ABOUT THE SITE
Writing Feb. 6, 2019.
There's some difference, I think, between asking what it's "ABOUT" and asking what it's "FOR." I will come to both of those.
The "inspiration" for making the website was our phone conversations. You will recall that a number of times from May 2018 onward I asserted that you didn't yet know "what I'm all about" now, the "way that I am," "now-a-days," or presently, and in particular, and most importantly, that you didn't yet know "my Christianity," or, "The Christian Faith" as I hold it and believe it and practice it. I said to you, "I have CHANGED since you last knew me (perhaps 45 years ago)," and I said that if our communications do continue along, it will of necessity entail you needing to become acquainted with what manner of Christian I've become, and, now am, as stated, what "The Christian Faith" and life is, to me, NOW. - (update in blue added May 2021) - By the way, from the time in May 2018 that I first started repeating THAT to you as very important to me, the impression I gained was that you never paid any mind to it, never laid it to heart, never thought much of it at all, but RATHER, in our conversations just wanted to "create" an energy "in the moment" or in the present, form a present "reality" upon which to foster and build momentum. Let me say that differently: While I was asserting basically that you and I can't "work together" or even get anywhere in so-called "fellowship" unless you FIRST learn "where I'm at" and "how I am" in "my Christianity," you would (essentially) say "ya ya whatever," and just proceed to so-called "fellowship" (or talk) about anything under the sun, or whatever springs to your mind, or whatever interest pops into your head, as if YOUR "mindset" is that we can just have this "phone thing" right now in the present and perhaps "build on THAT." So I would perceive that you were "just PROCEEDING" as though there is NO "groundwork" to be done first. I found myself repeating to you frequently, that "I've TOLD you before," we can't do this, or I don't want to do this with you, if you aren't interested in first laying that foundation or groundwork. But always (and, to date) I found with each new phone call, this remained the same: You start afresh, out of the blue, with whatever is interesting you that day, and I am thrown clear back to May 2018 trying to tell you again all of the above. I even told you that this going on is having an effect on me, that it's giving me an experience, that it's having a "result" in me: i.e. I can't avoid gaining the impression that you don't care beans about things I say, even when you are told they are very important to me. And I find myself wondering, "How does ______ imagine that we can 'work together' or 'proceed forward' in ostensible (so-called) 'fellowship' this way?" Show a person enough times that you aren't listening, show them often enough that you don't care what they want or need, but that you just "want what you want," and it's going to take a toll on their "enthusiasm" regarding their contact with you.
In my opinion, much of our phone "communication" was sometimes less than "optimal." But, you seemed to disagree with me as to the possible "cause" of why. Of course there were causeS, plural, and not just one cause. Your religious experience spanning the forty-year interim since we knew one another was vastly different than my religious experience. It was clear that we even have different "Christian vocabularies" from one another, and even different concepts as to what many Christian words "mean." In our "getting to know one another" anew, one little irritation appearing now and then, was me repeating myself. You shared with me, a number of times; "it's because I forget things after hearing them." You might recall, however, that I offered a couple of other "theories" or "possibilities" that I thought might be factors: One, that you didn't much seem to appreciate was, when I said, "Maybe highway traffic is to blame" (as many of our phone discussions took place while you were enroute between point A and point B, on highways, sometimes in heavy traffic). I said I thought that you being surrounded by distractions contributed to diminished "listening" ability. And sometimes you were on foot, walking through all kinds of distractions, while we were conversing. It was one of my theories that you, "moving along through distracting environments" like that, whether on foot or in traffic, couldn't possibly be expected to "catch" details from me, and to flawlessly "get" some point I was making, or what have you. As I write this sentence Feb. 6, 2019, I can say that, so far, there have been a minimum of 3 times (and I think 4), that you were getting food at McDonalds while I was talking. Once you were even counting out or exchanging change at the counter, communicating with the McDonald's person, while I was talking, and you were talking to them, out loud, while simultaneously saying to me, "Go on, I'm listening." Don't get me wrong here, I have NO complaint about you in your life trying to "work in" Christian fellowship while mobile and enroute between places. That's a great use of your time. My point is, though, that I posited the "theory" to you, that that's why there has been so much "repetition" of things in conversions that you have "forgotten." I said I suspect it is that "setting" or "environment." If I have read you correctly, though, it has seemed to me along the way, that you don't like that "theory." I've rather felt, when I have suggested that as a cause, that you have suggested back to me, that, no, that's not it, "I'm just fine in traffic and walking along," etc. So it seemed to me that you just wanted the "cause" of the need for repetition to be chalked up to, as you put it, "I forget things right after I hear them." A "memory" issue, and not a "quality of listening" matter. Be that as it may, it might serve you to know this about me; that I am aware, and I do think about it, that a large percentage of our "communication" time has taken place while you are moving, and doing other things. I've been talking to you, saying something that's extremely important to me, and I'll even preface my statement with, "Now I hope you GET this, my brother, because it's crucial to you understanding my point," and I can hear on your end that you seem distracted, and yet you're going, "mmm... uh ...right ... keep talking, I'm listening." So I'll check: I'll ask you to tell me what you think I just said. And you can't. Don't get me wrong. I said I do think it's great that you can do "phone stuff" while "mobile" and active. And it's true. I accept that it's a great convenience. But if you can grasp my point, it's that I tried to suggest that as an explanation for why you don't "get" things I'm saying, while you have insisted that, no, it's other reasons.
