Being Alone Together - A Community of Solitudes
The Journey Toward An Undivided Life
Welcoming the Soul and Weaving Community in a Wounded World
Parker Palmer
"Let the person who cannot be alone beware of community. Let the person who is not in community beware of being alone." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Simultaneously - we need solitude and community to check and balance what we learn in the other and together they make us whole, like breathing in and breathing out....
Solitude = does not necessarily mean living apart from others, rather, never living apart from one's self. It isn't about the absence of other people - its about being fully present to ourselves, whether or not we are with others...
Community = does not necessarily mean living face-to-face with others, rather it means never losing awareness that we are connected to each other - not about the presence of other people, but about being fully open to the reality of relationship, whether or not we are alone...
Space = we can create a space between us that is hospitable to the soul, a community of solitudes where we can be alone together....spaces designed to welcome the soul and support the journey are rare
Community too often means in our culture a group of people who go crashing around the woods together scaring the soul away, from congregations to classrooms we preach and teach, assert and argue, claim and proclaim, admonish, and advise and generally behave in ways that drive everything original and wild into hiding....intellect, emotions, will, ego may emerge but not the soul.
Circle of trust = know how to sit quietly 'in the woods' with each other and wait for the soul to show up....we are not pushy but patient, not confrontational but compassionate, not filled with expectations and demands but with abiding faith in the reality of the inner teacher.
Unconditional love = people who help us grow toward true self neither judge us to be deficient nor try to force us to change, but accept us exactly as we are...it surrounds us with a charged force field that is safe enough to take the risks and endure the failures that growth requires - drawn forward by love into our own best possibilities....
Relationships = in a circle of trust combine unconditional love with hopeful expectancy, creating a space that both safeguards and encourages the inner journey....and we are freed to hear our own truth, touch what brings us joy, become self-critical about our faults, and take risky steps toward change - knowing that we will be accepted no matter what the outcome.....amen.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Wee Ariana's Blessing
Our Open Hand tribe invites you all to the blessing of Ariana Powell on Sunday, 28th of June at the Reynolds home. We will have a pitch-in bria /feast and everyone is welcome to begin the festivities around 5:00ish (a bit earlier than usual for those with infants and toddlers).
A Medieval Celtic Anointing Prayer for wee Ariana
Thou Being who inhabitest the heights
Imprint Thy blessing betimes,
Remember Thou the child Ariana Powell of our tribe,
In the Name of the Father of peace;
When the community of the King
On her put the oil of anointing,
Grant her the blessing of the Three
Who fill the heights.
The Blessing of the Three
Who fill the heights.
Sprinkle down upon Ariana Thy grace,
Give Thou to her virtue and growth,
Give Thou to her strength and guidance,
Give Thou to her flocks and possessions,
Sense and reason void of guile,
Angel wisdom in her day,
That Ariana may stand without reproach
In Thy presence. Amen!
The first anointing is in the name of the Father, representing wisdom,
The second anointing is in the name of the Son, representing peace,
The third anointing is in the name of the Spirit, representing purity.
A Medieval Celtic Anointing Prayer for wee Ariana
Thou Being who inhabitest the heights
Imprint Thy blessing betimes,
Remember Thou the child Ariana Powell of our tribe,
In the Name of the Father of peace;
When the community of the King
On her put the oil of anointing,
Grant her the blessing of the Three
Who fill the heights.
The Blessing of the Three
Who fill the heights.
Sprinkle down upon Ariana Thy grace,
Give Thou to her virtue and growth,
Give Thou to her strength and guidance,
Give Thou to her flocks and possessions,
Sense and reason void of guile,
Angel wisdom in her day,
That Ariana may stand without reproach
In Thy presence. Amen!
The first anointing is in the name of the Father, representing wisdom,
The second anointing is in the name of the Son, representing peace,
The third anointing is in the name of the Spirit, representing purity.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
"Mid-brain Crisis"
I have noticed over the past few years that several of us middle age folks have experienced what I would call a 'mid-brain' crisis as opposed to the more common garden variety 'mid-life crisis'.
