Topic: Aliens
Some people call it "separating the sheep from the goats." Yet I don't see their application of the concept with biblical origins to apply. I do see the original meaning to be very useful to what I'm about to say, though. About the need to separate ideas and behaviors that are congruent with what rings true for me after much soul searching.
Sometimes that will be old ideas that still ring as true as any bell. Over time, some of those old ideas become like a gong, as I start to understand myself and the world in a different way.
Or as any good therapist would say, as reality becomes clearer.
As a kid, I was taught to see "the world" as anyone who didn't believe like people in my church and home did, which was the way most people in my family and southern culture had seen things for centuries. In other words, it was the "wierd people" or the outsiders.
What I currently understand as sweet and fair, what I see as really caring, what I see as valuable--these are not necessarily the things I was taught to see as good. The old southern culture and it's accompanying conservative theology, that managed to spread like a virus across our land and globe, didn't/doesn't care much about anyone growing and maturing to the point of finding functional ways to stand up to the status quo. Yet many of my generation have found ways to develop our own set of cares. Finding ways to be the exception whenever we find opportunity.
Today, I understand "the world" to be ways of thinking and talking that are not life-affirming. It's very likely that what I understand as "the world" will have some degree of alteration in the years to come. Unless I get to be an old lady, too set in my ways to change. Heaven forbid!
