Theos-Talk Archives (December 1994 Message tl00053)

Arthur,

I got your Steiner piece yesterday, twice.  That's OK.  So it
reached New Zealand.  I've noticed some quiet periods too.
Didn't know whether it was everybody getting on with their lives
or beavering away on the next list offering, or just messages
being stored up in the list server or anywhere else.

I'm certainly feeling pressure on time, to do with the Christmas
lead-up.  Plus I generally write my pieces at work.  There's
reasonable leeway for me to do this, most of the time.

Of the many thoughts raised by your Steiner piece, one stands out
as especially relevant to me at the moment - that of our daily
work being the manger for the infant Christ within us.  Sometimes
it feels more like a crucible, with a lot of melting down! But
it's a reality and a nice connection of an old metaphor with our
lives today.

I appreciate your fear of "getting caught in a literal
brotherhood who tell me to do things and believe things that are
harmful to myself and others".  It's something I very much don't
much want to get into either.  The T.S.  is fairly unusual in its
support of individual quest and avoidance of dogmatism or
things-you-must-believe-to-belong, but despite this, there is the
ever-present human tendency to coalesce, mentally and socially,
and to lose sight of the essence and get stuck on the forms it is
expressed in.

So I'd say it's a healthy reaction you're experiencing, and one
that will innately protect from imbalance, both individually and
as a group.

Murray Stentiford