THE WORLD AND MOTHER AND CHILD

Turning the pages of the books containing various paintings, the picture that capture my imagination was that of a mother holding the baby in her arms tenderly. The painter was so resplendent to apprehend the gleam so apparent on the mother's face which unquestionably stemmed from the ardent tenderness she has for her angelic-faced baby while the infant wears that representation of fulfillment and comfort. The picture was not merely a pleasing sight for the eyes but also a disclosure of another magnitude of love-relationship takes place in this world.

Child-bearing is the turning point of a woman's life wherein a pinnacle of her essence is totally vindicated. The Hebrews considered that the greatest dissapointment that a woman could has was to be childless. For being childless was a loss of the possibilty of attaining an exceptional linkage with somebody. Mother and Child relationship is an imperishable emotional conjuction ever flourished between two persons. It commences even before the child left the mother's womb. During the conception, the child leads a sort of dependent occurence in the uterus, totally clinging upon the mother for nutrition, his survival, etc. On the other hand, the mother (while playing the "host" to the fetus, is proving purely her worth and eminence among the human species, and confirming submissively yielding in accordance with God's will) plays the sincere and benevolent host attending to the needs of her most wanted parasite. However, this affiliation between the two does not end when the body is born to face the world but more so, it only abided an imperishable relationship likely to develop between them.

Mother's love is the most authentic love that a woman can give to a human being. It surmount the excitement she felt for herself, because she denies herself totally by the danger she will undergo in giving birth to the child. For indeed, it is true that the other foot of the woman during delivery is embedded at the grave. But this risk is bravely met and withstand by the woman which confirms her love for her scion and to some women it is the fulfillment of her endearment to the husband, and still for some woman, specially the Virgin Mary, is an unambiguous evidence of her genuine love for God.

When an infant tumble from his mother's womb, he faces a world really different from his previous world. He is a total new comer to his mother's world and proximately feared everything. Everything that surrounds him must be a vast sea of mystification. But this terrible sensation within perish by the tender embrace of his mother's fingers and the warmth of her breast. As a child, he flesh out a certain attachment for his mother which ultimately evoked into trust and ending up on loving her.

In a large sense, mother's love for her child is a man's hilarous legacy to humanity. It is because of this love that a perennial of the mortal ways goes on and on. It is realizable that without this love man maybe diminish to the level of the animals which has been extinguished.

5 Patterns of Experience

As human beings we are very sensitive and receptive with the use of our senses to which information presents itself -- as if calling for attention -- thereby making us always open to information in our daily experiences. This information is always an interpreted datum which means that it is appealing to us with significance and is patterned in a certain way. This is what we call the patterns of experience namely: biological, aesthetic, practical, mystical, dramatic, and intellectual patterns of experience.

Biological Pattern of Experience

The biological pattern of experience is that which is basic for every human being. This pertains to food, shelter, clothing, drink, sleep or rest, self-defense, and care. All these are necessary for our daily living... the basics for survival... the essentials of life. Furthermore, they respond to our need for "health and strength, grace and vigor (B. Lovett)" in order to live and survive.

Aesthetic Pattern of Experience

This pattern of experience is our emotional experience which makes us feel good, enthusiastic, or joyful towards ourselves, others, and the world. This enhances our way of life, orienting us how to live in a human world where emotions and feelings vary. When we relate and interact with one another, we bring with us -- we generate -- we experience emotions. Lonergan says that "the personal drive for self transcendence is affective at its very core... giving our intentional consciousness its mass and momentum, its drive and power." This pattern is essential in the way we relate to things and persons; the way we make choices and act upon them; and the way we live life with all its ups and downs.

Practical Pattern of Experience

Practical pattern of experience guides us how to deal and act in a particular situation that we are confronted with. We are directed by this pattern of experience not only to enable us to act and accomplish but also and most importantly to enable us to act appropriately and reasonably according to what the situation demands. This is important because everyday, we are confronted with myriad situations (which may also involve both our biological and aesthetic patterns of experience) in which we have to know how to surpass in order to live and survive.