Modern science shows us that the body-mind connection is very powerful and active, especially in the middle age of human life. Jung called this crisis "an updraft from the unconscious" seeking some type of resolution in what he called the 3rd stage of life. Something stirs (growls) and we become irrationally motivated by the hidden mid-brain to seek a resolution to the mysteries that make us each unique. For some unknown reason these unresolved and hidden hauntings and abrasions that are uniquely part of our biology find a way to work themselves upward into our conscious awareness via the cortex. But then what?
Following quickly comes the pain, the infection, the discomfort, the crisis. I guess we are naturally wired as human beings to finally process (or not) this extreme body ache that accompanies our deep remembering (awakening). This invisible gravitational field that pulls us into unexpected and often unplanned orbits is not to be denied and you can see it in the very biology (body language) of the one so moved. It's as if the mid-brain is locked and loaded. I suppose its kind of like when an object in space gets too close to a gravitational force field and is sucked into a different orbit. There is no turning back.
Anyway, I don't know what I am talking about, but Jung did. The good news is that many of us don't deny the force field, but cooperate and go along for the ride, not knowing where it is taking us. We allow the neo-cortex (and our creative imaginations) to calm, collect and soothe the mid-brain during this jarring journey. The danger for some of us is that we impatiently get side-tracked into a mindlesss 'mid-life crisis' and allow the primitive brain to simply run wild like a naked two year old at the beach.
When we give ourselves and others permission to ride the currents of this updraft, the end result is often that we come home a changed person, more at peace, healed (somewhat), challenged (a lot), resurrected (unconscious brought to consciousness), and ready for life's next adventures.
The Chinese pictures for 'crisis' are two symbols - the first is the one for 'danger' and the second is one for 'opportunity'. Combined they tell the story of a person having a measured response (powerful words) to life's challenges and emerging from a cocoon environment to a rebirth. Amen!
I say well done to those who have been through this 'mid-brain crisis'. Nothing get easier in life, just our ability to be more fully present and accounted for. We may lose weight (and sleep) on this challenging journey, but actually become heavier. Space travel through strong gravitational fields has a way of adding mass while re-arranging our chemistry. We will never be the same......
Enjoy the Challenge,
O'
Modern science shows us that the body-mind connection is very powerful and active, especially in the middle age of human life. Jung called this crisis "an updraft from the unconscious" seeking some type of resolution in what he called the 3rd stage of life. Something stirs (growls) and we become irrationally motivated by the hidden mid-brain to seek a resolution to the mysteries that make us each unique. For some unknown reason these unresolved and hidden hauntings and abrasions that are uniquely part of our biology find a way to work themselves upward into our conscious awareness via the cortex. But then what?
Following quickly comes the pain, the infection, the discomfort, the crisis. I guess we are naturally wired as human beings to finally process (or not) this extreme body ache that accompanies our deep remembering (awakening). This invisible gravitational field that pulls us into unexpected and often unplanned orbits is not to be denied and you can see it in the very biology (body language) of the one so moved. It's as if the mid-brain is locked and loaded. I suppose its kind of like when an object in space gets too close to a gravitational force field and is sucked into a different orbit. There is no turning back.
Anyway, I don't know what I am talking about, but Jung did. The good news is that many of us don't deny the force field, but cooperate and go along for the ride, not knowing where it is taking us. We allow the neo-cortex (and our creative imaginations) to calm, collect and soothe the mid-brain during this jarring journey. The danger for some of us is that we impatiently get side-tracked into a mindlesss 'mid-life crisis' and allow the primitive brain to simply run wild like a naked two year old at the beach.
When we give ourselves and others permission to ride the currents of this updraft, the end result is often that we come home a changed person, more at peace, healed (somewhat), challenged (a lot), resurrected (unconscious brought to consciousness), and ready for life's next adventures.
The Chinese pictures for 'crisis' are two symbols - the first is the one for 'danger' and the second is one for 'opportunity'. Combined they tell the story of a person having a measured response (powerful words) to life's challenges and emerging from a cocoon environment to a rebirth. Amen!
