Unity - Our Polar Star

Each week I enjoy an e-newsletter from Joan Chittister's Benetvision. Today, the thought she shares really struck a note with me. For Disciples of Christ, Unity is our polar star. Yet, I have never heard anyone speak to unity as clearly as this passage. In a fragmented world, in a fragmented church, we need to seek this kind of unity. One that hears all the voices and one that is not afraid to change and re-establish unity when times change. As the DOC go through a new time, help us to work through these unifying principals. Thank you Joan, your wisdom and observations are right on, as usual!

Unity Is Seeking Out Differences

Unity is more than solidarity and more than uniformity. Unity, ironically, is a commitment to becoming one people who speak in a thousand voices. Rather than one message repeated by a thousand voices, unity is one message shaped by a thousand minds.

In times of great social change, as now, in times when the very foundations of life are in threat of collapsing, as now — when the very nature of life and death, of spirit and matter, of mind and body, of technology and people — are in question, the temptation is to avoid the ambiguities of the future by requiring the institutionalization of the past. Then churches tell people what they can think and governments tell people what they can’t do, the courts make law and the military makes weapons. Then everything is made to look united again, but nothing really is.

The kind of unity that is born out of differences and becomes the glue of a group has four characteristics: it frees, it enables, it supports, and it listens. A group that is genuinely unified is a group that has freed every member to be themselves. In fact, the truly united group knows that every idea, every voice, counts in the process of idea formation.

Without the collection of ideas, no consensus is possible. Then the group is reduced to the kind of compliance that wilts in the noonday sun.

Then we begin to hear: “Well, I never thought it was a good idea in the first place.” Then we know that even at the height of its power, underneath it all the group lacked heart.

For the freedom to ask questions without reprisal in the face of contrary concepts, sing alleluia. To seek unity means that enabling people to speak without fear and without hesitation must become the cornerstone of discussion. Ideas must be sought out. Answers must be elicited. Hesitations must be defined. Cautions must be honored before unity in diversity is possible. But when it comes, sing alleluia because then all the talents of the population are wholeheartedly engaged in the enterprise.

For a people to know unity they must also know the support that comes when people who speak another truth are as respected for that perception as they would have been for agreeing with the majority in the first place. I can only give myself to a group that not only tolerates my differences but seeks them out. That way, when a decision is finally forged out of the fire of differences, there is no doubt that it carries within it all the passion the group has to give.

Finally, unity depends on listening, not only to begin it but also to sustain it. No decisions are made once and forever. No unity can be perpetual if it revolves around a changing center. No good thing can be guaranteed to stay good throughout time. It is so easy to make an idol out of a time, a place, a decision, a group that once was united but now, in the light of another, newer day, is not.

Then it is time to begin again. Then the unity must be tested and reshaped. It is a very holy process, the search for unity. It is an alleluia moment made for eternity but welded and rewelded by time.

–from Uncommon Gratitude (Liguori) by Joan Chittister and Rowan Willliams

Today's reading

I read many things each day. Today I read two very different articles, but taken together and read one right after the other really got me to thinking about our world. The first I read was an article about the 5 traits or secrets of innovators. They are "skills they labeled associating, questioning, observing, experimenting and discovering". Hal Guergen, the man behind the study says this:

"What the innovators have in common is that they can put together ideas and information in unique combinations that nobody else has quite put together before.

The researchers describe this ability to connect ideas as "associating," and say it's key to innovators' ability to think outside the box. But they add that the secret to how the great innovators think is the way they act.

"The way they act is to observe actively, like an anthropologist, and they talk to incredibly diverse people with different world views, who can challenge their assumptions."

and

"All these behaviors are powerfully enhanced by a capacity to ask provocative, challenging questions of the world around them."

And, Marc Ventresca, a lecturer in strategic management at the University of Oxford Saïd Business School, and he agrees that innovation is not an inherent trait, but a set of skills that people can learn. He says:

"Data says that people who have more varied connections hear more diverse information, and see patterns before other people," he told CNN.

"They are able to put together something they hear from a conference they were at last week with a briefing they're at tomorrow and come up with a new idea."

The goal is not simply knowing lots of people, but knowing people from varied backgrounds, who work for different companies, in different industries, have different skills, and deal with different issues, so that you are exposed to varied ideas."

So, having contacts and a network of people from a variety of backgrounds, jobs, places, educations, etc. is the catylist of innovation. It is the variety of input, along with the ability to observe and experiment with the information they connect that makes them come to conclusions or create new ideas before others.