Please don't be irritated at my attention to this; bear in mind that it is good communication and sharing that I'm expressing concern for, and isn't that a good motive that you should appreciate? but I have "tested" you after "moments" like that where you've said to me, "keep talking, I'm listening." I've asked you right after I say something very important to me, "Can you tell me what I just said to you?" And no. The last thing you can "play back to me" is from ten minutes earlier! The most recent several minutes is a big zero, while you were moving about doing things. So you see, I sympathize with you thinking you're "just fine" "communicating" that "way," and hey, your "way" is, after all, your own business. But I'd just point out, that I'm also on the phone. I'm also having an experience. Half of the equasion is me. What I'm saying is, as I said, "your way" is completely your business. But in that I'm also having an experience myself, doesn't that make my experience my business? I don't know if you are getting this the way I intend it, or "differently": I'll bet "differently," because it's rather fine-tuned. I'm not criticizing your "way" of listening, neither "complaining," nor "meddling" in "your business" such as if a person were to object, "How I hear is MY business." Rather, I am quite positively restricting this to "MY business," which is what I meant by saying that I also am on the phone, "having an experience." My "part" of the shared "communication experience" is "my business" is it not? Do you see? I'm not so much remarking on "how" you are, on the phone, as on my own experience, what's happening with me. The fact that I, with my personality traits, have intense feelings about "not being understood" when I have spoken, people not "getting" what I say, intense feelings about being misunderstood, "taken wrong," or interpreted incorrectly, the fact that I have intense feelings about needing to repeat things over again that I've already said three times but apparently wasn't "heard," does NOT equal me "criticising" anybody, nor even me "taking issue" with "how" they are. No, it's 100% a matter of me, my own traits, my own feelings in life, and my own "experience" that I am having. Look into my mind - I'm giving you a window: If I make a comment to someone, anyone, regarding something important to me, some thing I feel strongly about, and so, I really want them to "get" it, I have a profound experience the next time I'm chatting with them, if I find out that they somehow didn't "get" the thing I told them the time before. My heart sinks. For one, I'm shocked. Always. It never fails to shock and horrify me, when I find out something didn't "register" with someone, while in fact to me, it was very important. It shocks me. Perhaps more importantly it signals to me that quality communication cannot be had with this person.
Know this about my "traits." I have this "feeling" about "communicated information," especially when what I'm communicating is important to me, or, it's important to me that I be understood, and that "feeling" is that the communicated information ITSELF deserves a "good reception" or deserves to be "heard" well, and grasped, understood, and "registered" in the receiver. This next statement may be too subtle a distinction for you to grasp: It's not just ME wishing to be heard perfectly. It's my feeling toward the INFORMATION ITSELF. It's the INFORMATION that I feel is DUE proper reception, not me the "vessel" who is carrying it. Try this imaginary story example, and see if it conveys better what I just said, that it's not me the vessel: Say an old missionary is in the jungle, hoping to bring the Gospel to some savage pagan head-hunter cannibals. Say it also just happens that the old missionary is dying from something, and he knows it. He knows he's not long for this world. Now he gets captured by the natives he came to help, and they drag him to the chopping block, and he knows he's going to lose his head. Say this old missionary has a heart for the lost, has a heart for souls, loves the lost as we are supposed to, and it's that love that brought him here. It's why he's here. Not for himself, but to give these poor benighted souls the Saving Gospel. Now look: A, he knows he's dying real soon anyway, even if the natives don't kill him. And B, he knows they are going to kill him. So his life is OVER. That much is clear. Now look: He is "CARRYING" some INFORMATION that his heart is burning to IMPART to them: The Gospel message. That is "information." The preaching or sharing of that "information" may be called "communicated information." Getting it across to these poor savages is on the man's heart. It's not about himself. It's not a matter of him being all "hung up" as a personality trip about people "listening to him when he's talking" because he thinks "he's" important. No. His desperate concern to impart this information to these people just before he dies, is ALL ABOUT THE INFORMATION ITSELF, and THEM making a "connect" with IT! So he begs to speak a word just before they kill him: He says, "There is something YOU NEED TO KNOW!" You see? The "NEED" as he sees it, is THEIR need! They need this information. How monstrous a mis-interpretation of this man, if anyone imagines that he's just a demanding fellow who wants the floor, and insists on everyone's rapt attention! No! That's petty! This missionary's "PASSIONATE DRIVE" to IMPART this information to these people is not about anything so low and mundane as his personality. It's that he sees two parties in this equasion: This tribe, and that information. The two of THEM need to be brought together. They need to GET this information. THAT is what's in this missionary's heart. So he is allowed to speak, and he gives the message: There is one true God above, Creator of all, and we humans have offended Him, sinned against Him, and we are in big trouble. But there's Good News! That Almighty God sent His Son into this world. God allowed people to abuse His