ve trained who have put my ideas in print before I did. That doesn’t matter to me. We’re all on the same team.”
“‘Hasn’t enough been written yet?’ you may ask. ‘Why another book?’ What I hope to offer in this book is an insider’s perspective.”
“You’ve heard that it is ‘wise to learn from experience.’ But it is wiser yet to learn from the experience of others. It is less painful, too! Life is too short to learn everything by personal experience. You can save yourself a lot of time and energy by gleaming from others the lessons they’ve learned the hard way. That’s the purpose of books like this one.”
“I’ve learned that most can’t hear until they’ve first been heard.”
[Alle aanhalings uit The Purpose Driven Church, deur Rick Warren (1995)]
* [“Ignosticism or igtheism is the idea that every theological position assumes too much about the concept of God and other theological concepts. Some philosophers have seen ignosticism as a variation of agnosticism or atheism, whereas others have considered it to be distinct.” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignosticism]
[Scott Adams het die volgende eers geskryf in 2014, maar dit sluit aan by die idee dat dit redelik kinderagtig is om te weier om ’n sekere boek te lees omdat jy nie jouself ag as deel van die skrywer se groep nie: “In recent years I’ve come to see religion as a valid user interface to reality. The so-called ‘truth’ of the universe is irrelevant because our tiny brains aren’t equipped to understand it anyway.”]
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