Now, having read that, One of the next emails I opened had a link to another article from the Washington Post's "On Faith" blog. Here Patrick J. Deneen tells of his recent visit to a museum to see the treasures of an extinct culture when they were at their peak. His thoughts took him to monoculture and how it can make systems susceptible to an outside threat that can wipe it out, quickly and completely. Here are some of this thoughts:

"Nature abhors monocultures. Nature abhors them so much that they do not exist in accordance with nature. They would be unknown but for modern man.
A monoculture is a single form of life - or, by extension, a single culture - that exists over a large expanse of space, even globally. Nature abhors monocultures because they are so susceptible to annihilation by one agent of destruction. In plant or animal life, for example, a single virus or bacteria, a single destructive fungus or disease, a single hostile predator or pest would wipe out an entire monoculture without the barest resistance. It is the very nature of nature to avoid monocultures - indeed, it cannot be otherwise since any form of monoculture cannot long exist in nature. Life in the natural realm is manifold and varied, precisely so that some life will weather the inevitable deadly challenges that arise.
It could be posited that modernity is defined by the introduction of monocultures."

He cites three major areas at risk: politics, finances and economy. He goes on to say:

We live at a moment of monoculture's triumph - and demise. Around us is the evidence of the near-total victory of monocultures in nearly every field of human activity, at the same time that the recklessness and fragility of monocultures comes ever more fully into focus.

And then gives examples in agriculture, finance and higher education. How we have homogonized and brought into conformity many aspects of our lives and world. He states:

In these three cases - and one could offer many more - the potential for failure is acute. We have come to believe that the very extent and expansiveness of our form of global culture has made us less susceptible to systemic failure of the sort that eventually led to the demise of those many cultures whose detritus I viewed in the museum in Santiago. In fact, we are moving toward ever greater possibility of overall, general, and systemic failure as a whole.

and:

At this moment especially we should be protecting actual diversity - bio-diversity, financial diversity (i.e., local markets) and educational diversity in the name of local, regional, religious and pedagogical traditions (rather than being blinded by the monoculture-based claims of "multiculturalism"). Yet, at this moment we are apt to cling to our modern faith in the logic of monocultures, even as the news seems to be undeniable that nature hates monocultures, and nature will not be indefinitely denied.

So, to be the most innovative, we need to be multi-cultural, have a large group of diverse friends and aquaintences, and understand multiple world (and dare I say, religious) views. But the key is learning to observe all of that, ask questions, determine where associations can be made, and connect the pieces into a new, innovative idea that we are willing to put out there and test.

My questions come in several aspects:
1. The social media phenominon. We are able to stay in contact with a multitude of people we have met over our lives with facebook, twitter, myspace, etc. These contacts ("friends" "followers") have a multitude of backgrounds, and social media give us a wonderful way to continue our relationship with these folks. We can observe their ideas, their lives, their faith and we are in a unique position (each one of us because we each have a unique list of friends/followers) to draw new, innovative ideas about living in our life. How can we capitalize on these connections to learn the art of innovation?
2. The Inter-faith movement. While contacts and relationships across religious divides expose us to that variety of diverse cultures, I think we will need to be careful to cultivate both the relationships, but also our own uniqueness. It comes down to some of the thoughts of Disciples founder, Alexander Campbell, that we can live in harmony with and love our neighbors even if we have a different set of beliefs about our faith. How can we cultivate relationships across multi-faith lines without diluting our own faith/religion into a mono-religion puts the Church at risk as much as society and culture is at risk on the financial, political and educational fronts?
3. Our lifestyles. How can we cultivate the diverse contacts in our own lives? How can we work to value and support a multi-cultural world....in all aspects of our world? Will just putting it on our "radar" start the process of circling the wagons around the amount of diversity (which seems to be declining)we enjoy in our world now? And, how do we encourage our children and youth to value a multi-cultural, multi-economic, multi-faith world rather than the Post Modern mono emphasis we are seeing?
4. Our individual faith. How do we integrate the relationships with a multitude of cultural, faith, economic, educational and political spheres? Will solitude become more important in the listening, observing and associating processes that stimulate innovation in our personal faith? How do we see this process as inspired by God?

Lots of questions, and many answers for me to listen, observe, associate, question some more and experiment with. I hope you will join me in this quest.

Redemption

Written at Buffalo Mountain Camp, October 2009 during an outdoor quiet time in a misty rain.


The wind carries to my cheeks elusive, gentle kisses saying "I love you".

The sky gives forth her cleansing shower, a slow baptism of redemption.