Son, mock, torture, and cruelly kill him. Why? For this amazing reason: This Son of God was taking upon himself the wrath, the punishment, that each of us deserves for our sins. This was done so that we could ESCAPE that awful punishment, or, to put it differently, to be 'SAVED' from that awful wrath. So God's Son died a horrible death, for you and me. But listen to this: He rose up from the dead a few days later! He came back to life! That proved that the mission was a success! That proved that God loved His Son. That proved he wasn't just an unfortunate murder victim at the hands of bad men, but that his death had had a GREAT PURPOSE! So he's alive from the dead! Now, each of YOU, are to BELIEVE in him, believe he died to save you and rose again. Pray and say to him, "SAVE ME! I BELIEVE" and you will be saved. --- The old missionary's greatest concern is that they CONNECT with that "information." It's not his mouth talking that he's hung up about people listening to, it's the INFORMATION he's carrying that he YEARNS for them to listen intently TO, and GET, and CONNECT with, and BENEFIT from. It's not about himself, because even if they don't kill him, he'll be dead in a week from his illness anyway. He's not here to gain an audience who listens to him, he came out into this jungle to bring CRUCIAL INFORMATION to people who really need to "get" it. Can't you conceive of a SELFLESS motive in someone desperately wanting to be HEARD? Sometimes people are desperate for you to listen intently and "get" it, for the sake of the actual information itself, because the information itself is important, they really believe that you NEED the thing they are saying. It may be an utterly selfless desire. They may believe that YOU will benefit from what they are saying, if you "get" it, and they may even see ZERO, NO, benefit to themselves, in giving it to you. "No skin off their nose" if you only "half hear" or don't really "get" it, or, subsequently "forget" it or let it slip or fade, other than their wish that YOU benefit from it. All of their PASSION to be heard might be wholly for YOUR good, and they might get nothing out of it, themselves.
That "selfless motive" is not so much a claim that I am making about myself here, as much as a principle that I'm saying exists. Sometimes the reason it is horrifying to a person to find out the "hearers" didn't "get" what was said is becuase the things said were themselves important (not so much the person speaking).
Regardless, that need (of mine) for "more clear" communication between us, and my VERY INTENSE wish to be UNDERSTOOD clearly when I speak, were partly the inspiration to create THIS WEBSITE. Even the fact that THIS is in a web page declaring that it is explaining what the whole site is "About" should by itself be proof to you that I'm not out to "change" "HOW" you listen. As I said, that's YOUR business, and not mine to try to change. THIS WEBSITE was undertaken in fact because on one level I was ACQUIESCING to the fact that that's just "how it is," and "facing it." So, FAR FROM trying to CHANGE you, I've undertaken this website to "LEAVE THAT ALONE" or take the attitude "it is what it is," and provide THIS website as a "way" of communicating the SAME "stuff," albeit in another "format" or coming to you on a different "channel." I thought that perhaps what might be "blurry" by phone, or "sketchy," might by this "format" come across as more "solid" or more "plain to see." I thought it might "frame" the "verbal" communication in a way easier to "see."
You may recall that you have shared with me along the way that you "do BETTER" with printed "books" in your hand, than with breezing along web surfing info "ON" those books. You've said you even sometimes, at the library, "PRINT" things for yourself "because" you "do better" having it in a format you can read at your leisure (and not on the libary's schedule). Frankly I think that "that" shows the same thing as my "theory" about you not being able to "get" things properly while "on the fly" or in a hurry or "catch as catch can," but, Hey. Anyway, this that I've just referred to, your "doing better" when you can read materials while relaxed and in more of a "study" environment, was part of the inspiration to make you these web pages, "for your perusal" and review.
And I still have the same "objective" in view that we've discussed, that is, apprising you, saying something extremely important to you of what "my Christianity" is NOW, after all these years, what "The Christian Faith," beliefs, doctrines, views, opinions, and "life" and "walk" is, to ME, in the present. I feel that we cannot possibly "communicate well" together without you having a bit more of a handle on your friend's Christianity.
So, "that" is what this website is "about," and, that is what it's "for."
I don't know "how well" I'll perform that objective. I don't know even how well one CAN really "bring across" the "nature" of his Christianity in web pages crudely and ploddingly "built" and set forth. It may prove to not be do-able. Remember, even the text you are reading NOW, was NOT written the way a LETTER is written. In building a web page, MARKUP CODE is used. Such as HTML, CSS, and etc. The following word, "Bible," if it is to appear in this page as Bible, takes 59 typed keyboard characters of code to produce. A 5 letter word takes 59 html coding characters to end up looking like that. Plus putting it up onto the website server, with all the page links functioning right, and etc. So, unlike a handwritten letter that flows out of the writer "naturally," (or even a blog) all of this that you see as web pages, took "plodding deliberate one-by-one keystrokes" to "build," and so may come across as plodding, pedantic, lifeless, clinical and two dimensional. But in the spirit of "You don't know unless you try," and "every little bit helps," and "a step in the right direction," and just plain old "Why not?" I'm giving it a go.
Feb. 6, 2019.
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