Reflection from Sept. 2010
Ongoing work with Logopraxis brings us to see that we have, in general, two very different coexisting states of doctrine. The first is doctrine in our memory: our knowledge about spiritual realities. This doctrinal state includes a whole range of beliefs we readily subscribe to and feel aligned with. These beliefs include not only our own understanding of what the Heavenly Doctrines teach, but also what others say they teach. The second state of doctrine is the more unconscious doctrine we actually live from.
When we first begin to seriously walk a path of inner reflection and self-examination, the distinction between these two forms of doctrine is often quite blurred. We tend to think what we profess with our lips is what we believe. Through Logopraxis the truths from the Word confront what we say we believe with our actual responses to life. For example, we might say we believe implicitly in the Lord’s providence, but when we reflect on our lives through the tasks we create from the Text, we see that we actually live from a raft of worries and anxieties which manifest as the effort to control and manage the people, circumstances and situations of our lives.
If we are willing to see how we actually experience life, without filtering it through who we think we are or what we believe our life should be, we will soon discover the material for our inner work.
Logopraxis can help us come to see more clearly the distinction between the doctrine of our lips and the doctrine of our actual life. Once we see this distinction, we can be shown by the Word what is required of us.
This isn’t to say that the beliefs we profess with our lips are not truths. They may well be, but knowing truths and living from them are two very different states of life. The reflective question for us in Logopraxis work is not, What is our doctrine? The question is, What is our life? Seeing our life more clearly opens up opportunities for truths from the Word to work in an entirely new way: we begin to acquire the doctrine unique to our life.
It is this unique perspective (won only by the fresh view of our inner responses provided through the lens of our chosen Text) we share in our Life Group. Sharing it, we are building and promoting a more perfect collective life: a community that approaches ever so slightly a living experience that Heaven’s perfection is founded in diversity.