Refreshed, my once parched soul suddenly sees it's not just my redemption,

but all that is around me.


Lorette Waggoner

Three Simple Rules

In October, I'll be heading to Buffalo Mountain Camp and Retreat Center in Jonesborough, TN. I'll be taking my fourth course of five I need to take to earn a graduate certificate in Camping and Retreat Ministries from Drew Theological. It's titled Biblical Foundations of Camping and Retreat Ministries. One of the five books I'm reading in preparation is a small volume titled "Three Simple Rules, a Wesleyan Way of Living". Whether or not you are Wesleyan, this little volume could radically change your life. An Amazon.com reviewer said:

"John Wesley espoused three simple rules: Do No Harm, Do Good, and Stay in Love with God. Though these rules sound amazingly simple - and they are - yet to actually practice them may indeed be the hardest thing you've ever done. This small book shows how difficult the instructions of Jesus (and Wesley) can be in real life, and yet how rewarding they can also be both in this life and in the life to come, if we simply take them to heart."

Do no Harm, Do Good and Stay in Love with God. They are really simple rules. It's authentically living by those rules that is the hard part. But think about how our world would be a different place if everyone followed these three rules. Think about how your world would be changed by even just you implementing these rules in your life.

There is the crux.

Yes, we can change THE world, but we need to start with OUR world. How we relate to others and our environment (do no harm, do good) can make a difference in our lives. By following these rules, we have impact on other lives. Rule three makes it all happen. Stay in Love with God. If we love God and God's creation (each and every thing in it), then we can't help but do no harm and do good. It takes the focus off ourselves, and puts it on others. How can you act that will not harm another? More proactively, how can you act to do good to another? So, rather than asking or looking for the way the situation can help you....the focus is on to do good for others (and other things) and to not harm them.

As the author, Reuben Job, says:

"Holy living will not be discovered, achieved, continued, and sustained without staying in love with God. And while staying in love with God involves prayer worship, study, and the Lord's Supper, it also involves feeding the lambs, tending the sheep, and providing for the needs of others (John 21:15-16).

I think putting this practice in my life will take a lifetime of conscious living and loving. It will take a lifetime of contemplative listening to God for direction and leading. And, it will take a lifetime of Love of God, others and creation. The time to start is now. I hope you will consider joining me in this life-long quest to live by Three Simple Rules.

The Tribe

Yesterday I posted about the group of independent world leaders who have come together to be "the Elders" of our world. To speak out for truth and peace, and against issues that cause human suffering. Today I read and listen to a video clip by Seth Godin about tribes posted on the Intersection, a networking site supported by Disciple World. Tribes and Elders. Hum. It always amazes me how ideas like these two come to my attention at the same time. Even though they have nothing to do with the other, their method of creating change is the same.
One of Godin's comments stuck with me. Churches have their own tribes. It's one of the first tribes we have belonged to (along with tribes of work, play/sports, etc.). I began to look at my membership in tribes. Who do I support with my interest, my time and my voice. I was surprised at the number of tribes I am part of. Church related, real estate related, outdoor ministry related, ecology related, education related, gender related...and again, some of the sub-tribes of another. Our access to each other on various networking sites is phenomenal. I belong to several "tribes": Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, the Intersection. Plus within those tribes there are smaller groups of people who have common interests.
Godin's final challenge is for each person to do some introspection and decide what issue is most prevalent in their life and to organize a tribe for it in the next 24 hours. Difficult challenge.
I wonder how many Churches look at their "tribe" that way. What is their most important issue and how do they build a tribe around it.
The next item I read in this juxtaposition process is a familiar quote (or at least part of it is familiar) by Hippocrates:
Ars longa,
vita brevis,
occasio praeceps,
experimentum periculosum,
iudicium difficile.
Which translates (for those of us who don't know latin): Life is short, [the] art long, opportunity fleeting, experiment dangerous, judgment difficult.
Godin says that we humans try to change everything, we find a part of the status quo that is wrong and we try to make big, important change. We connect with others, non-professionals, people with passion about what needs to be changed. Historically change was created first with factories, if you have enough labor and materials you can create change. Then with mass-media where "big brother" told us what toothpaste to buy and what items we needed or groups we needed to belong to in order to have a good life. It's a top-down model. Spamming is the newest of these mass marketing processes. We are now on the cusp of a new way to create change...by leading and connecting people and ideas. This concept of connecting people with similar ideas and concerns is fascinating, especially in the Internet age. Now it is tribes that can change our world, not because they are forced, but because they want to connect. With the internet we have new ways to connect that are not limited by geography. Godin says that what we now do for a living is to find something worth changing, then assemble tribes, who assemble tribes to spread the idea until it becomes a movement.
Now, back to that Latin....Life is short....do it soon (24 hours), the art Long...the amount of time it takes to learn your art (see Malcom Gladwell's Outliers where he says it takes 10,000 hours of a pursuit to become a master), opportunity fleeting....well, that speaks for itself and judgement difficult...what is truly an important issue that needs changing.
Even though we as people THINK we have important individual issues that require change, the Elders are finding common issues for people all over the world and are beginning that grassroots process of bringing the tribes together to effect real change. Having an Elder (Jimmy Carter...see yesterday's post) decide to change his tribe (the Southern Baptists) because it is too ensconced in the Mass Marketing/communication/top-down process to change is a difficult judgement. I'm glad we have these Elders, who aren't afraid to seize the opportunity before it is gone to make our world a better place. I hope our Churches find their voice and follow suit.

