"Obsessio, on the one hand, is the crystallization of deep need around focused imagery so powerful as to become a driving impetus toward satisfaction. Epiphania, on the other hand, is the congealing of those events which so function as hints that they give hopeful contours worthy of wager.
A theological World, then, is a preconceptual gestalt of meaning-feeling which, in picturing reality, directs behavior, shuns contradiction, and thrives on communal affirmation...
"All of us [i.e., humanity] are believers, so the issue at stake is not whether, but which metaphor functions as one's interpreting pattern. Reality provides no check beyond the power of one's convictions, in interplay with the parameters that shape one internally and externally. In this sense, we control, or at least permit, ourselves to perceive and feel in certain ways. Thus Dillard can insist, 'I see what I expect.' Seeing the gift of faith functionally in this way, we have a primal theological paradox: 'From a Christian point of view...truth is not something that we find or by which we are found, but something that we make true.' Faith is a gambling upon the future, a living 'as if,' with such intense commitment that one's life is the foretaste of making true the not yet. The proof of any faith is one's willingness to die for it - and thus to live within it."
W. Paul Jones
Theological World Metaphors:
Alien/Orphan - Separation and Reunion
Warrior - Conflict and Vindication
Outcast - Emptiness and Fulfillment
Fugitive - Condemnation and Forgiveness
Victim/Refugee - Suffering and Endurance
