The Spiritual Middle

The feeling of healing

What a beautiful coincidence! 

On the same day that Barack Obama gave his historic speech on race in Philadelphia, German Chancellor Angela Merkel addressed the Israeli parliament (speaking in Hebrew as well as German).  Each of these speeches sought to reach for a more genuinely inclusive understanding of who we are and how we are connected. 

Obama, referring to his controversial black minister and his white grandmother (who sometimes expressed racist thoughts) said "These people are a part of me. And they are a part     of America, this country that I love."  Merkel said "Germany and Israel are and will always remain linked in a special way through the memory of the Holocaust." 

I am glad Obama did not reject anyone -- as a person -- outright, for each unique but limited perspective is part of the whole.  I am glad that the language of German was heard in the Knesset.  But neither of these speeches, on their own, really got to me ... I appreciated them but did not really feel anything. But when I realized that they happened on the same day, in different parts of the world, well then I got it, the emotional wave that comes with the recognition of healing, that something new is trying to be born.

Here is an excellent analysis of Merkel's speech, as an act of healing and leadership, from The Daily Star of Lebanon.

 

The Founders

Addressing the murky world of separation of church and state -- I say murky because I don't think that religion and politics can ever be fully separated -- here is fantastic op-ed piece in the New York Times by Newsweek editor John Meacham.  He manages to do a good presentation of both the non-political nature of the teachings of Christ, and the expansive vision of the authors of the U.S. Consitution.  It's called "A Nation of Christians is Not a Christian Nation."

The New Boundary

While most Western countries are having fierce debates about immigration and naturalization -- fighting over who is in' and who is 'out' -- we are overlooking where the real modern boundary issue is:  the internet.  In the new country of the Internet, some people are digital natives and some people are digital immigrants.  This is not a division by nationality, ethnic group, racial group or religion; this is a division by age.   Children are growing up with access to the internet as something that is just part of life.  They know their way around it like a familiar country.  They know its customs, its pathways, its lingo.  Children are the 'digital natives'.  On the other hand, adults are the 'digital immigrants' -- we struggle to learn the language and rules and, compared to the upcoming generations, we will never feel like insiders.  It will never really be home. The nice thing about this immigration battle, however, is that it is truly transnational.  And even if we adults are the immigrants, there is no legal restriction to our citizenship. 

The "Talk to Everybody" Policy

The Bush administration has had a policy of ostracizing groups and states, such as Iran and Syria, that it deems to be terrorists.  As the New York Times notes today, this means that when it needs something from these states, it has no one to talk to.

Although the Bush administration has been extreme in this policy, it's a policy that appears in many different times and different administrations.  How many states have "refused to talk to terrorists"?  How many states have refused to talk to people on the other side of a conflict?  How many states have fudged this issue, choosing at times to take the moral high ground (don't talk to terrorists) and at other times, or at the same time, keeping some kind of communication going because it's the only viable option.

But I propose another way, and I suggest that world leaders institute this policy swiftly and unequivocally.  The new policy is:  We talk to everybody.  This has the advantage of being a simple, clear principle that is easy to explain in a soundbite.  It is wonderfuly absolutist.  It also takes the moral highground, but it is a rather different highground, and I would argue a higher highground than the "we don't talk to terrorists" policy.  It affirms that dialogue is the key to understanding, and that you may have to take risks at some times in order to dialogue. It also makes the opposite policy, "we only talk to some people" seem less and less tenable.  We could even go further and say that strong leaders talk to everybody; it is only weak leaders who don't.

This seems to me to be the only policy that can maintain a clear standard, a moral highground, and that is easy to apply and explain.  From this day forward, let us never recall an ambassador.  From this day forward, let's talk to everybody. 

Climate Change or Climate Crisis?

Every time I hear the phrase "climate change" I want to scream.  "Change" suggests something that we can adapt to relatively easily, as in the change of the seasons, or the change of a job, home or hairstyle.  The reality is that, even in the best case scenario, climate change will be enormously costly and dangerous.   

Just think of the ongoing disruption caused by Hurricane Katrina to the people of New Orleans, and imagine this kind of thing happening in many different locations at the same time.  Add to that all the costs of trying to prepare for and prevent similar catastrophes.  Right now in Britain, there is  talk of building new trainlines to replace a number of sections of track that are perilously close to the coast.  And that's a relatively predictable problem.

