Begins with Wisdom
Geographically I am a New Zealander living at the South of the Pacific. Expanding on that I live in Aotearoa, New Zealand. My position is that of an indigenous Maori woman who is shaped by my genealogical, political and spiritual set of experiences. Through my parents I belong to two main tribal groups and have close links to my English ancestry. My father is of the Te Aupouri and Te Rarawa tribes and it is through him that my sense of place and spirituality became so firmly grounded, He nurtured me with myths, legends and wisdom, developing in me a spiritual relationship to the land, our tribal mountain and its river.
My mother on the other hand, strongly influenced by her white Anglican heritage provided nourishment from the Bible developing in me a love for God and the Holy Scriptures. Annie believed the Bible was a fundamental pathway to not only knowing God but a way of gaining wisdom, education, and affluence in an environment surrounded by cow paddocks, bushland and poverty.
Today the New Zealand society, like many others, has become an environment unlike yesterdays. It is a place shaped by technology in which God is not apparently absent but is functionally no longer necessary. With technology paving the future there appears no recognised higher power other than the human-made system that people in charge now worship. Moreover. there is no imitation of God, no vsion of something greater to strive of.
According to some Biblical wisdom scholars the creation of the Wisdom figure was a response to the events of the sixth century exile; the destruction of the Jerusalem temple; the exilic crisis; loss of autonomy over land; and the impassivity of of YHWH. Perhaps the time has come to create another kind of wisdom to respond to the world of Information Technology. We realise the world of IT does confront many people of faith because the our culture's world view is increasingly tied to the spirit of capitalism with its commitment to pragmatism and to technology rather than human values.
In response to this world of consumerism, war, poverty, relationship brekadowns, etc...perhaps it is time to create a new wisdom, share your thoughts with me
Te atapo (the dawn)
My mother on the other hand, strongly influenced by her white Anglican heritage provided nourishment from the Bible developing in me a love for God and the Holy Scriptures. Annie believed the Bible was a fundamental pathway to not only knowing God but a way of gaining wisdom, education, and affluence in an environment surrounded by cow paddocks, bushland and poverty.
Today the New Zealand society, like many others, has become an environment unlike yesterdays. It is a place shaped by technology in which God is not apparently absent but is functionally no longer necessary. With technology paving the future there appears no recognised higher power other than the human-made system that people in charge now worship. Moreover. there is no imitation of God, no vsion of something greater to strive of.
According to some Biblical wisdom scholars the creation of the Wisdom figure was a response to the events of the sixth century exile; the destruction of the Jerusalem temple; the exilic crisis; loss of autonomy over land; and the impassivity of of YHWH. Perhaps the time has come to create another kind of wisdom to respond to the world of Information Technology. We realise the world of IT does confront many people of faith because the our culture's world view is increasingly tied to the spirit of capitalism with its commitment to pragmatism and to technology rather than human values.
In response to this world of consumerism, war, poverty, relationship brekadowns, etc...perhaps it is time to create a new wisdom, share your thoughts with me
Te atapo (the dawn)
11 Comments:
Hi Te Atapo,
Being someone grounded in faith and aving such a rich religious background, do you have any fears in ambracing this future? The legends and myths maybe no more!
I do agree with you though that technology is paving the way for a new future but wonder how much the church is prepared for technology or will we just embrace it because it is the in thing?
IJA
Dear ija,
I don't ever thnk the legends and myths will disappear. They give us a meaning for life and so they will always stay with us albeit if not orally; then definitely through a new high powered form of communication.
Now the church will have little choice than to embrace technology because it is tied to what happens in the public arena. In addition a great majority of its educational habits and sensibilities are drawn from the schooling milieu.
Therefore the church may need to take its cue from what happening out there in the mass-mediated world and figure out new ways of building religious identites and nurturing spiritual disciplines. To paraphrase Aristotle, we are intimacy seeking creatures predisposed to reach out to others and to learn.
Te Atapo (the dawn)
Dear ija,
I don't ever thnk the legends and myths will disappear. They give us a meaning for life and so they will always stay with us albeit if not orally; then definitely through a new high powered form of communication.
Now the church will have little choice than to embrace technology because it is tied to what happens in the public arena. In addition a great majority of its educational habits and sensibilities are drawn from the schooling milieu.
Therefore the church may need to take its cue from what happening out there in the mass-mediated world and figure out new ways of building religious identites and nurturing spiritual disciplines. To paraphrase Aristotle, we are intimacy seeking creatures predisposed to reach out to others and to learn.
Te Atapo (the dawn)
5:00 AM
BTW (= code for "by the way") if you accidentally post a comment on your own blog and want to you can delete it, so if you like you could delete one of the duplicate comments...
Stories and myths etc. do not go away when the medium changes, but how we understand and relate to them changes...
Hello Te Atapo, I think we are all created with a longing for connection with the numinous - but that our worship structures/ethos have not kept pace with the speed of development in the 20th century - our culture which is built on rampant individualism, the awareness of deep space/the void all contribute to a sort of scepticism about God as entity and does God act??? - I think we need to reframe our wisdom traditions and present them so they are relevant to the now.
Nedd
Hi 'the dawn'..... I like Nedds's idea of 'reframing our wisdom traditions to make them relevant to the now' but cant help but how how imagine............ oh no how, some wisdom please!
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Well I guess it really depends on your perspectives of technology. I see technology as only tools to life similar to all man made tools. They come and go like humans but if we tend to create a new wisdom ... then people will move from technology today to that new wisdom. That is life I guess humans will not stop creating new technologies. The question I think that we need to address is "what is your perspective of technologies???"
Nedda,
I think wisdom will be found in joining knowledge with ethics and placing society first.
Hi Ija,
Can I sum up with this quote of T.S. Eliot
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowldge we have lost in information.
This quote comes from "Chorus of the Rocks" which was written by Eliot in the year 1948 so yes lets create a new wisdom
Te atapo (the dawn)
Dear Sea,
What is my perspective of technology?
Communication and Information technology is like any other force it can be used for liberation or for domination. For domination we need only look at the war in Israel this very moment to see the victims of power and technology.
What is needed is redemptive technology which is grounded in practice and concern for society. Yes technology is an integral part of our world but I have yet to believe that knowledge is power, and that technology equals progress. I think we need to search for a common good which transcends self-interest and serves as a goal for evaluating the ways technology is used in society. Perhaps a committment to justice and a genuine concern for others. When we can do this then I percieve technology for liberation.
Te atapo (the dawn)
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