(This is a serialization of the draft for my book, Expectations, Hopes and Dreams.)
Caveat
This is a pastoral book. Some of my previous works explain my religious point of view: The Mind of Christ, A Course in Biblical Mysticism and The Practice of Christian Mysticism. To summarize for those unfamiliar with my work and my religion, I follow Christ and read the Bible from an Ancient Near Eastern intellectual position. I am not affiliated with any organized religion. I reject Western Civilization and want to teach believers how to live with a foot in two worlds. The focus of this book is helping people disengage from Western mythology, particularly in regard to their expectations, hopes and dreams.
Virtually everyone talking and writing is lying about something. Some do so knowingly. Some could and should know, but may be lying to themselves. Most of us simply don’t know any better, and pass on our lies as the best we think we know.
How does the reader and listener discern the difference? Either he knows the facts for himself and can filter out the junk or he can learn to be skeptical and cynical. Sometimes you can learn an awful lot just from noting what kinds of things people lie about, how and where they tell those lies, and so forth. One of my favorite filters is attempting to assess who gains from the story being told and maybe what they gain.
I have intentionally put myself in the position of having virtually nothing to gain, in the typical sense, in writing this. Aside from some internal sense of peace, writing this stuff won’t likely result in any measurable change in my worldly circumstances. It’s free, as are all my books, and the copyright encourages you to make copies and distribute in any language you like. In fact, the copyright is basically an attempt to prevent anyone changing my words. Otherwise, it’s just making sure readers know whom to blame.
By the time you read much of this, you’ll realize I’m not aiming to build any empires, real or virtual. It would be nice to make new friends, but I’m not particularly interested in them sending money or hanging on my every word. I don’t expect there is any way possible to stir up a major influence in human thought and change behavior in any particular way. I’d much rather readers take off in all directions; otherwise there is no point at all in writing.
To be more precise, my focus is otherworldly. It’s not that I have no use for this world and things belonging to it, but that my use is steered from outside of this world. Should this book have the desired effect, some portion of my readers will embrace a similar orientation and come up with their own answers to everything they encounter. If anything, you should be slightly better equipped at recognizing the right questions.
I want you to build your own expectations, hopes and dreams — hereafter abbreviated in this book as EH&D. Naturally, I’ll have to talk about my own EH&D along with the concept so that you’ll get some idea how I got them. You aren’t supposed to buy mine for yourself, but maybe get a clue to possibilities in pursuit of your own that had not previously occurred to you.
