Love over knowledge?

"Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes, if His grace is an ocean, then we're all sinking."

Oh how He loves us.

The new David Crowder song, He Loves Us.

This song reminds me of this common, or not so common, truth. I love this about music, how words put together in a new format, new context, with beautiful piano, drums, guitar, and a voice behind them can enlighten us to a new way of thinking, it can remind us of things know.

What do we know?

What is knowledge? How do we make meaning?

These are questions I have been struggling with as I write my thesis. The construction of meaning, and how we all come to believe, trust, hear, and know life in completely different ways.

From a deconstructionist point of view, knowledge is a by product of communal relationships rather than an individual possession or product. It is linguistically constructed by people in conversation, its development and transformation is a communal process, and the knower and knowledge are interdependent.

I think I believe this. Meaning is made by the context in which the word, or person, exists.

And then I got to thinking about knowledge. It's importance, for me as a therapist, as a person living day to day in this mysterious world... And I remembered... that Adam and Eve were instructed not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil. Gen 2:17. And next to that tree was the Tree of Life.

What is this juxtaposition?

I looked up knowledge... and here is what I found:

In the Psalms, wisdom and knowledge are sought after, and in Proverbs, wise men store up knowledge... and the discerning heart seeks knowledge.

And Solomon, in Ecclesiastes, says, the more knowledge, the more grief!

In the New Testament, knowledge is talked about in light of God... Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!-- Romans 11:33

Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. 1 Cor. 8:1

If I understand all mysteries, and all knowledges, and if I have faith that can move mountains, but have not love--I am nothing. 1 cor. 13...

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge... Eph. 3:18

What a sweet reminder. As I study so many theories, philosophies, I am brought back to the truth. That knowledge will pass away, but Love will never fail, Love surpasses knowledge.

So I conclude, knowledge is important, if sought through God, and is established in love. Otherwise, our knowledge will cause grief. For me, I must remember that love is what is important, especially as a therapist.

No thing outside of the text?

I have recently re-found the joy in art, in just making things. My hands can't get enough of it. All I want to do is make stuff. Journals, boxes, constructing things, painting things... I just want to create.

I'm writing my thesis using a deconstructionist theory, so I've been reading a lot of Derrida and very exciting literature, or lack there of. It's been an interesting process for me... being that I'm not naturally a philosophical person. One definition of deconstruction is: the disassembling and examining of taken-for-granted assumptions... wow. What a thought. How often do I walk through the day, allowing my assumptions to hinder the true design of life. Of people, of creation, of everyday objects that I consistently take for granted.

I love purity. I love elements being broken down into their simplest form, and then re-assembling those elements to form newness.

I think this is what we are supposed to daily, this is non-judgment at its core.

Derrida said, "There is nothing outside the text."

How often do we judge people by their outward appearance... based on the stunted knowledge we have formed through news, media, and our past. What if we approached everyone with the intention of there being nothing outside the person. No outside thoughts to influence how we digest them, just them. Just that person in front of us. Acceptance.

Create. The need to create. Love. The need to love. Acceptance. The need to be accepted.