Mystical Pattern of Experience

This pattern of experience explains that our life is not all about the movements that occur in relation to oneself, to others, and to the world. We also, amidst actions, withdraw from them and revert to silence because we feel the need to communicate to and with the Divine. This pattern of experience is vital because we believe that everything we have come from and is sustained by Someone who is in our midst, enabling us to live with meaning and purpose at all circumstances. Furthermore, this is important for the fact that when we are in touch with the Divine, we are also becoming in touch with ourselves and with others, and gain strength to face the ordeals that we encounter.

Dramatic Pattern of Experience

This shows what we are as persons by what we do. The way we relate is who we are. Our choices and actions demonstrates what we value, believe, and understand; how we look at life, people, and creation; and how we relate to God. The way we live sheds light to our very being and uniqueness.

These first five patterns of experience, all showing who and what we are, belong in the category of common sense. They point to how we relate to ourselves, to others, and to the world -- as well as how we perceive others and the world in relation to us. They are primarily directed towards our needs as persons -- as human beings. They are important because they basically are concerned with how we live with our human needs.

Intellectual Pattern of Experience

This concerns our attempts to understand things, situations, events, people, and the world as they really are and as they relate to each other. Unlike the first five patterns of experience, this moves towards understanding the truth which is or may not necessarily be similar with our needs. This is the act of human understanding which makes us go beyond our needs, beyond what our senses receive, beyond our satisfaction towards understanding our desires and their meaning in our lives. According to Lonergan this is the "heart of the matter".

This pattern of experience does not belong to common sense rather, it embraces them. It helps us correlate and comprehend the different patterns of our experience. We begin to ask significant questions in our desire to understand what lies beneath our experience, its truth, its meaning, its value -- which will eventually lead us to a wider perspective; to a new horizon; to a reasonable judgement; and to actions rooted in values, reality, and truth.

Having known all these, we will be able to choose what is good with freedom and responsibility.





Link to another post:
Why do we call something beautiful?

Why Do We Call Something Beautiful?

Look at the three paintings below. Which among the paintings by Monet, Renoir, and Van Gogh had a greater personal impact? Which of the artworks do you think is the most beautiful?

Why do we call something beautiful? To answer this question, we may say that it is when we see that we learn to appreciate and call something beautiful. We may have appreciated each of the paintings' color and texture or maybe the paintings have brought out in us various feelings that enabled our minds to wander into the scenes suggested in each of them. But is it really in seeing that we call something beautiful? What about blindness or deafness? Are we limited if we are without the senses of sight and hearing? Still the question stands.

Beauty is described as that which delights the senses or exalts the mind. I do believe that things are interpreted beyond what is perceived solely by our eyes especially when it comes to judging things aesthetically. I must say that blindness as well as deafness, do not impair one's abilities to call something beautiful -- for what makes something beautiful is not identified exclusively with its appearance but also with the sound or the taste it produces. Furthermore, beauty is manifested in various textures, scents, and other myriad characteristics which brings us sensations. A blind man can still feel and with the texture of one's skin and the shape of one's face, he can call something beautiful.

I remember asking a friend about what sense, among the five senses (sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell), would she choose if she is entitled to only one. Without a thought she replied, "my sense of taste". When I asked why, her reason was, "because I am French!" It made me realize that food, to some people, could be more than something we ingest to survive. For my friend, food is music... food is painting. A bad meal can ruin a night just as a bad music can ruin mine.

If for one person, beauty can be standardized and can be experienced only by the sense of sight, he is talking about the beauty of the ego and not of the self. A kind of beauty that fades and is rather superficial, not the kind of beauty that pleases one in the moral sense.

I believe in the evaluative theory of philosophical aesthetics... beauty is indeed, in the eyes of the beholder.

Link to another post:
5 Patterns of Experience