A Sketch of MSLN Education

I think one of the most important things that a religion can try to figure out is how to educate its young (and old). Arguably, personal transformation (becoming more holy, for instance) is a special case of education.

How would MSLN best be taught? I don't really know at this point, or feel like making even a simplified overview that might include the whole subject. But, I can write a quick sketch, and hope that in the future it can be filled out.

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In a way, this blog is an education in MSLN. If you can read English with enough proficiency, you can get a lot of ideas from it. But, I think ideas are the tip of the iceberg, and most of what matters is, do you apply the ideas?, do you intuitively understand the ideas?, do you accept the ideas?, and perhaps other things.

So, though I have worked as much as I have to explain things explicitly and conceptually, there are things which people need to understand, in order for them to even be able to accept, intuitively understand, and apply MSLN. Perhaps some people can read this blog "cold" and accept and intuitively understand, to some extent. But to deeply accept and intuitively understand requires deeper preparation or practice.

Certain traits favor success in being shaped by MSLN. This is not intended to be a complete list, but a few are: endurance, valuing truth (especially moral truth), and desire for reality. Each of these are things which are both valued and practiced to get the full benefit.

These do not have to be taught by believers in MSLN. They can be taught to anyone, including in secular contexts.

Working in the "upstream" values and practices that lead to MSLN is a wide field. These same values and practices should be "downstream" of MSLN. Perhaps there could be a loop where the downstream of MSLN feeds the upstream of it.

(So now it is important to try to figure out all of the upstream/downstream values and practices of MSLN.)

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How should adults relate to children? To some extent, children are different from adults and should be treated as different. But in other ways, they are the same as adults and should be treated the same.

Children should be respected. In the past, I've written about respect for young people in Rootedness and Respect, and without going back to read it, I think it at least gives an idea of how to treat children, although at the time I wrote it I had young adults more in mind.

The maturing, current maturity, and eventual mature state of children should be valued. These are upstream of valuing growing in holiness, being holy now, and eventually being completely holy (which, perhaps, could be the same as being completely spiritually mature). (In that, if children and their teachers value maturity broadly enough, that includes holiness, or if "maturity" is construed narrowly to be "maturity as recognized by secular people", at least that is a case of the broader maturity, where a person changes their values in order to better relate to reality.) Growing up should be seen as a good thing, in order to help instill a "that-which-brings-to-completion" toward what is perhaps in the end identical with being 100% in tune with God.

(Those are a few ideas of how adults should treat children from an MSLN perspective. That would be what MSLN might add to whatever standard people already hold themselves to when dealing with children.)