Phronesis

Phronesis

Yeah, yeah, yeah, gesundheit. Stop that.

Phronesis is a concept coined by Aristotle (the philosopher) which is best translated as "practical wisdom". Effectively, everything one does is a combination of learning and experience.

I'm not the same person I was 10 years ago. I'm much more diplomatic now. (Just ask my loving wife.) In my previous post about what's happening at work, I was relatively diplomatic. 10 years ago, I would have told me boss he was an idiot. I'm far more diplomatic now.

Anyway, learning and experience is also called "growth". The more you experience, the more you learn. The more you learn, the more it changes your experience. I took 12 years of piano. If I had only ever read music, but never sat down in front of a keyboard and diddled, I probably wouldn't have been a real "player".

My dad used to take me duck hunting in Eastern Oregon (well, Central...but who's checking...) and I learned to fire a shotgun, leading the bird, and actually aim to hit a moving target. Reading about hunting doesn't make you a hunter. FIRING THE GUN does. Okay, okay, I confess, my dad was a little peeved when Oregon moved to steel shot from lead shot and I had his semi-automatic 12 guage. All of the hunters around us would fire one shot...pause...another shot...pause. Not me. No way. You would hear - BOOM ..... BOOM ...... BOOM. Then you'd hear BABABOOM, three shots all at once, overlapping. I would drop a duck by blanketing the sky with shot, and the poor bird would fly into the metal wall I'd built. Each shell cost about $1, up from about $.25 a piece. So, when Brad got a duck that was easily $3 worth of shot up in the air. I was an "expensive" hunter.

Wisdom and experience.

Well, my faith is changing, evolving, and growing. Why? I'm learning more, and I'm experiencing things differently, which leads me to a new way of learning, and a new way of experiencing. For Christmas, I bought myself a new "Archaeological Bible" which has great notes about the culture and context of areas of the New and Old Testaments. This type of learning is changing my views on areas of scripture that I'm very familiar with. It's awesome to constantly get new things out of the Bible.

Same is true in my prayer life. Oh, nothing mystical is happening....but I'm growing.

What are some ways that you have changed in the last 10 years?
How are you changing now?
Where do you see yourself going?
Does it excite you like it does me?
Does it scare you like it does me?

Good stuff.

BABABOOM!!!!

Brad