An answer to a question is what a new-born is to an egg? It begs another egg - not because it has failed to answer adequately, but because it has answered excellently.
Dunamis
Hey Ucc,
There is a bit of metaphor in the inward/outward statement, but mebbe later… In fact, might could be another thread.
Go easy on that eastern stuff. It’s a slippery slope, and you could end up being as incoherent as… well, maybe just fuzzy headed. 
JT
Hi Tab,
Dunamis, what are we going to do with this guy? He is dangerously close to making a profound philosophical statement. C’mon Tab, sober up. Do you suppose that Jesus might have been saying to live life in unconcerned faith (thank you Angel) instead of living life as life?
JT
Tent,
what are we going to do with this guy? He is dangerously close to making a profound philosophical statement. C’mon Tab, sober up. Do you suppose that Jesus might have been saying to live life in unconcerned faith (thank you Angel) instead of living life as life?
I don’t know about you, but I find Tab very philosophical. As to what Jesus was saying, it makes one wonder if he knows anything about lilies (or human beings), or if he likes to paint pretty pictures of each.
Dunamis
Dunamis questions:
Well, all the possibilities are ever in play, and assigned meaning is never the reality. Still, I sorta like my take on it. I’d rather find inspiration than hopelessness. But that’s just me. 
JT
Isn’t the lilies analogy really the question that Hobbes, Rousseau, and others, talked about? What is man in the state of nature?
The cut lilies placed in a vase indicate a natural thing kept alive in an unnatural state. Rousseau basically proposed that humans were better off and generally healthier without the sickening effects of society. Voltaire wrote a story complimenting this idea called Ingenious (which had to be the inspiration for Tarzan).
Meanwhile, Hobbes proposed that man is naturally a wild animal that is best tamed through involvement in a civilization. So, let’s say a house plant, is much more likely to survive longer than a plant growing out in the wild that is subject to all kinds of chaotic conditions.
The lilies in the field analogy might be fitting to describe the lifestyle of a group like the Amish. I’m from Pennsylvania, so I’m pretty familiar with them. They attempt to avoid as much “civilization†as possible by adopting an 18th century mode of living. The lifestyle might be to keep them as close to the state of nature (the field) as possible. Thus, they will be closer to “god’s will†that I suppose is represented by natural occurrences.
So, I think that the original question is about where humans are better off.
Ad,
It’s an interesting take, the issue of socialization and it’s effects, but I think the allegory is more about the ego abstracting itself away from the processual universe. A seeing of one’s self as ‘outside’ and wanting to control the uncontrollable. Jesus seems to be saying, relax and just live with no concern. If God is capable of providing for a simple flower, how much more so, a man?
Of course, Dunamis may be right. Jesus might have just been commenting on the beauty of a particular flower. It’s rather difficult to get into the head of a man/god that lived 2000 years ago, and so we finally must project meaning with no assurance of any connection with reality. So your explanation is as plausible as the next.
As with all allegory, it invites opinion, of which we all are capable.
JT
Yes, however, when I read your post the “state of nature” question jumped right to mind. Whatever Jesus was I don’t know, but according to the theme, I would assume that he woulf be pretty concerned about how humans approach life.
The lillies comment also reminds me of a Taoist approach to nature and the human role in it. I recall reading that one should even enjoy a tumor as they are part of nature and a potential part of you. Things happen to lillies in the field that are both good and bad. If one knows that then one can live without anxiety. Perhaps, that’s the message.
It seems to me that many religions/philosophies of living, when they are at their best, seek to limit anxiety and so limit suffering. If there is a god it makes sense to me that he would want people to calm down and enjoy what he created.
Ad,
Yes. The convergence of such concepts is in many ways, striking. If one takes in the ‘philosophical’ concepts from about 1000 BC (vedantas) to perhaps 200 AD (Christianity), one finds much similarity in understanding. There was a great ferment of thought all throughout India, Eurasia, China, and Greece.
Historically, it seems to correspond to the movement from nomadic to city dwelling, where the shamanitic wisdom of common culture and oral tradition began to be codified and refined.
Whether philosophy and religion has gained or lost from the continued ‘refinement’ of these early philosophies is an interesting question in itself.
JT
who will tend the lilies, when there are no farmers left?
