Paradigm Shift

Today was SO good. Like - this is why I came to college good. I don't know if I can even get down in words why I loved this day, but I'll try...

So. First was church at Park View Mennonite. The church itself didn't jump out at me as amazing, but the singing - I left thinking man, I think I've been cheated cause I didn't get to experience this before. The acoustics in that building made every note resonate, and hearing all the harmonies fit together...yeah, I really can't describe it. Moving on.

Fellowship meal! Meeting several EMU faculty at church! Sitting at a table with EMU juniors who were happy to talk to me!

Then the best part. Today the guys and girls halls for the "Walking Disciples" intentional communities met for the first time to figure out together what we want to get out of this year. It was so good. I came away - already! - with questions and new ideas. I got to share what I learned at convention, that community can be seen as "knowing and being known."

We talked for an hour and a half and then broke for dinner. I went to the dining hall with the girls from my floor and after we sat down, four guys from downstairs sat down with us. There was discussion of what we had talked of earlier, and a lot of talk about an organization called Our Community Place (OCP). In the process of talking, one of the guys pulled out a textbook for a class involving justice and peacebuilding and began to read random snippets to us. He read something about libertarianism, and some interesting comments got tossed around the table. Someone said "created by white men for white men!" The guy sitting next to me (Nathan?) brought up a point that I had never thought about. He said that the author is assuming that people can all make it on their own. He said "[Libertarianism] presupposes a world that does not exist."

I was like - wow. That is huge. Assuming that people can all make it on their own. Isn't the point of intentional community that people do better when we are not on our own? Isn't the point of Chrisianity living in community? I had this personal paradigm shift...When I was at gov school we talked about how there are ideas that frame how we think and it takes a paradigm shift to help us frame our issues in new ways. Come to think of it - we were basically learning about Ruling Ideas. Anyway. Walking back from the dining hall I just kept thinking about this question of "can we make it on our own?" For me this question has a lot of political overtones as well as religious, because I feel like a big ideological split between Republicans and Democrats in the US involves this question - yet somehow the question is never framed in these words. I am not positive that I can say this exactly how I mean, but here is my attempt. Really, when I think about all the huge issues dividing our country right now, many, if not most, have a root in the idea that people can or can't survive on their own. Health care - Democrats think that people can't survive on their own, and therefore the government should help them out. Isn't that the deep reason as to why they want reform? We can debate if the government should or should not be the one to provide the support net, but the point is that the people currently in power have seen that man cannot make it alone.

So this idea of paradigm shift, of ruling ideas...yeah, I just had my way of thinking about government totally set on a new path, and I made connections between PGSHC and Honors and I've just figured out why Judy Mullet keeps asking us if it is the ideas that rule or the people who have these ideas and ... wow. What a day.

I love EMU. I feel a whole lot less intelligent that I did last month at this time, but I love it here. :D :D :D