Inquiries for a healing world

How is it possible to achieve a unity that doesn't erase difference? Does unmitigated differentiation without unity call out to tyranny? Does an imposed unity that doesn't allow for the full expression of the identity of constituents deprive us of the fullest expression of the good? Can a properly ordered unity that preserves differentiation even be imposed? Or must the hearts of its members be transformed to make such a unity possible? Which practices of binding towards the good are justified? And which actually deprive us of the ultimate good?

Is absolute transcendence somehow at odds with the absolutely immanent? How is that which pulls us beyond all things able to meet us where we are? Does trying to put transcendence at odds with immanence deprive us of both?

When esoteric spiritualism focused on transcendence reaches only a select few, is that a limitation of its practitioners, of our appetite for consumption and novelty, or of both?

Can popular spiritualism that appeals to our appetite for consumption and novelty actually lead to transcendence? If it can, is that form of religious practice where we are intended to stay?

Are these questions a matter of church politics? Or must our minds and hearts be transformed to make an expedient practical answer even possible?

Does uniting ourselves with the ultimate transcendent cause us to abandon ourselves and thus lose ourselves? Or is it that abandoning ourselves in this way is the only way that we can truly find ourselves?

Is Gnosticism ultimate escapism?

How do endured experiences of serious embodied error lead to overcorrection? How can we recover from Consumerism without overcorrecting?

What is the role of eros in the new world? Is eros somehow at odds with agape? Does trying to put agape at odds with eros deprive us of both? Can agape guide, purify, and elevate eros beyond its current form of dominant cultural practice? Is it possible to recover an eros that leads us in ecstasy towards the Divine, rather than an eros that intoxicates and isolates us? If so, how?

Is eros-intoxicated American Consumerism a form of neo-paganism?

How can we not confuse the infinite and the indefinite in our pursuit of love?

Email me if you have answers to any of these questions: jacob@thecaminoapp.com.