The Elders

This week, President Jimmy Carter broke his long-standing membership with the Southern Baptist Church. In his statement he mentions that he is a member of "The Elders". I went to their website and was delighted to find out about this wonderful group of people who have taken on being elders to the world. Their stated mission is: The Elders are an independent group of eminent global leaders, brought together by Nelson Mandela, who offer their collective influence and experience to support peace building, help address major causes of human suffering and promote the shared interests of humanity.

In the video clip about the group, Nelson Mandella, who called them together makes the statement; “This group can speak freely and boldly, working both publicly and behind the scenes. Together they will support courage where there is fear, foster agreement where there is conflict and inspire hope where there is despair.” They have no elections to win, they aren't committed to any particular outcome of the issues they address. Their most recent concern is equality for women and girls. Taking this stand as an elder, brought President Carter to the realization he needed to make a statement about his own denomination and their treatment of women.

In his statement he says:
"This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. It is widespread. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths."
and
"At their most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities.
The impact of these religious beliefs touches every aspect of our lives. They help explain why in many countries boys are educated before girls; why girls are told when and whom they must marry; and why many face enormous and unacceptable risks in pregnancy and childbirth because their basic health needs are not met.
In some Islamic nations, women are restricted in their movements, punished for permitting the exposure of an arm or ankle, deprived of education, prohibited from driving a car or competing with men for a job. If a woman is raped, she is often most severely punished as the guilty party in the crime.
The same discriminatory thinking lies behind the continuing gender gap in pay and why there are still so few women in office in Britain and the United States. The root of this prejudice lies deep in our histories, but its impact is felt every day. It is not women and girls alone who suffer. It damages all of us. The evidence shows that investing in women and girls delivers major benefits for everyone in society. An educated woman has healthier children. She is more likely to send them to school. She earns more and invests what she earns in her family.
It is simply self-defeating for any community to discriminate against half its population. We need to challenge these self-serving and out-dated attitudes and practices - as we are seeing in Iran where women are at the forefront of the battle for democracy and freedom."

Wow. I have always really liked Jimmy Carter, I got to shake his hand when he passed through Eugene when I was just an 18 year old and preparing to vote in my first election. I voted for him both times he ran for President. His work with Habitat for Humanity and his own Carter Center have always impressed me. This stand for equal rights for women and girls just reinforces that admiration. Thank you, Jimmy and the other Elders, for your stand to help my gender.

What is important in life...

Today I went to Portland to be with my family as my brother-in-law and sister-in-law attended the final court hearing in the adoption of their son, Jonathan. Each time we are together, I realize how lucky we are as a family. We all get along. We all have stable marriages. All of the kids grew up (or are growing up) normal, healthy, intelligent kids (don't let it go to your heads!). The hearing was sandwiched between the hearings for several young kids who were being tried for theft, burgulary and criminal mischief. The judge was gregarious and seemed to really enjoy herself. She seemed amazed that we would drive up from Eugene (110 miles) and that Grandma would fly over from Boise, for this simple, push the paper kind of proceedure that many adoptive parents don't even attend. She asked the cousins if they thought it was a good idea for her to allow Jonathan to be adopted. She asked Jonathan if he wanted to be adopted (he actually kind of answered her....kind of surprised her). And she asked Beth and Jan-Willem if they really wanted to adopt this child. I'm sure those are common questions she asks of each party in a case, but I got the feeling that she was doing it more for posterity's sake. She already could see the answer in the room full of people.
Welcome Jonathan to the Waggoner/Beldman clan. You are one lucky little boy, and we love you!