I say well done to those who have been through this 'mid-brain crisis'. Nothing get easier in life, just our ability to be more fully present and accounted for. We may lose weight (and sleep) on this challenging journey, but actually become heavier. Space travel through strong gravitational fields has a way of adding mass while re-arranging our chemistry. We will never be the same......
Enjoy the Challenge,
O'
Monday, June 8, 2009
Measure of Faith
I am reminded of what Gerald may has written about faith and grace in his book entitled Addiction & Grace
"We always retain some spark of capacity to choose. We can use the ember of freedom to choose to risk ourselves in the goodness of God or to continue to strive for our own autonomy or to give in to the powers that oppress us. I am convinced that nothing whatsoever determines the choices we make at this primal level. Here, finally, the choices are totally up to us, we really are free.
....whenever we feel absolutely powerless, we have the most real power. Nothing is left in us to force us to choose one way or another. Our choice then is a true act of faith. We may put our faith in ourselves, or in our attachments, or in God. It is that simple.
....faith choices are enacted through the cellular activity of our brains, but they are not predetermined by that activity. There is no evidence that they are predestined in any way by other cellular patterns. Grace empowers us to choose rightly in what seem to be the most choiceless of situations, but it does not, and will not, determine that choice.
....for this reason, the purest acts of faith always feel like risks. Instead of leading to absolute quietude and serenity, true spiritual growth is characterized by increasingly deep risk taking. Growth in faith means willingness to trust God more and more, not only in those areas of our lives where we are most successful, but also, and most significantly at those levels where we are most vulnerable, wounded and weak. It is where our personal power seems most defeated that we are given the most profound opportunities to act in true faith.
....the purest faith is enacted when all we can choose is to relax our hands or clench them, to turn wordlessly toward or away from God. This tiny option, the faith Jesus measured as the size of the mustard seed, is where grace and the human spirit embrace in absolute perfection and explode in world changing power.
....true faith choices therefore always feel like risks; they just go on, involving deeper and deeper levels of our being. Each choice remains difficult; what really becomes conditioned in this process is simply our willingness and readiness to take the risks of faith. They never stop feeling like risks.
....the measure of faith, then, is the degree to which one is really willing to risk the truth of grace.
Amen!
"We always retain some spark of capacity to choose. We can use the ember of freedom to choose to risk ourselves in the goodness of God or to continue to strive for our own autonomy or to give in to the powers that oppress us. I am convinced that nothing whatsoever determines the choices we make at this primal level. Here, finally, the choices are totally up to us, we really are free.
....whenever we feel absolutely powerless, we have the most real power. Nothing is left in us to force us to choose one way or another. Our choice then is a true act of faith. We may put our faith in ourselves, or in our attachments, or in God. It is that simple.
....faith choices are enacted through the cellular activity of our brains, but they are not predetermined by that activity. There is no evidence that they are predestined in any way by other cellular patterns. Grace empowers us to choose rightly in what seem to be the most choiceless of situations, but it does not, and will not, determine that choice.
....for this reason, the purest acts of faith always feel like risks. Instead of leading to absolute quietude and serenity, true spiritual growth is characterized by increasingly deep risk taking. Growth in faith means willingness to trust God more and more, not only in those areas of our lives where we are most successful, but also, and most significantly at those levels where we are most vulnerable, wounded and weak. It is where our personal power seems most defeated that we are given the most profound opportunities to act in true faith.
....the purest faith is enacted when all we can choose is to relax our hands or clench them, to turn wordlessly toward or away from God. This tiny option, the faith Jesus measured as the size of the mustard seed, is where grace and the human spirit embrace in absolute perfection and explode in world changing power.
....true faith choices therefore always feel like risks; they just go on, involving deeper and deeper levels of our being. Each choice remains difficult; what really becomes conditioned in this process is simply our willingness and readiness to take the risks of faith. They never stop feeling like risks.
....the measure of faith, then, is the degree to which one is really willing to risk the truth of grace.
Amen!
