[Dialogue] Bending History

[mandmshaw at comcast.net]

I thought some of you who aren't friends on Facebook with Mark Davies, OKCU, might enjoy this conversation I copied from Facebook: 



Mark Davies : We may indeed be in need of a revolution, but as a friend of mine Jim Wheeler puts it, "not as the periodic outbreak of violent overthrow of an existing order, rather as the ongoing "movement" evolving the civilizing process and human self-understanding" or as Joe Mathews expressed it - "bending history." 


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Ron Weathers 

I'm not sure but what we are seeing both the desire to violently "overthrow the existing order" as well as the "ongoing 'movement' evolving the civilizing process and human self-understanding". I pray the latter. 



Blake Huggins 

Alright, if we accept this thesis (I believe I do on my best days) then what is the difference, if any between revolution and reformation? And, more importantly, at what point does the latter simply become another inspiring but perhaps vacuous euphemism for tacit deference to the current state of things? I find myself wrestling with that tension... See More. I would want to retain a sense of fervent, ongoing attempts at "bending history," yet I wonder if in the process I am only being further inculcated into the collective psychosis you mention below to the point that resistance becomes maintenance. Of course the lines are not clearly drawn, maybe that means we have to chose our battles wisely, I don't know. But it strikes me that there is tension here -- and it's one that keeps me up some nights! 



Mark Davies 

I think what keeps us up is that bending history requires constantly bending ourselves, and it is truly a tension as you suggest. But if one finds a community that challenges oneself towards self-transformation in the process of bending history it can be a rich experience. Hard to find or create such communities though in a society experiencing collective psychosis because such communities don't appear normal to the rest of the collectively psychotic society - haha. 



Blake Huggins 

Well, that should be enough for at least a few nights of good sleep! 

Seriously though, I think that is an important point. The importance of communities themselves notwithstanding, the bending of an individual seems impossible in isolation or apart from some sort of communal experience. 



Ricky Lee Huggins 

Let's all read Bonhoeffer's Life Together and Bruggemann's Hope Within History again. And be history breakers... 


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