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This is http://www.essayz.com/a9506131.htm Previous-Essay <== This-Essay ==> Following-Essay Click HERE on this line to find essays via Your-Key-Words. {Most frequent wordstarts of each essay will be put here.} ========================================================== %EXTREME LOVE SECURITY VULNERABILITY RISK FOOLISH 950613 In its most powerful forms love leads us to realize that we are not ultimately responsible for our own salvation, security, defense or invulnerability. In its most powerful forms loves also leads us to realize that we cannot achieve our own salvation, security, defense or invulnerability---by being willing to take ultimate risks; even when intellectually we know that the probability of integrative fruits being thereby engendered are extremely small. We cannot save ourselves by taking high risks even when the probability of integrative fruits are very low. We cannot save ourselves by seeking to avoid all risks even when the probability of integrative fruits are very high. The essence of salvation is not in avoiding small risks, or in being willing to take high risks. The essence of salvation is not in being sure that our efforts will bear integrative fruits, or in not caring whether our efforts will bear integrative fruits. Love sets us free to take prudent risks, when the probability that taking risks will bear integrative fruits is reasonably high. Love does not call upon us to throw away our powers of reason, intellect and cognitive insight---in order to be willing to take great risks when the probability that taking risks will bear integrative fruits is small---all in efforts to save ourselves through being willing to sacrifice ourselves through extreme acts of imprudence. Love does not call upon us to be in control of our own salvation, security, defense or invulnerability--- through careful use of our powers of reason, intellect and connective insight. Love does not call upon us to save ourselves, achieve security, defend ourselves or achieve invulnerability--- through perfection in our faith in miracles in the face of strong evidence of the improbability of integrative fruits. We cannot achieve salvation, security, or defensive invulnerability---by being willing to risk all, or by being unwilling to risk anything. We need to be prudent in our wisdom, to consider all available experiential evidence carefully, and to use our intellect and powers of reason fully to assess how probable it is that taking risks will bear integrative fruits---and then feel secure in the presence of God's Love to take appropriate risks in the hope that they will bear integrative fruits for us and/or for others. We cannot achieve salvation, security or defensive invulnerability---by being willing to be fools, or by being unwilling to make any mistake. We cannot achieve salvation, security or defensive invulnerability---by any form of extremism, perfectionism, judgmentalism, or self sacrifice. Salvation and the enjoyment of security known as the freedom to be safely vulnerable are both the gifts of God; which we may, or may not, accept---and are gifts which we may or may not humbly pass on to others in the Presence of God. So long as we do not really believe that we are not ultimately responsible for our own salvation, security, defense or invulnerability---so long we are likely to believe, teach, preach and practice perverted forms of the gospel: 1. Pretending that we are sure when we are insecure. 2. Going to extremes when moderation would be wise. 3. Taking tragically imprudent/disintegrative risks. 4. Tragically taking no prudent integrative risks. 5. Trying to save ourselves and/or others. 6. Seeking to achieve invulnerability. 7. Being compulsively defensive and technocratic. 8. Seeking salvation through imprudent rescues. 9. Seeking perfection in an imperfect world. 10. Excelling in being judgmental. 11. Never letting go in God's secure presence. 12. Clinging to false means to personal security. 13. Playing collusive games of mutual self deception. 14. Compulsively fixating upon technical fixes. 15. Pretending to be in control, when we cannot be. 16. Pretending that others are in control. 17. Pretending to know, what we cannot truly know. 18. Tragically taking too much care of others. 19. Tragically taking too little care of ourselves. 20. Tragically keeping too much for ourselves. 21. Tragically giving too much to earn salvation. (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy) ==========================================================