Loving to Know by Esther Lightcap Meek

This book proposes that we take as a paradigm, of all acts of knowing, the unfolding, covenantally constituted, interpersonal relationship. (Location 104)

Conversations are interpersonal exchanges typified by deep, indwelling listening, and then by a response in which the thoughtful participant creatively melds insights gleaned with others previously acquired. (Location 110)

I have in mind conversations in which the participants assume the posture of mutual submission with a loved and trusted friend whom each invites to speak into their lives. (Location 112)

Knowing, like any semi-automatic aptitude, can be misdirected, or, with practice, can become a fine-tuned skill. (Location 203)

Whatever is on the petals is not in the sphere of knowledge: belief, opinion, values, morals, faith, religion, emotion, art, body, practical application, imagination, authority, femaleness. (Location 322)

Interpretation stands in the way of facts. We see training in interpretation as important for getting beyond bias to facts. If interpretation were to be part of knowledge, knowledge would no longer be knowledge, people think. Nowadays it is widely held that everybody “has a perspective.” But what is generally (Location 334)

Newbigin is saying that Jesus the Truth must challenge and reshape our epistemological vision. To say that Jesus is the Truth should not depersonalize Jesus; it should “person” truth. Our understanding of what knowing is must come around to align with the Truth. Otherwise, our understanding of knowing will distort the Truth. It will prevent it from being heard, damaging self, others, world, church, and society in the process. My work to develop covenant epistemology can be seen as a response to Newbigin’s summons. (Location 974)

Dillard disputes the notion, deeply engrained in our default outlook: that reality is such that you can clear away all the “surface” appearances to get to a lucid core of the thing’s “true” nature and thus have gleaned complete understanding: “Nature is a fan-dancer and the fans come attached”—there is mystery all the way down, not some “inner core under the externals.” Its gracious self-disclosure never strips the real of mystery. (Location 934)

When I wrote Longing to Know, working from the muskrat text I identified commitment, patience, respect, and humility as virtues requisite to unlocking and engaging the real. (Location 944)

Fundamentalism reduces knowing to facts and thus cannot account for much of the rich personal dynamism of discipleship, reality, or truth. (Location 964)

Discipleship and religious formation are far better understood as a “being on the way to knowing.” (Location 983)