Thanks, Bill
I’ll leave you with something else I learned from Jesus
.
.
…[size=200]Awesome ![/size]
.
If there were a “post of the year award”, this would win it.
The washing of the feet and kneeling before the person is symbolic of taking on the role of the servant. I don’t see it as an empathetic act so much as one of humility and compassion. But perhaps it is empathy too as empathy rises up in response to feeling-realizations of a shared human experience. In other words, not that that man is you - but upon looking on him - one realizes that “that man is me”. Compassion and empathy swim in the same waters - but empathy has swam in them before, where compassion has not necessarily been.
Volunteers in hospitals do any number of acts which can represent the washing of the feet - as in combing someone’s hair who cannot do that for their self thereby making them realize their importance and taking on the role of the servant.
Bill, I do not understand why you feel it would take faith to wash someone’s feet - unless you were speaking strictly about the foot fetish - which really was a foot fetish in my book. One does not necessarily have to believe in a god in order to place their self in the role of servant - they simply need to be moved by compassion and understanding. Anyway, does having faith disregard one’s health and hygiene, even though having faith does often disregard reason and logic? If that really was a religious practice, I’d find another.
Perhaps it is in the washing of the feet because one necessarily has to lower one’s self at least in a physical sense if not so much in a mental one; that is, unless one does have true humility. Then it takes on the sumbolism of connectedness and solidarity.
.
[size=124]
Washing of the feet and kneeling before the person is symbolic of taking on the role of the servant. I see it as an empathetic act and one of humility and compassion. Empathy rises up in response to feeling-realizations of a shared human experience. Compassion and empathy swim in the same waters - but empathy has swam in them before, where compassion has not necessarily been.
Volunteers in hospitals do any number of acts which can represent the washing of the feet - as in combing someone’s hair who cannot do that for their self thereby making them realize their importance and taking on the role of the empathetic servant.
One does not necessarily have to believe in a god in order to place their self in the role of servant - they simply need to be moved by compassion and understanding. Having faith does often disregard reason and logic.
In the washing of the feet one necessarily has to lower one’s self esteem in a physical sense & a mental one. True humility takes on the symbolism of connectedness and solidarity.
As to those frightened members who post here at the forum; Do not fear,for I am here.[/size]
…
.
So, Bill, what was that image about. Explain it. I do not pray.
.
[size=124]The last image that I used is a headshot of a woman praying.
Praying is a bit experiential…meaning I’m not sure explanations do the act itself justice.
When we pray we ask the right side of our brain for mercy…because our linear self is deftly inadequate to cope with our experiential reality.[/size]
…
.
Bill,
I would also call praying more “experimental”. People do not always have the faith and hope that their prayers might point to.
I would imagine that people experience all kinds of feelings/emotions as they pray…both negative and positive ones. Some praying may even get those endorphins going, like when someone exercises…or like when they eat sugar. I suppose that praying may amount to the same thing in some brains. I learned recently that when one eats a lot of sugar, the brain actually lights up…it glows. Being a bit of a skeptic, not sure how true that is but it may just be and that would be more of a negative thing though in this case…the brain glowing from all of that sugar. 
True, prayer is largely, except for that prayer which is only and simply in praise and gratitude - a coping mechanism, another tool we humans use to stifle our fears and/or to have an excuse not to be autonomous creatures. Of course, I do realize that this is also being human. We are a process.
I find what you say though about the right side of our brain asking for mercy…can you explain that a bit. It sounds interesting.
Oh, I also got a kick out of your last image. Now that is a man who either doesn’t have the courage of his convictions or his life is simply a SNAFU in general.
.
[size=124]
Our intellectual function is at once our blessing and our bane.
In general, symbolically, the right side of the brain is the side that is non-linear.
When experiencing life from the right-side of the brain we are, perhaps, able to perceive our experience in a wider, possibly more timeless vantage point.[/size]
…
.