When lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester is the soonest winner. William Shakespeare
The day is June 5th, 1989. The city, Beijing, China, is soaked in the blood of soldiers, students, and bystanders after the Chinese army’s violent suppression of protests in Tiananmen Square.
A column of four tanks, just like the one that had plowed through a crowd hours earlier and killed eleven people, is rolling down the street near the square. An unknown person, known since that day only as Tank Man, walks in front of the steel beasts that could easily crush him. He stops. His arms, carrying shopping bags, are down by his side. He makes no gesture of hate. He has nothing with which to attack. He simply stands there, facing them, knowing that he possesses no power whatsoever with which to physically halt the oncoming instruments of war.
The tanks attempt to maneuver around the man, but he calmly shifts his position to stand in their path. The choice becomes clear. Those in power must decide whether to use it and kill a man who calmly stands there or to stop.
The captains cut the power to their engines.
The photo that captures this moment and the story behind it is awe-striking. What captivates us, in this case, is the wonder of how gentleness can be as or more powerful than murderous military force.
The gentleness with which a single man subdued a column of tanks that could have easily taken his life is known as meekness. And in today’s episode, we will explore how we can tap the forces within in order to forego the forces without, transforming both ourselves and our world with the gentle power of meekness.
Source Scripture
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Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
And all the time—such is the tragi-comedy of our situation—we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible.…In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful. – C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
Our seemingly wholehearted devotion to applying the scientific method to ascertain the nature of reality has produced in us a remarkable blindspot. Science, by definition, aims to discern objective truth through observation and experiment.
But here’s the blindspot. While holding tightly to the belief that nothing can be true apart from scientific proof, we find ourselves in the possession of an inheritance of long-held theoretical truths that are yet to be proven or impossible to prove. And rather than employ the scientific method, we leave the decision to whim.
Enter the ego, whispering if it hasn’t been proven, then it must not be true. Reject it if it suits you.
We do this not because we are firm believers in science, but because our egos now have a loophole in which to exploit the realm of the unproven in order to to mine it for favorable resources.
Rather than seeking to discern universal, objective truth, we proceed with impunity to determine personal, subjective truth.
For example, it has long been held that forgiving your enemy when wronged is the only way to inner peace. But science has yet to prove this. The ego seizes this uncertainty to its advantages and proposes other, personal truths. Anger, hate, bitterness, vengeful fantasies, or outright retaliation.
The ego wants to determine truth in order to get what it wants. The soul longs to discern truth so it can fall into rhythm with it, live by it, and share it.
Today we will take a journey through time and space via sacred Scripture to three wells where we will discover those truths that exist in not in the domain of scientifically proven fact, but in the realm of the Logos, the Tao, the Way, the objective Truth of the Universe that permeates everything and reveals itself in the soul.
Let’s begin with well #1.
Source Scripture
The Woman at the Well: John 4:1-26
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras
The Awestruck Podcast musical playlist
(Apple I Spotify)
The Chosen (Woman at the Well Scene: Watch Episode 8 beginning at 40:10)
Abraham Builds the First Altar in Israel in Shechem
Joshua Builds the Altar of Fulfillment in Shechem
Joshua Renews Abraham’s Covenant in Shechem
Levi and Simeon Take Murderous Revenge in Shechem
Joseph’s Bones are Carried from Egypt and Buried in Shechem
Joseph’s Story of Curses to Blessings (Read Genesis 37-50)
C.S. Lewis says the following in his book, The Abolition of Man…
The Chinese speak of a great thing (the greatest thing) called the Tao. It is the reality beyond all predicates, the abyss that was before the Creator Himself. It is Nature, it is the Way, the Road. It is the Way in which the universe goes on, the Way in which things everlastingly emerge, stilly and tranquilly, into space and time. It is also the Way which every man should tread in imitation of that cosmic and supercosmic progression, conforming all activities to that great exemplar….This conception in all its forms, Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic, Christian, and Oriental alike, I shall henceforth refer to for brevity simply as ‘the Tao’. Some of the accounts of it which I have quoted will seem, perhaps, to many of you merely quaint or even magical. But what is common to them all is something we cannot neglect. It is the doctrine of objective value, the belief that certain attitudes are really true, and others really false, to the kind of thing the universe is and the kind of things we are.
We’ve lost the grip on this truth of objective value – that we as humans are part of a grand design that includes conforming all activities to that great exemplar. The Tao, C.S. Lewis’ best word for communicating this ultimate truth, is also the best translation from Greek to Chinese for St. John’s use of the word logos in his very first sentence in sacred Scripture where he said, In the Beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God and the Logos was God.
In the West, we have diluted the strength and scope of the word logos by rendering it into the English word word. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
This is not a mistranslation, because logos can mean word. But it also means way, or road or the overarching truth that describes the governing force of all creation. It is simply unfortunate that English readers most often see the word wordand take it to mean nothing more than a written or spoken unit of speech.
This is why Chinese translations of John 1:1 are often translated as In the beginning was the Tao, and the Tao was with God, and the Tao was God.
Today, we are going to attempt to restore the essence of Saint John’s logos in order to rediscover that Jesus is not merely the Word of God. He is the Tao. He is the Way. He is the ultimate Truth. And He is the Life.
Source Scripture
This is the Way: John 1:1-18
Connect
Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com
Extras