The lack of posts on this blog for over a year would appear to indicate an absence of presence and engagement – far from it!
Praxis requires such a focus, at times that opportunity for written reflection is limited – whether through scarcity of time or through the diversion/concentration of all one’s creativity demanded by the task in hand.
The dictionary tells me that the term ”praxis” is the word used to describe the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, embodied, or realised. “Praxis” , it goes on to explain, may also refer to the act of engaging, applying, exercising, realizing, or practicing ideas. It has meaning in the political, educational, and spiritual realms.
It is not simply action based on reflection. It is action which embodies certain qualities. What might these qualities be, I wonder, in this place of cultural, faith and economic diversity in which I live? Respect for others; Empathy: Hospitality of space, conversation and spirit, which reaches beyond the comfortable and the known; Humility; and a Commitment to be consistently holding out Hope for all.
It occurs to me that praxis, in this context, involves an element of risk: the meeting people on the margins; the possibility of rejection; the crossing over borders/boundaries of experience and ideas; the stretching beyond ones own horizons hitherto met; the reaching forward to the possible/projected future – which attempts to inspire new ways of thinking, doing and of being.
Praxis is creative, it is other-seeking and dialogic – and in these characteristics, as well as in the qualities and the risk entailed I see something of the Godhead displayed.
*Title quote Carl Sagan.