Deep Breathing

Among Paul’s epistles, the one to the Romans is considered as the summary of the whole New Testament; hence, that of Christianity itself. It is also said that all 150 chapters of the book of the Psalms are considered as a poetic outline of the whole Bible. If you are interested in the Christian minimalist approach, then, together with four Gospels, you must understand these two books by heart. If you are a regular Bible reader, then, after the epistle to the Romans, the next book you face is the first epistle to the Corinthians. In this Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, one of the well-known parts is the chapter 13, dubbed as the Chapter of Love, though in the King James Version (KJV), “love” is translated as “charity”. If you check with Strong’s Number, this is identified as G26, which means “ agape “ in Greek. In Greek, there are three kinds of “love”, eros , philia , and agape (strictly speaking there is the fourth love, storge , love between parents and children)....

For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:6-8 We all have so-called “Doubting Thomas” within us, which makes us “spiritually blind”. Only when we can open our own spiritual eye; only when our blindness is healed by Jesus Christ, we can be aware of the dimension that such eye can see. And if so, what is the meaning of: "Jesus heals our (spiritual) blindness?" While it has various implications theologically and philosophically, here I would like to focus on Jesus' "ultimate act" of healing per se, which is, as Paul said above, "Christ died for the ungodly." To understand the true meaning of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and have faith on this, we also have to understand the true meaning of His de...

Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands, and reach hither they hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered and said unto him, My LORD and my God. Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet believed. John 20: 27 – 29 Happy Easter! This is one of the well-known episodes that why one of the disciples, Thomas, is dubbed as “Doubting Thomas”. Among the disciples, perhaps he was a kind of person who is quite careful and always trying to be “rational” or “objective”. Of course, here I am not saying the very definitions of rationalism and/or objectivism derived from the vast history of Western philosophies. But even in such biblical days, or every period of human history, we humans have a tendency to avoid so-called blind faith and are scared by its danger. The Incredulity of Saint Thomas by Caravaggio In the very start of our huma...

In the coaching session I've recently attended my coach told me to conduct the so-called PSSK self-assessment. While I am not familiar with the very definition of this self-assessment, hearing its concept it seems to me that I could do it by myself without knowing the details. It is a kind of self-evaluation or rating in focusing on four areas called Paradigm, System, Skills and Knowledge. At the range from 1 to 10 what I have to do is to rate my own current "score" considering 1 is the lowest: 10 could be the highest. It looks like what I used to do for the Spiral Dynamics assessment. Perhaps this is why I felt I could do it without knowing the details Thus, what I did was: 1. Created my own definitions of all 10 levels for each area. 2. Scored my current level considering such definitions. Creating totally 40 definitions (10 levels x 4 areas) was not an easy task. But somehow I was able to enjoy it. This is perhaps because doing this task alone could be part of my thoug...

A few months ago I encountered a chance to be interviewed about a sort of practical applications of the Spiral Dynamics model and its related Integral Approaches. That was just happened unexpectedly and coincidentally. And it was not sure that I was really a suitable person to answer for such interviewing. However, it was also true that that must be one of the valuable opportunities for me to reflect on how to develop such practical applications. Though my experience on this matter is still partial and quite limited, I made the following writings in such a way to answer the interviewed questions. While the original questions and answers were more specific and detailed in referring to some particular institutes and proper names. But here in this blog I just post the modified version -- modified in such a way that the descriptions including the questions themselves are simplified, generalized; and become anonymous and an essay style. To read through the following writings, however, first...