Seeking Higher Ground

By Don Poole

Ever wonder why your thinking gets sidetracked and confused? This book addresses many assumptions we make that can lead to confusion and misunderstandings about the world and our role as Christians in the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Mar 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9781973657149

Don Poole

Don Poole uses an informal writing style which combines depth in thinking with a modern vernacular to make connections from Scripture to modern life. He is a retired science teacher and educational consultant. Don has traveled extensively around the world and has led numerous small groups in Bible study, and personal growth, since 1970. His previous book, Seeking Higher Ground has been well received.

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Copyright © 2019 Don Poole.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version.

ISBN: 978-1-9736-5715-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-5714-9 (e)

WestBow Press rev. date: 3/19/2019

CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction   Three Thinking Patterns

Chapter I   Sources of Assumptions

Chapter II   All or Nothing Thinking

Chapter III   Emotional Thinking

Chapter IV   Anthropomorphic Thinking

Chapter V   Seeking Higher Truth

Abbreviations

Appendix I   Propaganda

Appendix II   What is a Miracle?

Annotated Bibliography

PREFACE

As Wesley says in "The Princess Bride;¹ No one of consequence." I am a retired teacher, in his seventies, and I taught science for 28 years straight. I was a trainer of teachers and administrators for 13 years after that. I went to many foreign countries to train teachers and administrators in the ‘break-away’ Soviet Union. I have traveled to such faraway places as Mongolia and Kazakhstan. I have taught thinking skills in the International Baccalaureate Program. I have been an observer of human behavior for more than seventy years. I have a masters degree in science education and an EBD (Everything But Dissertation) for a doctorate degree. However, one of my sons has one. (Does that count at all?) So, I guess, I really am someone of ‘no consequence.’ I am not an expert in any field. I am sure I don’t want to be one. Too much pressure.

When I was a public-school teacher, I was what they used to call a ‘constructivist.’ In other words, I was very interested in what was going on in a student(s) mind when they did not understand an idea or concept that I was teaching. I would ask them questions in order for me to more fully understand their thinking process. You see, I believe that everyone ‘constructs’ their knowledge in a different way. That each one of us is unique in that construction of knowledge. Hence, a ‘constructivist.’ This uniqueness is what I believe gives us our creativity that we can share with the world. What I learned from my life experiences is that people tend to ‘fall’ into thinking patterns that are destructive of their behavior and their world view. Some of these patterns are more dangerous than others. Concepts that I have learned to question in our culture you may find highly questionable about me. Some of these are: cuteness, simplicity, sentimentality, patriotism, just to name a few. Some of you are probably thinking: What could be wrong with ‘cuteness’ or patriotism or simplicity? Just you wait.

You may be thinking that the title for this book is rather a lot to handle; Higher Ground and the like. But don’t get me wrong, I am not providing any higher truth in this book, that part is up to you. I am just attempting to level your playing/thinking field so you can seek the higher truth. Hopefully I can provide some insight into your thinking patterns to become tools for your thinking. My attempt here is to help you think in what I think are more constructive ways about the world around you.

I have watched friends in my life go down thinking paths that have cut them off from ‘reality’ (What a concept! Thanks Robin Williams). This thinking put my friends in ‘Scrooge’ like places in their lives (Thanks Charles Dickens). I hope you notice that I am using metaphors in this introduction that take you down a thought pattern just by their mention. Our minds are very quick to learn. We search for patterns in the world around us, so we can make ‘sense’ of it all. The problem is that we often jump to conclusions about these patterns we have discovered. So then, some of us end up down a path of thinking that leads to our own personal version of reality. And more problematic, we don’t question how we got there.

By now, you have noticed that I use the punctuation ‘’ often around a word. When I do that, my purpose is to let the reader know that the word with this punctuation around it has several meanings depending on the context used, and/or the word has an emotional ‘charge’ on it. By emotional ‘charge,’ I mean that the word has either negative or positive connotations to it, depending on your experiences. So then, how I am using a word with apostrophes around it means there are other contexts that the word has, but please use the one that I am inferring.

My writing style is a cross between ‘stream of consciousness’ and informal word usage. My English teachers tried to train me, but I resisted. However, I did enjoy their abilities at word-smithing (akin to blacksmithing²; hammering out a well-structured sentence!). I try to learn a new word each day, or review a word that I don’t use in my everyday vocabulary. One of my concerns in our present culture is the ‘dumbing down’ of our common vocabulary through such technological ‘advances’ as texting and social media, which have accelerated our use of a less extensive vocabulary. As George Orwell pointed out so clearly in his book: Nineteen Eighty-four (his book not the year!), when a culture has a small vocabulary, that culture is easily manipulated. This is true, I believe, because this small vocabulary forces the mind to think in a limited number of pathways. And the more pathways we have in our thinking, the more analytical and accurate we can be in our interpretation of reality. In another sense I am asking you to ‘repent.’ Now when you hear that term you probably think of a church service or a ‘revival’ meeting where you are asked to come forward and commit your life to God. That isn’t what I am talking about. I am using the word ‘repent’ in the original meaning: to think about the way you think. If you notice the word ‘repent’ has the suffix ‘pent’ in it that comes from the word pensive, meaning to think about something. Look it up. That’s another thing I do; ask you to ‘look it up.’ Don’t just take my word for something, explore the meaning(s) on your own.

