Good Conversation

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closer, conversation, curious, differences, different, good listening, judgment, listen, listening, Meg Wheatley, messages, relationship, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Turning To One Another

I’m up early to greet the day with Meg Wheatley’s book, turning to one another. (Yes, the title is written in all lower case letters – most likely to emphasize the desire to have a conversation of equality.) I haven’t visited this treasure for a long time but have been trying to live with its messages nonetheless. It all seems so timely now when, day by day, so much in the world seems so fractured. I don’t know why it called to me as I turned to set my coffee on my side table. Perhaps it’s the appearance of the book itself, skinny but tall and dressed in a coat of red and yellow on its spine. Here are the two paragraphs that wouldn’t let me go this morning.

I hope you’ll begin a conversation, listening for what’s new. Listen as best you can for what’s different, for what surprises you. See if this practice helps you learn something new. Notice whether you develop a better relationship with the person you’re talking with. If you try this with several people, you might find yourself laughing in delight as you realize how many unique ways there are to be human.

We have the opportunity many times a day, everyday, to be the one who listens to others, curious rather than certain. But the greatest benefit of all is that listening moves us closer. When we listen with less judgment, we always develop better relationship with each other. It’s not differences that divide us. It’s our judgments about each other that do. Curiosity and good listening bring us back together. (p.36)

 

 

 

 

 

Fear

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be not afraid, curious, end of life, fear, Hafiz, human, Meg Wheatley, perseverance, positive, present, spiritual tradition, Sufi, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

As often happens lately on Friday mornings, I sit down to write and wonder where the week went. Time seems to pass more quickly as we get older. People have told me that for years and I accepted it but now I know it from the inside. As a consequence of that thought, next comes a wondering about the stretch of life before me. How long will I be here? What will be my experiences, accomplishments, abilities? Will I maintain the health I have been blessed with? How will I face the end of my life?

To be honest, I rarely worry about the answers to those questions, primarily because I am trying to live in the present and because I trust that, whatever happens, divine grace will accompany me. I raise the topic today because of conversations I have had with older friends and with frequent reports of accidents and illnesses of others. As well, I opened Meg Wheatley’s book, Perseverance, this morning at random and the page that stared back at me was a reflection entitled Fear.

Normally I would shy away from talking about what are considered negative emotions because I prefer to stay in a positive mode of thinking, yet given the state of our country and my awareness of all the fear that is manifesting in personal and communal encounters lately I decided to read Wheatley’s comments and pass on what I found to be of value. As usual, I could just copy the entire entry – Meg Wheatley has a way of making good sense – but even the first few lines will do, I think. She says:

Fear is just part of human life. It’s so common that every great spiritual tradition includes the injunction: “Be not afraid.” If fear is this fundamental to being human, we can expect that we’ll feel afraid at times, perhaps even frequently. Yet when fear appears, we don’t have to worry that we’ve failed, or take it as a sign that we’re not as good as other people. In fact, we’re just like other people. Fear is simple evidence that we’re human. What’s important to decide is what to do with our fear…(p. 71)

The author suggests moving toward our fear, being curious about it, not asking why we’re afraid but rather investigating the feeling itself which can often dissipate the strength of the emotion in the process. Whether or not this is the way to proceed, my intent was simply to bring the topic to our consciousness for examination in our own lives, having been reminded that fear is, in fact, just part of living on earth. To conclude, I do want to add the quote that is a standard feature of every topic in Wheatley’s book, this one a short word from the 14th century Sufi poet Hafiz. It made me smile. He says:

Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Non-Denial

Tags

consciousness, curious, denial, distress, engaged, facts, guidance, inertia, information, intelligent, isolation, Meg Wheatley, messages, Non-Denial, open, Peace, perseverance, reality, responsible engagement, signals, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

I was thinking yesterday how easy it is from here in our lovely, peace-filled location in rural Upstate New York to ignore all the turmoil in the world and in our country. If I don’t wish to allow the distress into my consciousness, I can just avoid watching or listening to or reading the news and go about my days in isolation. While I know that is not a valid choice for me, it is occasionally a temptation. I was reminded this morning of my need to be awake and aware by a page from Meg Wheatley’s book, Perseverance, that I will quote below in its entirety as a call to all of us to resist the pull of inertia in favor of responsible engagement in whatever way we are able to contribute to raising the level of light in the world. (This includes a willingness to discriminate between “fake news” and truth.) The page is entitled Non-Denial. It is not a message to be read quickly and dismissed. I would recommend reading it, as I plan to, several times, and seeking examples from our own life of applications for the message.

Looking reality in the eye is an interesting experience. Often, people are startled to realize how much information they have been avoiding, and how much information is out there, waiting to be useful.

“Facts are friendly,” a psychologist once said, but most of us don’t see it this way. We move away from all the information that’s available, we retreat into denial. It’s the way we keep our world intact and avoid being challenged or threatened. If we can just hold onto our opinions and views, the world will continue to work just fine, thank you very much.

We get led into the practice of non-denial by failure and defeat. When we have no choice, we seem to get curious. When our back is against the wall, finally we’re willing to look at all the messages we had avoided. This isn’t a graceful process. But when we’re ready to open to the signals, guidance, and information that have been swirling around us, ignored and unnoticed, it’s amazing what we learn.

