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Jesus-Shalom

Peace, spirituality, values, and activism
from a Jesus perspective

Contemporary requirements for shalom well-being and justice

Jesus-Shalom
Jesus-Shalom
Contemporary requirements for shalom well-being and justice
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In this episode, Tim offers what Noel calls a contemporary midrash–an expansive commentary on Noel’s biblical account of the absolute shalom requirements of well-being, justice, and integration.

After noting (1:00) their different ways of engagement (Noel moves from the biblical scriptures to the contemporary world; Tim tends to move the other way around)–and the difference between noticing (perceiving, sensing, intuiting) and naming (using language to describe)–Tim explores (3:20) different ways of describing the various dimensions of our life experience–physical, emotional and intellectual, spiritual–which is true of us as individuals, but also in our relationship with one another and even with the other-than-human world.  It is important, however, that these (7:50) be seen as aspects or dimensions of an inseparable whole, both within human persons, but also among human relationships, and even in our relationships with the more-than-human world.  

At 10:00 Tim explores different ways to “map” well-being, justice, and integrity, on the one hand, with physical, social, and spiritual. This includes a sense of wellness that is more than physical–it includes emotional and intellectual and spiritual well-being–as contemporary wellness culture suggests. Noel responds (12:30-14:50), before Tim turns to the importance of intuition and impression in our faith journeys (14:50-16:15), even though that often leaves us at odds with our faith community (16:40-18:00). Noel agrees and amplifies this (18:00-21:00) with some analogies from parenting.

At that point (21:05) we turn to “justice” and “judgment” as a relational process and how that might be related to traditional Protestant notions of justification is a kind of forensic (court-like) declaration, apart from any process. While this is not central to our account, we consider positive elements of “forensic” elements of justice and justification, both in the sense of data gathering (a scientific sense of “forensic”) and formal declaration (as in a courtroom sense of “forensic”). The analogy of marriage comes into play (27:30). (Tim’s conversation with Aglaia Barraclough (episodes 7 and 8; March 7, 2021) explores some of this more fully.) This is part of our desire to support faith journeys of “renovation” as well as “reconstruction” (see Tim’s blog on this).

After the break, we turn (31:51) to the midrash-like contemporary account of justice as sufficiency, equity, solidarity. And each of these must apply (34:20) to each of the dimensions of human life (physical, emotional/intellectual, spiritual). In his affirmative response, Noel wonders whether some of these dimensions would have been present in the life of an every-day person in the Hebrew scriptures, even though it didn’t explicitly make it into the writings.

At 39:40-41:50, Tim and Noel acknowledge and reflect on how these reflections come from a place of middle-class privilege and wonders how this might shape his accounts of shalom and justice. 

The final section (beginning at 42:00) turns to the meaning of “spiritual” and “spiritual integrity.” We explore ways of naming and indicating this “spiritual,” and why it’s important to not lose this in a context of “neo-liberal” culture which tends to reduce humanity to autonomous and unencumbered selves. This naming (45:00) of “something more” always employs resources from scripture and tradition, experience and culture, nature and our environment. And this effort, according to Noel (47:30), is better than meeting this “more” with silence and looking the other way.

In this episode, I offer what Noel calls a contemporary midrash–an expansive commentary–on Noel’s biblical account of the absolute shalom requirements of well-being, justice, and integration. Among other things, the conversation touches on themes of justice (and justification), the necessity for justice to include sufficiency, equity, and solidarity, and how we name and indicate the “transcendent” dimensions and context of our lives. 

Image by Heidelbergerin from Pixabay

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