Who will tend the lilies, when we are all city dwellers?
We’ll have to leave it in god’s hands. we’ll be incapable.
I think people can relate to what you’re saying if you don’t talk about them directly
For example, if you know someone with a hygiene problem you could tell them a story about the celery with bad odor, that all the other celery sticks didn’t want to hang around. It’s often less insulting than outright telling someone they stink.
Same way with godliness, it’s less insulting to tell people that god takes care of the beauty of all the lilies, then to tell someone they spend to much time worrying about the little things in life, like whether they’ll make the payment for their Chevy Compensator on time, etc.
Tent,
I’d rather find inspiration than hopelessness. But that’s just me.
Why is Daddy not sweeping down and watering the flowers and dressing them in pretty clothes hopeless?
Dunamis
Adlerian,
Isn’t the lilies analogy really the question that Hobbes, Rousseau, and others, talked about? What is man in the state of nature?
This is the essential motif/trope of the figure. The idea is that there are some things that man does that are “unnaturalâ€, whereas everything that a flower does is “naturalâ€.
Dunamis
yes, but this idea is absurd on its face unless one perverts the meaning of “natural”
-Imp
I’ll try.
There is nothing “natural” outside of an idea, which in turn is not possible without mind. Anything we describe as “natural,” be it a rock, a bird, a beer-bottle, whatever, is a meaningless thing in-itself. It does not bear either quality and is totally inert.
The idea, “natural,” will be tautologically demonstrable but not nonredundant- “all things are natural”, “all naturals are things.” This is always true and therefore it is an irrelevent description.
The mind’s conceptualization of “natural” involves higher level metaphors out of reach of the faculties of logic, as, you see, the concept “natural” would be reducible to a tautological truth, and therefore without a negation, its concept would be impossible to conjur in the mind. This is to say that things by themselves do not exist in a theme of “natual” as a series of facts in the world which words designate. We do not ever see a purely “natural” event…in the sense that without a negation we would not be able to appeal to an unnatural event and would certainly understand the absurdity of the concept itself. Why allow for the concept “natural” to exist if there were no “unnatural” conceptual possibility as well?
If nature was everything then everything would be nature and we’d merely have another name for everything.
I believe that there is something more. “Nature” is more like an archetypical anthropological theme that is imbedded in language and cultural paradigm. When we consider something to be natural or unnatural, we are creating that concept by comparing circumstances with ideologies.
A tribes-man in Indonesia would call an automobile unnatural much sooner than Johnathan Williams Fredrickson the third, from Chicago. But both are right, insofar as the ideation of “nature” is only a conscription of a theme paradigm within language and phenomenology.
Dunamis,
Nice twist, but not what I was suggesting. What happens IS life. Watered and dressed in pretty clothes? Parched earth, dead leaves scattered to the winds? Coming into to being and returning… flowers humans, suns and planets, all.
Hopelessness is attempting to stand outside ourselves vainly attempting to “know” as if more and more knowing will somehow allow us to control the comings and goings of being.
JT
Tent,
“What happens IS life.”
There is no way around it. If what happens is life, then “stressing” IS life, as is cutting a bloom and putting it in a vase on a table. Those too would be our “colors”.
“attempting to “know” as if more and more knowing will somehow allow us to control the comings and goings of being.”
This too would be our “colors”.
Dunamis
Yes, Dunamis. and at some point there is no movement in any direction. All movement creates it’s opposite, and that too is a part of. And that is transcendant awareness, the shedding of self and self realized.
So, what would you like to do?
JT
Tent.,
Yes, Dunamis. and at some point there is no movement in any direction.
You do seem rather concerned with “movement”. Perhaps that is part of the “issue”.
So, what would you like to do?
I’m really not sure what this question is supposed to mean. But it does strike me as having a touch of spiritual arrogance to it. Perhaps you would like to elaborate.
Dunamis
Dunamis,
We’re both fairly good at tossing bait in the water…
Sorry, but this fish is done. Time to head for home…
JT
Tent.,
Alas when I toss bait, I can call it bait, and not “wisdom”.
That being said, this still is the fundamental contradiction within the “lilies of the field”, an implied “unnatural” state, and perhaps the idealization of certain others.
Dunamis