which human persons are the most valuable?

while all of the values, below, emerge ordinarily in a natural progession, each remains a supremely valuable encounter of reality (world, self, other and God) when God-purposed but can suffer various degrees of perversion when otherwise-purposed

1) value our body & simple pleasures w/no inappropriate shame, guilt, fear

2) value our tribe w/no tribalism, set boundaries w/no inappropriate barriers

3) self-critical thinking, emotional sobriety, moral awareness & social responsibility emerge

4) meaning emerges with more tolerance for ambiguity and engagement of paradox

5) desire for deeper authenticity emerges as one engages one's shadow

6) deeper realization of one's radical dependence on grace emerges inviting a more profound trust of and surrender to grace w/no rejection of reality and a gentle acceptance of imperfections

7) emergence of intrinsic reward system with embrace of truth, beauty, goodness and unity for their own sake

8) emergence of deeper realization of unitive realities through growth in reality's intimacies

9) emergence of deeper realization of unitary reality through experience of reality's radical interconnectedness

each of these values are realized throughout life (from childhood through senescence) in varying degrees, transvaluing one another and deepening under optimal formative and transformative conditions, each assimilated without subjugating (disvaluing or devaluing) the others as we cooperate with grace (both aware and unawares)

because human personhood has an absolute intrinsic value, each of these values already enjoys a certain supremacy and their progressive appearance is thus more accurately described in terms of earlier vs later, temporally, rather than lower vs higher, axiologically, as each person responds to a unique call to various types of wholeness and holiness, which is realized much more so via one's in-corporation into the corpus christi than by, for example, complete maslovian self-actualization, jungian individuation, lonerganian conversion, piagetian cognitive development, kohlbergian moral development, eriksonian personality development, fowlerian faith development, wilberian integrality, keating's consciousness development, jungian individuation, sanjuanian contemplative ascent, teresian way of perfection and so on

human development and growth are thus valued less for the extrinsic worth of their associated attainments and more so for the intrinsic worth of each discrete moment of cooperation with grace, each act of surrender to reality with trust in providence and submission to transformation, surrenders that then occasion the growth we exhibit, growth thus more so ensuing and less so a result of our pursuing

it is thus much more the manifold and multiform docile movements of the will in these moments of our cooperation that magnify the Lord ( ad majorem dei gloriam) and gift us with beatitude and much less our development, growth and attainments, in and of themselves

human value does not decrease or increase from infanthood through old

age (or differ from person to person) although our human value-realizations may variously multiply in their polydoxic form and substance, polypathic style and content, and polypraxic essence and expression vis a vis our unique part-icipation in reality, as we each do our own indispensable part in community wherever, whenever and however we are called to belong, not taking equality with god as anything to be grasped at (whether a baby, a downs syndrome adult, an einstein or a mandela, no matter our gender, sexual orientation, creed, ethnicity or socioeconomic status)

becoming childlike, ergo, does not risk regression or pre-trans fallacy, at least not to the extent we are talking about the human will, such as when we pray in the litany of humility that others may become more holy (and whole) than us, provided we become as holy (and whole) as god desires

all theology thus entails a theology of dis-ability, of the differently-abled, as not even proficients in the spiritual life begin to approach the perfection of the godhead, as we are, instead, made whole in our belonging via our participation

this in no way makes us indifferent to the human journey with its growth trajectories but places same within the context of giving and receiving glory through that ad majorem dei gloriam (agapic, what's in it for god & others) and beatitude (erotic, what's in it for us) that ensues from our ongoing cooperation with grace, following the gentle coaxing and polite prompting of the spirit, who invites each to our unique place of utter fulfillment, perhaps even bearing our wounds after each of life's many resurrections and thus giving witness to the transformative gifts that were freely given and graciously received by any who would simply say yes, again and again and again to reality's paschal rhythms

it's all there in the magnificat and in the psalms and in the life of the little fellow from assisi

this reflection, like so many on this site, was adapted from engagements of the life's works of Brian McLaren, Richard Rohr, Thomas Merton and Amos Yong and further inspired by thoughts of John Thatamanil and others in the philosophic traditions of Scotus and Peirce