Technique is for orderly progression toward a pre-determined goal.
Sensitivity assesses the situation of the moment and makes a decision based on ultimate purposes.
Technique is a disregarder of persons.
Sensitivity allows for individual differences.
Technique demands submission of one's personhood.
Sensitivity is a response to personhood.
Technique is a means of living temporally.
Sensitivity is the means by which one lives in eternity--the a-temporal moment.
Technique is law.
Sensitivity is life.
Technique says, "My will be done."
Sensitivity moves in response to the will of God.
Technique is a scheme.
Sensitivity is a response.
Technique relegates responsibility to the scheme: It fails or succeeds.
Sensitivity is responsibility--response-ability. The only "failure" is my failure to respond.
Technique has a timetable.
Sensitivity has all the time in the world, for sensitivity is only possible in the now.
Technique orders the chaos into a meaningful system.
Sensitivity finds the meaning in the chaos.
Sometimes, sensitivity is knowing when to use which technique.
(Composed in 1974)
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Motivation
I want to blog today--it's the first day of the new year, after all--but I find that I can't get motivated!
I make the best attempt I can to approach this topic philosophically, but end up disgusted. I'm reminded of the assignment in my sophomore composition class when I wanted to do my research paper on "Writer's Block." My teacher, mercifully, wouldn't allow it. I did it on "Copyright in the Church", instead. But that's another story.
Today, I turn off the computer and sweep the kitchen floor and vacuum the carpet. I think about motivation while I work. What motivates me to sweep and vacuum? It needs doing. There is enough material, tracked in from outside or dropped from snacks, that I can see it everywhere. I like to see clean floors. I can feel it crunch underfoot. I don't like crunchies underfoot. That's the motivation.
Why am I motivated to blog today, then?
I haven't blogged for three weeks.
I hear a little voice way inside say, "So what?"
So that's not it.
I go practice the violin for a while. I like the feel of the strings, and I want to learn the assigned piece for an upcoming lesson. I'm learning to like the piece itself. I find it running through my head, and I enjoy making the sounds in my mind appear in the outer world of sensation. I'm beyond motivation once I get started--it is more like eating potato chips. Can't eat just one.
But here I am. I've checked my email. Nothing new, but I can answer a day-old one. And so I do. I may get a response to my response and that motivates me.
And now it is is 3:30 pm on a gorgeous day, and I need to get outside and enjoy the new snow before it gets dark. It will soon be sunset, and I will lose the day. Scarcity is motivating.
The snow is delightful and very, very cold. I take a sled down past the silo to where my husband has cut up fallen trees. I load the wood on and haul it up to the barn to the drying stack. I do want to be helpful, but my real motivation is to get exercise.
My fingers are freezing so I come inside and from the upstairs window, take a picture of my sister-in-law's farm just before the day finally fades.
And now I've written my blog.
I make the best attempt I can to approach this topic philosophically, but end up disgusted. I'm reminded of the assignment in my sophomore composition class when I wanted to do my research paper on "Writer's Block." My teacher, mercifully, wouldn't allow it. I did it on "Copyright in the Church", instead. But that's another story.
Today, I turn off the computer and sweep the kitchen floor and vacuum the carpet. I think about motivation while I work. What motivates me to sweep and vacuum? It needs doing. There is enough material, tracked in from outside or dropped from snacks, that I can see it everywhere. I like to see clean floors. I can feel it crunch underfoot. I don't like crunchies underfoot. That's the motivation.
Why am I motivated to blog today, then?
I haven't blogged for three weeks.
I hear a little voice way inside say, "So what?"
So that's not it.
I go practice the violin for a while. I like the feel of the strings, and I want to learn the assigned piece for an upcoming lesson. I'm learning to like the piece itself. I find it running through my head, and I enjoy making the sounds in my mind appear in the outer world of sensation. I'm beyond motivation once I get started--it is more like eating potato chips. Can't eat just one.
But here I am. I've checked my email. Nothing new, but I can answer a day-old one. And so I do. I may get a response to my response and that motivates me.
And now it is is 3:30 pm on a gorgeous day, and I need to get outside and enjoy the new snow before it gets dark. It will soon be sunset, and I will lose the day. Scarcity is motivating.
The snow is delightful and very, very cold. I take a sled down past the silo to where my husband has cut up fallen trees. I load the wood on and haul it up to the barn to the drying stack. I do want to be helpful, but my real motivation is to get exercise.
My fingers are freezing so I come inside and from the upstairs window, take a picture of my sister-in-law's farm just before the day finally fades.
And now I've written my blog.
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