Containing Anxiety
Under threat we act automatically. Survival is everything. We slide toward the immature side of the continuum. We are impatient. We blame, relieving our own pain by focusing it on others. We use either / or thinking. Stuck in our anxiety, we err on the side of shortsightedness. How can we shift to the other side of the continuum?
1.) Have a plan. (refer back to your core goals, strategies and structures)
2.) Express problems in terms of relationships / triangles. (be aware of emotional processes)
3.) Know and recognize what triggers anxiety in yourself and in your organization.
4.) Deal with anxiety as it surfaces at a conscious, responsive level (rather than merely reactive and instinctual behavior)
5.) Be willing to invest in your core goals, strategy and structures.
6.) Always be on the lookout and mindful of identifying strengths and resources available to you.
7.) Create options and imagine what could be. (infinite range of possibilities between extremes)
8.) Remain on the side of challenge (with the ability to tolerate pain, threat, sabotage)
9.) Follow the plan. (see point one)
10.) Ask questions.
Notes from Peter Steinke
1.) Have a plan. (refer back to your core goals, strategies and structures)
2.) Express problems in terms of relationships / triangles. (be aware of emotional processes)
3.) Know and recognize what triggers anxiety in yourself and in your organization.
4.) Deal with anxiety as it surfaces at a conscious, responsive level (rather than merely reactive and instinctual behavior)
5.) Be willing to invest in your core goals, strategy and structures.
6.) Always be on the lookout and mindful of identifying strengths and resources available to you.
7.) Create options and imagine what could be. (infinite range of possibilities between extremes)
8.) Remain on the side of challenge (with the ability to tolerate pain, threat, sabotage)
9.) Follow the plan. (see point one)
10.) Ask questions.
Notes from Peter Steinke
Friday, June 5, 2009
Religion without religion
....'Christianity exhibits the structure of a religion without religion. Belief thus has an important place; however, it is ultimately subordinate to the event that it points toward. The result is the idea that living within the event that is testified to in Christianity is more important than the affirmation that one is a Christian, or in other words, the event contained in the affirmation of God is more important than the belief in God.
There is an anecdote about the theologian Karl Barth that may help to clarify this idea. It is said that after a seminar one day a woman asked Barth if it was true that the serpent, spoken of in the Torah, literally spoke. In response Barth turned to her and said, "Madam, it does not matter whether or not the serpent really spoke; all that matters is what the serpent said."
Peter Rollins The Fidelity of Betrayal - Towards a Church Beyond Belief
There is an anecdote about the theologian Karl Barth that may help to clarify this idea. It is said that after a seminar one day a woman asked Barth if it was true that the serpent, spoken of in the Torah, literally spoke. In response Barth turned to her and said, "Madam, it does not matter whether or not the serpent really spoke; all that matters is what the serpent said."
Peter Rollins The Fidelity of Betrayal - Towards a Church Beyond Belief
Monday, June 1, 2009
Womenomics - Make More Money
Women Rule
New studies indicate that the female business management style is:
1.) Lucrative (not soft), transformational and essential for success
2.) Produces 1/3 higher returns on equities (companies with women in senior management)
3.) More cautious than men with a focus on long term (men take more risk/short term focus)
4.) Less competitive - consensus builders, conciliators, collaborators
Transformational leadership style = heavily engaged, motivational, and extremely well suited for the emerging, less hierarchical workplace of tomorrow.
Work world is evolving into a more fluid, more virtual structure with more demand from female management skills involving essential emotional intelligence skills.
WOMEN ON TOP: (education levels, purchasing clout, management style)
a. they receive more college and advanced degrees then men
b. they control over 80% of all consumer spending (electronics, health care, cars)
c. they know how to market to other women
Pioneering OPEN HAND Women - Create a female friendly working environment, in which the focus is on results, not on time spent in the office, efficiency (not schmoozing), getting the job done = however that happens best = in a 3 day week, at night after the kids go to bed, from Starbucks
FREEDOM & FLEXIBILITY - women know that giving employees freedom and flexibility increases productivity - allowing everyone to make more money.
Key to the Future = HIRE MORE WOMEN
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