The term "climate change" is in fact a phrase that numbs or lulls us (which is why it makes me want to scream -- screaming being a restorative, healing reaction to psychic numbing).  I have recently heard the phrase "climate chaos", which is more accurate but  suggests confusion rather than disaster.  I prefer the term "climate crisis" or even better, if you don't mind the lack of alliteration,  "climate emergency".  There is a certain spiritual connotation to the word emergency, because it contains both the sense of danger and the sense of "emergence".  It conveys the reality that there is a real crisis, but that if we deal with it, something altogether new might emerge for the planet and its inhabitants.

Unity

" ... [If] our own environment is too diverse to allow a philosophical unity, it must find some symbol to express at least the desire for one."  -- Mark Rothko

Open Space as Spiritual Practice

In honor of Colin Morley, who died in the London bombings on July 7, I have decided to collect your reflections on how Open Space Technology can be considered a spiritual practice.

OST is a simple method of organizing--or should I say not-organizing?--meetings that has been used for everything from product design to conflict resolution.  Its primary discoverer, Harrison Owen, has said that people of many different spiritual traditions have told him that OST is consistent with the teachings of their own tradition.  So what's going on?  Is it possible that OST expresses and distils the teachings of many different faiths, in a way that might help us all to work and play together with more trust and love and better communication?   

I invite you to contribute here your own experience of how OST: 

• helps you (or your group) develop spiritually, or
• reflects the teachings of your spriritual tradition.

To do this, just click on "Comments" below.  Please give specific examples, if you can, and a quotation from a spiritual text or teacher would also be great. 

Ultimately, I will compile all these and see what we've got.  Thank you!

Colin Morley

My friend Colin Morley died in the London underground bombings of July 7, 2005. 

Colin and I met online, in a listserv, less than a year ago, and then met for dinner in London.  It was one of those rare times when you meet someone with whom you can travel to many different dimensions and they all connect. 

Colin and I shared an interest in organisational development and Open Space Technology but mostly what we talked about were his explorations in Holotropic Breathwork.  Colin had recently had some profound mystical experiences--he was reeling from them a little but also profoundly opened and fascinated by them.  He'd also become very interested in the sacred geometry of Lynnclaire Dennis.  I can only hope that Colin's mystical experiences made his terrible transition a little easier. 

What struck me most about Colin was his genuine humility.  He was just so thoughtful and curious ...   

Colin encouraged me and helped me to set up this blog, and was the first person to comment ... so if you're reading this, thank Colin. 

Thank you, Colin, and Godspeed ...

Did you hear the one about Bono and the Bible Belt?

It's no joke.  Here's what Bono said, in an interview in the Guardian, about his meeting with Jesse Helms:

"Christ only speaks about judgment once and it's not about sex but about how we deal with the poor, and I quoted Matthew, 'I was naked and you clothed me, I was hungry and you fed me.' Jesse got very emotional, and the next day he brought in the reporters and publicly repented about Aids. I explained to him that Aids was like the leprosy of the New Testament."

This shows an ability to transcend difference in lifestyles and culture, and an ability to express the true heart of spiritual teachings, of a very high order.  Bono gets my "spiritual middle" lifetime achievement award, just for trying.

The Smile Center

There's an extraordinary article in the Guardian today called Surgery that made me smile, in which Parkinson's sufferer, David Beresford, describes how Deep Brain Stimulation, a method of electrical activation of the prefrontal cortex (like a pacemaker for the brain) had some unintended consequences:  it made him smile more, laugh more, and feel happier.

This raises the issue (again) as to whether emotions are "just" biochemical, or if there is still a role for a non-material "mind".  But I'd just like to point out that this area of the brain is close to what yoga calls the brow chakra (ajna), also known as the "third eye" in other mystical traditions.  It's associated with insight. 

Now let me share an experience I had several years ago during a Holotropic Breathwork session.  After a grueling few hours, clearing a lot of old confusion and emotional baggage, I was sitting upright in a meditation posture.  Internally, I was experiencing what seemed to be a very rapid energy exchange between a point in the middle of my brain and a point at the top of my head, as if they were connected by a line of light.  It seemed as if the brow chakra (me) was in seamless, wordless, lightening-speed communication with the crown chakra (God).

Only then did I become aware that I was smiling--a big, unconscious grin.  I wasn't aware of being happy, nor was I "thinking" about anything pleasant.  I was just absorbed in communion with the Divine, from brow to crown and back again, and the natural consequence of this seemed to be ... a smile.