The Beginning

Hello family, friends, others.  You are either aware that Athena and I have started a journey towards Rome, or you don't know us and have stumbled upon this anyway.  The point of this blog is for me to document the journey. I think it may help me. I’m also not opposed to thoughtful dialogue. 

Meaningful, constructive, thoughtful, honest, transparent, encouraging, smart, bold, in love, "real".  These describe good dialogue, which I am interested in.  You don't have to agree with someone for these things to exist in a dialogue.

Frustrating, hurtful, not heard, rabbit trails, personal attacks, off topic, extremely looong monologues,  strawman arguments, dismissive, condescending.  These describe bad dialogue, which I am not interested in.  You can agree with someone and still have bad dialogue.

  A few reasons I think this blog is necessary:

1)  Everyone wants to be heard.  You may not really care to hear about this journey from us.  If we write the journey here then you have the option of listening or not - it's up to you.  If we were to try to talk to you about it in person, you may feel trapped in a conversation.  Conversely, you may have some things that you want to say to Athena or I about this journey;  things you feel we should consider, things you think we have wrong, feelings you have.  Athena and I want you to feel heard and we want to consider points that you consider important.

2)  Conversations regarding faith are difficult.  Sometimes the time, the place, the people present, or the time available do not facilitate a meaningful conversation.  In my experience conversation about difficult topics in the faith veer into things like:  somewhere it is written, I don't know where, and I am paraphrasing, and I am taking it out of context, and my comment is not really related to what you just said, and I am angry, and I need to get home, and my Buddhist brother-in-law here is bored with this conversation so he is about to introduce some eastern philosophy into the mix.  My hope is that a blog format will allow both us and you to fully articulate thoughts and ideas, and to be fully heard.

3)  Time.  Thoughtful conversations take a good deal of time.  If you introduce an idea to me that I am not familiar with, I probably need a little time to soak it in and mull it over.  The blog format allows us to introduce and respond to multiple lines of thought independent from each other, and perhaps after a good deal of time has passed during which we have thought through something.

4)  Rules.  We can have rules here.  And they are listed on the right side of the page. 

In all honesty, I'm not 100% sure where all this will go.  I don't expect to be able to put a nice bow on this journal at the end and say "there it is...a complete guide to the truth about everything."   I'll probably put forward some wrong ideas and possibly come to wrong conclusions.  That's ok, I've been wrong before.  But I'm honest enough to say that it's possible that I'm wrong about some Protestant things right now.  I don't think it's necessary for a person to thoroughly research every religion to determine if it's right or wrong.   For us, circumstances were such and certain ideas expressed that have made it necessary for us to explore Roman Catholicism (to be described more fully in future posts).

I don't know how often Athena or I will post.  And I don't know how long this will take - perhaps we'll abandon the road to Rome tomorrow.  Athena or I will try to document the bridges we cross on the road, and provide an opportunity for you to give your thoughts in the comments.  I also don’t know if there will be any real dialogue on these posts. After some consideration I’ve decided that I probably won’t actively make any friends or family aware of this blog. So, mostly I expect I’ll be talking to myself. 

Finally, for those that don't know...I'm not that smart.  This blog is intended to be academic on a layman level.  I don't know Hebrew, Greek or Latin.  I am familiar with the Bible but still have things to learn.  If you have a doctorate in theology and would like to point out where I'm wrong...that's great, but I may or may not understand what you say.  I am beginning this path with a theological mix most easily nutshelled as Calvinist Baptist.  My intent is to take the Bible seriously, by which I mean that the 66 Book Protestant Bible is authoritative - I would not want to espouse a belief that goes against the Bible, and I would not dismiss any part of the Bible as inauthentic or corrupted.  (And yes, I am aware that there are different canons - but at a minimum I stand by the 66 Book Protestant Bible.)

On topic for this post:  Recipe for good dialogue.  Am I wrong sometimes.  When is it necessary to explore an idea further.

Love,
Paul