First line work kind of lends itself to the campus, and the cloister, and the study.
Second line work is for the traffic of everyday life.
Third line work is teaching.
11.22.2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
"The Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7)
The Fourth Way is a school of Christianity. Of reality. It is the spiritual warfare and development of being of a Christian eschatologically with Christ in Heaven while yet in the midst of the fallen creation until the return of the King.
The pure spring for the ideas, practices, and goals of the Fourth Way are Ouspensky's books: Fourth Way, Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution, and In Search of the Miraculous. Thomas Boston's Human Nature in its Fourfold State comes closest, as an on-the-mark work of biblical doctrine, to giving direct insight into Work teaching from the Christian foundation of it. Berkhof's Manual of Christian Doctrine and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress as well. The Homeric epics embody, foundationally, the teaching in higher visual language. The Word of God, pure and whole (AV 1611, i.e. the King James Version) is obviously necessary for regeneration - which is, of course, the main thing - and the necessary armor of God for the spiritual battlefield. Without regeneration you won't value or understand Work teaching (or Calvinist, Reformed doctrine for that matter). The Work language and Christian language can't be mixed, thus it is easy to mock Work language from a shallow Christian point-of-view. The two languages are intentionally not meant to be mixed. This requires discipline and understanding. The Work is not for everybody, but it's available to anybody. Shallow Christian environments are shallow because of pervasive man-fearing. Fear God alone, and not man, it is the beginning of wisdom.
The pure spring for the ideas, practices, and goals of the Fourth Way are Ouspensky's books: Fourth Way, Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution, and In Search of the Miraculous. Thomas Boston's Human Nature in its Fourfold State comes closest, as an on-the-mark work of biblical doctrine, to giving direct insight into Work teaching from the Christian foundation of it. Berkhof's Manual of Christian Doctrine and Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress as well. The Homeric epics embody, foundationally, the teaching in higher visual language. The Word of God, pure and whole (AV 1611, i.e. the King James Version) is obviously necessary for regeneration - which is, of course, the main thing - and the necessary armor of God for the spiritual battlefield. Without regeneration you won't value or understand Work teaching (or Calvinist, Reformed doctrine for that matter). The Work language and Christian language can't be mixed, thus it is easy to mock Work language from a shallow Christian point-of-view. The two languages are intentionally not meant to be mixed. This requires discipline and understanding. The Work is not for everybody, but it's available to anybody. Shallow Christian environments are shallow because of pervasive man-fearing. Fear God alone, and not man, it is the beginning of wisdom.
CHIEF FEATURE
Dismissive (Contemptuous, Arrogant, Insolent)
Useful Work Lists
Influences
Holy Bible, AV1611
Iliad & Odyssey - Homer
On War - Carl von Clausewitz
Wealth of Nations - Adam Smith
Fourth Way - Ouspensky
HPW - Thucydides
Lives - Plutarch
Athletics
Music
Iliad & Odyssey - Homer
On War - Carl von Clausewitz
Wealth of Nations - Adam Smith
Fourth Way - Ouspensky
HPW - Thucydides
Lives - Plutarch
Athletics
Music
Followers
Self-Remembering
Non-Identifying
Become a Fused, Conscious Center-of-Gravity
Non-Identifying
Become a Fused, Conscious Center-of-Gravity
2 comments:
Couple of notes:
1. The second line of effort became confused to mean work with 'others in the Work' because the initial teaching emerged, of necessity, from groups; but the Work is not about groups, it's about the traffic of everyday life. Thus second line of effort is done in the traffic of everyday life.
2. Third line of effort being teaching also includes being a good and helpful and responsive student, which a vertical line of teaching (from C Influence on down) *needs.*
Your first point (1) highlights the contentious bit. The Work sources clearly state 'work with others in the work'. I'm no fan of groups but admit there is something to consider here.
Work in the traffic of life could be classed as 1st Line. It is you, me, myself working on oneself in the bustle of events. Work with others in the work can be something other than work on oneself yet possibly different to work in the traffic of life. Work with others may offer one significant difference: accumulation of conscious energy and influence. I haven't thought about this subject for a very long time but I would argue there is a difference between 'others in the work' and 'traffic of life' - the latter group have no idea you are working and no idea they are sleeping, possibly no idea you are even there, while the former know regardless of what they can actually do, they do know. That makes a difference.
All that said, working in the traffic of life with the presence of the Spirit tends to draw a response from the traffic that is so 'shockingly' apposite - and a level of shock that equals and surpasses the shock others in the work may be able to give.
Some thoughts ... not in favour of groups but looking at the language and considering what the work wants rather than what I me myself wish ....
Post a Comment