And it’s remarkable what capacities we develop. Absorbing these messages, we suddenly see things differently. We discover solutions not available from our former position. We experience surprise, sometimes delight, sometimes despair that we didn’t notice things earlier. But the end result is that we become more open, more engaged, and more intelligent.

We learn where we are. From here much more is possible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Being Disturbed

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beliefs, challenged, curious, disturbed, holidays, ideas, identity, Meg Wheatley, Turning To One Another

I probably should have said something gleaned from Meg Wheatley’s book, Turning to One Another before the holidays started since so many of us were on our way to gatherings during these days. If close to home, we are probably back in our own space by now, safe in our daily routines. For some, today may be a travel day, perhaps an unlikely time to be on the internet – unless stuck in an airport, of course. Anyway, I wasn’t feeling as if I had anything to say this morning that was worthy of note but, since I needed a companion for my second cup of coffee, I pulled Meg Wheatley off the shelf and opened to a section named willing to be disturbed. Although the entire section is worthy of note, the beginning caught my eye immediately. I will only submit to you the first paragraph and a short addendum but once again, I offer the book as one to review on a regular basis because her words are relevant, it seems, to whatever day we find them in – ordinary or not.

As we work together to restore hope to the future, we need to include a new and strange ally – our willingness to be disturbed. Our willingness to have our beliefs and ideas challenged by what others think. No one person or perspective can give us the answers we need to the problems of today. Paradoxically, we can only find those answers by admitting we don’t know. We have to be willing to let go of our certainty and expect ourselves to be confused for a time…

It is very difficult to give up our certainties – our positions, our beliefs, our explanations. These help define us; they lie at the heart of our personal identity. Yet I believe we will succeed in changing this world only if we can think and work together in new ways. Curiosity is what we need. We don’t have to let go of what we believe, but we do need to be curious about what someone else believes. We do need to acknowledge that their way of interpreting the world might be essential to our survival. (p. 34-35)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Big Love

Tags

bad news, big love, curious, engaged, example, humanity, Hurricane Matthew, listen, love, Meg Wheatley, open our hearts, pain, pray, quiet, reality of pain, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Turning To One Another, world

I am probably going to sound like a broken record today but in the face of all the “bad news” that greeted me when I turned on my computer this morning, I can’t help it. It would be easy to stay frozen in my rocking chair and figuratively “bury my head in the sand” knowing all the devastation of hurricane Matthew thus far in the Caribbean and anticipating “his” arrival in the United States or reading so many e-mails asking prayers for loved ones diagnosed with terminal diseases. I won’t even begin to talk about politics and the state of our nation! For solace I turned to Meg Wheatley. She quoted Sharon Salzberg’s concise dictum that I believe could solve everything if we could just intuit the depth of meaning in it and choose to embrace it fully. Salzberg says:

Only love is big enough to hold all the pain in this world.

She doesn’t say that love is big enough to minimize the pain or eradicate the pain or (God forbid) help us ignore the pain. She calls us to see that only in recognizing and being willing to embrace the reality of pain in our lives and in the larger world in solidarity with each other will we be able to endure. Meg Wheatley then adds, I think of a gesture of love as anything we do that helps others discover their humanity. Any act where we turn to one another. Open our hearts. Extend ourselves. Listen. Any time we’re patient. Curious. Quiet. Engaged…I feel we become more fully human through our generosity, when we extend to another rather than withdraw into ourselves. (Turning to One Another, p. 138)

It’s okay to start small. Read the news. Pray for one situation, one person to get better. Make a phone call to use your voice for good. Show up when it counts. Be a good example to a teenager. Get used to practicing until “big love” is the only way you can imagine living, even though it is not the easiest way to live.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good Conversation

Tags

acknowledge, conversation, curious, deeper level, family, gather, Margaret Wheatley, messy, recognize, remember, slow down, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, travel, Turning To One Another

I’ve been thinking lately, because of recent experiences in a number of situations, of the value of good conversation for deepening understanding and recognition of how similar we are, even in all our diversity. It wasn’t a surprise, therefore, when my copy of Turning To One Another, a book by Margaret Wheatley that I’ve had for years, showed up when I wasn’t looking. The book is subtitled “simple conversations to restore hope to the world.” This morning I read what might be a good reflection for those of us who are preparing to travel – near or far – during this Independence Day holiday time. Here’s some of what she said:

I first fell in love with the practice of conversation when I experienced for myself the sense of unity, of communion, that is available in this process…Although we each benefit individually from good conversation, we also discover that we were never as separated as we thought. Good conversation connects us at a deeper level. As we share our different human experiences, we rediscover a sense of unity. We remember we are part of a greater whole. And as an added joy, we also discover our collective wisdom. We suddenly see how wise we can be together. For conversation to take us into this deeper realm, I believe we have to practice several new behaviors. Here are the principles I’ve learned to emphasize before we begin a formal conversation process:

1. we acknowledge one another as equals
2. we try to stay curious about each other
3. we recognize that we need each other’s help to become better listeners
4. we slow down so that we have time to think and reflect
5. we remember that conversation is the natural way humans think together
6. we expect it to be messy at times.

If you have the opportunity to gather with others this weekend, especially with friends and loved ones that you don’t often see, (or even if you stay at home) I hope that you will remember the adage that “what is seldom is wonderful” and take counsel from Meg Wheatley in your time together. Safe travels, everyone.