My main objective in this book is to help ‘rein in’ the runaway thinking patterns that are causing much division in our culture, our America.

Some of you may note that my bibliography mostly contains books written some time ago. You might conclude that I am an old person caught in my past, and that may be true, but I am also a person who realizes that many good source books were written in the past, and remain relevant for today. My annotated bibliography contains what for me are ‘oldies but goodies,’ and I quote them in this book.

I have known that something was wrong in the American Christian churches for a long time. I just didn’t know what. When I spoke to ‘church’ members that were dividing themselves on the basis of ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal,’ I suspected something was wrong. When I talked with old friends who had no problem with America ‘getting even’ with terrorists around the world by resorting to the violence that had created them in the first place, I knew something was wrong. When I talked with ‘Christian’ friends of mine who were willing to vote for people who were immoral, crude and inflammatory, I knew something was wrong in Christianity. When my son (the pastor) and I both came to the conclusion that we did not want to be identified by the term ‘Christian’ anymore, because of its political football status, I knew something was wrong. Then I read the book Resident Aliens³. What is described in that book gave me a clear understanding of the problem. The ‘Church’ had become complicit in American politics and not the politics of Jesus. Both the ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ churches have been serving the needs of American politicians and they have become their ‘servants,’ and not the servants of the American people.⁴

There is a town in Maryland which has an American flag and a Cross alongside each other, on a hill overlooking the town. The cross and the flag are almost the same size. For me, this represented the problem in the American Christian churches. These churches have assumed that we could serve both God and country equally. They were both gods. One god occasionally demanded the sacrifice of our sons and daughters, the other only if they left the security of our country and became missionaries. As ‘Christians’ we had forgotten who Jesus was. He was our personal savior and not the Lord of our lives. The churches in America were relegated to a private religion, where it could not offer an alternative to the ‘world.’ Christianity dealt with ‘spiritual’ things, while America dealt with ‘reality.’ What American Christians fail to understand is that the universe is based upon ‘spiritual’ things.⁵

When I took a vow as a Christian (when I joined a church) I professed that Jesus is my Lord and savior. But, was Jesus really my LORD? I think not. The ten commandments begin with the commandment: "You will have no other gods before Me.⁶" Since Jesus is God, as a ‘Christian’ I should have no other gods before Him. Putting my country equal with God amounts to the same thing as idol worship. The problem is that I had been doing this for so long, that I didn’t even realize I was doing it. It had been ingrained in me since I first attended Sunday school and public school, as I pledged allegiance to the flag and a Bible verse was read before classes began.⁷ God and country had become equal gods in my mind. An assumption that I did not examine for over 70 years!

So, I no longer wish to be called a ‘Christian,’ but prefer to be called a follower of Jesus, or FOJ for short. As long as ‘Christianity’ is just a religion, it can blend into American society and its pastors and leaders can have TV shows, rather than going to jail, as they originally did in the early church. We have been ‘tamed’ and not a threat to the governments of the world, because we ‘support’ our politicians and nation. In fact, we have become nothing more than a tool in the hands of our politicians. The ‘conservative’ churches have hijacked God for their own purposes, and the ‘liberal’ churches have relegated God to a ‘personal’ choice (just don’t talk about it).

So, this pretty much defines for me what the problem is in American Christian churches. We must reclaim our position of being an alternative way to live, following the commands of Jesus and not the commands of our nation. We are to be ‘resident aliens,’ pointing to another way to live with Jesus as our LORD and savior.

I am not clear on how to refer to God in this book. So, I may use terms that may cause you to pause and question my thinking on how to refer to God. Since I believe that God is the Ultimate Being, I think God is better described by what God is not, then by what God is. I may use a term for God like ‘I AM.⁸’ I may use ‘I AM’ to refer to God, since God is present throughout His universe. I don’t use the term ‘I AM’ as way to make God less, but quite the opposite. Sometimes I use the term ‘He/She’ just to make a point. Please don’t take my usage as sacrilegious, that is not my intent.

Also, I use a lot of footnotes. It would be very helpful, that as you read my text, you attend to my footnotes as you go. They add further insight into my thinking.

I still remember vividly the night I presented our science curriculum for the parents at back to school