troth

Defining troth

Troth is a covenant relationship with another where there is mutual submission to the other and transformation of each. loc 748 (page?)

We receive and encounter in fullness the other or the thing without trying to shape our mold the thing for our own purposes.

Parker Palmer discusses the importance of entering into troth with what you learn. This is letting what you learn draw you out into a response with your life. loc 922

This is the opposite of what we are taught today. We often think of the world and its objects as things that we study from a distance, removed from care for the thing because that enables us to be objective. When in reality we are shirking the duty that God has set before us to tend to the world and to each other. To enter into troth with what we are learning is to approach the object as a subject with care, to tend to it, instead of intend it for our own purposes.

Troth requires that we “respond with [our] lives.” loc 930

If we avoid this type of relationship with each other, with the earth, with what we are learning then humans have the tendency to enter into a dynamic of controlling, manipulation, and ultimately destruction.

If we become speakers of truth but fail to live our lives in submission to this truth then we will lose our way—we will lose our truth. loc 953

We are at our base desiring beings, we must either be shaped or shape the thing in front of us. Troth requires that we have respect for God’s great world and we engage with it in New Creation ways, instead of Old Creation ways.

Seeking truth by consensus: the roles of truth as troth: loc 1753

Our visions of reality differ from one another. To be a part of the community of troth means to honor those differences among us, to allow ourselves to engage with another’s truth and to be transformed by it, just as the other person will honor our truth and allow themselves to be shaped by our truth. loc 1771

Troth is a mutual relationship of transformation. One thing or person does not stand over another but honors the whole of the other and allows the encounter with the other to move them.

Questions

How do I articulate what happens when we don’t have troth?

spirituality of means vs ends?

This is related to [[integrity]] since when you speak or when you learn you also live that out in your life. You respond to the truth that you have received. You are not divided in your words and actions or in your learning and your actions.

How is troth different from integrity?

integrity is an undivdedness in how we speak and act, or how we believe and act.
- if there is a difference between how we speak and how we act that is indicating a difference between our stated (external) “loves” and our internal desires. So integrity would be matching our internal and external desires (in a positive direction). [[Human-as-a-lover]]
  - Can a person have integrity and be “bad.” Like their desires are bad and they desire those internally but also state that externally?
Troth is a relationship that we enter into with someone else in which we committing to respond with integrity to what we find and see in the other.

How is troth different than an Ethic of Risk?

an ethic of risk is showing us what responsible action is in the face of wicked problems.
troth is a relationship with others (persons or truths) that acknowledges how we intend to interact with the other—in mutuality and honoring vs manipulation and control.
The intent to manipulate and control is the same, troth is more about our relationship with others, and an ethic of risk is more about the types of actions we can take to pursue hope in the face of overwhelming odds…?
they are resonant concepts though…

Significance of troth

I think engaging with others in this form of relational commitment takes the blinders off of how we have controlled and manipulated others so that we are in charge, so we don’t have to change, so we can be in control. It reveals an another alternative to an Ethic of Control.

Statements

[[integrity]] Ethic of Risk New Creation

[[Unfettered by Mandy Smith]]

Links to this post

What Does It Mean To “Consume Content”? Why do we talk about "consuming content"? What does it mean? I argue that we are "consuming" when we approach a piece of writing or art to use it for our purposes instead of letting the work do something to us.