What Does Greatness Mean?

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Bill McKibben, collaboration, competition, cooperation, Meg Wheatley, partnering, smaller, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, trials, Turning To One Another

Chief Seattle had it right when he spoke about the web of life of which we are all part – not creators but just a part. Meg Wheatley speaks of the competitive world of Western culture in similar fashion. Here’s what I read this morning that strengthens my conviction that collaboration is what we need now.

One of the biggest flaws in our approach to life is the Western belief that competition creates strong and healthy systems. Television screens are filled with images of animals locking horns in battle or ripping apart their prey. It is true that in any living system there are predators and prey, death and destruction. But competition among individuals and species is not the dominant way life works. It is always cooperation that increases over time in a living system. Life becomes stronger and more capable through systems of collaboration and partnering, not through competition.

It helps to read the entire essay about relationship with the earth in which Wheatley makes her argument (turning to one another, pp. 102-111) but the above paragraph is enough to get me thinking of all the bad results of excessive competition in business, sports and the relationships of daily life in our time. In situations of trial (like the present weather systems’ destruction and mass shootings) it is the cooperation of neighbors and charitable groups that helps people to survive physically and emotionally making the difference toward rebuilding their lives.

Meg Wheatley quotes Bill McKibben to reference the shift that I hope we see now as the way to go. See what you think.

The story of the twentieth century was finding out just how big and powerful we were. And it turns out that we’re big and powerful as all get out. The story of the twenty-first century is going to be finding out if we can figure out ways to get smaller or not. To see if we can summon the will, and then the way, to make ourselves somewhat smaller, and try to fit back into this planet.

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Lighten Up!

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destination, direction, lighten up, Meg Wheatley, perseverance, perspective, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Today I have a list of tasks as long as my arm! It’s likely I won’t finish the day having crossed them all off my list but it always helps me to have everything laid out at the beginning so as not to forget something important. I smiled, though, as I read Meg Wheatley’s advice in her little book, Perseverance (p. 20) where she quotes publisher James Gimian who says, “If you can’t get destination, go for direction.”

Wheatley expands on that thought by suggesting a way to proceed. “We could lighten up,” she says. “We could go for direction, not destination. We could invite in what the world seems to want for us, what it is offering us right here, right now. We could enjoy what we’ll see and discover when we take off the blinders of non-negotiable destination.”

That sounds to me like the perfect way to shift our whole perspective on the day, wouldn’t you say?

Christmas Anyone?

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do my best, Meg Wheatley, perseverance, success, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

I have a Christmas cactus that doesn’t seem concerned about the rules. It never blooms anywhere near Christmas. I woke up one day recently and noticed that there was an incipient bloom leaning against and propped up by one of the longer branches of the plant. There was no place for it to go as it was connected to a three-sectioned stem close to the dirt that fills the pot. (I’m hoping a picture will clarify this unhelpful description.) I had no expectation that this flower would be able to bloom as it was not free to bow and unfold in space. I pictured it as a stillborn child that would die as it lived – tightly closed in upon itself. (Those of you who are familiar with Christmas cactus know that their flowers usually bounce at the ends of each branch in increasing beauty during their lifespan.)

This morning as I was seeking help from Meg Wheatley in her book, Perseverance, I looked up and saw the first unfolding of my sweet flower! I was reading about success at the time and had just stopped to consider the following thought: “Can you accept as a measure of success that you kept showing up, day after day, even when you weren’t feeling helpful or effective?”

I don’t know what tomorrow will be like for me or the flower but I do know that, for today, her measure of success has motivated me to show up and do my best in whatever comes my way.

Just an Idea…

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conversation, hopeful, ideas, Meg Wheatley, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Turning To One Another

Here’s a short “word” from Meg Wheatley that I read yesterday and heartily support. The question is whether or not you or I will take it to heart and act upon it.

I hope we can claim conversation as our route back to each other, and as the path forward to a hopeful future. It only requires imagination and courage and faith. These are qualities possessed by everyone. Now is the time to exercise them to their fullest. (Turning to One Another, p. 5)

Could it possibly be as simple as inviting a few people to meet to “kick around a few ideas,” making sure that at least one of them is a creative thinker, one someone who follows through on ideas and one who is known to you but not yet in your circle of friends? When you meet, bring along the quote from Meg Wheatley and see what happens. I’d be happy to hear about your success.

Choice

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Buddhist, meditation, Meg Wheatley, noise, perseverance, silence, sound, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

I just read something that I first thought quite amusing but then I began to think about it as something more than a whimsical quote from Meg Wheatley (see Perseverance, p. 102) and it became a challenge to my way of thinking that puts me at the center of things. Here’s what I mean.

I love the times like yesterday afternoon when everyone who lives in our house is home doing whatever we do in an atmosphere of silence. It’s a very peaceful feeling of a communal spirit. (Ironically, some geese just flew by outside cackling wildly to disturb the morning silence.) I’m not saying I long for the days of enforced silence for most of our waking moments, but hearing the hammering of carpenters on our land or 18-wheel trucks zooming down the road can be disturbing. Then there’s the vacuum cleaner that makes me think I should be doing some household chore instead of reading in my room…but that’s another matter…and I digress. Here’s what I read:

A Buddhist teacher caught himself complaining about the loud party nearby that was disturbing his meditation. And then he had this insight. “Oh, the sound is just the sound. It is me who is going out to annoy it. If I leave the sound alone, it won’t annoy me. It’s just doing what it has to do. That’s what sound does. It makes sound. That is its job. So if I don’t go out to bother the sound, it’s not going to bother me. Aha!”

A Good Reminder

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choose life, life, Meg Wheatley, Sister Helen Kelley, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Turning To One Another

In what seems a difficult start to the new year in our country and in many places on our planet, I find solace and motivation in a quote I heard and held long ago. It is like meeting an old friend once again and recognizing still our deep connection. I thank Meg Wheatley for including it in her book, turning to one another.

“Choose Life – only that and always, and at whatever risk. To let life leak out, to let it wear away by the mere passage of time, to withhold giving it and spreading it is to choose nothing.” (Sister Helen Kelley)

Keep Going

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balance, clarity, encouragement, Meg Wheatley, perseverance, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, triumph, winter

Having been shocked into awareness of the impending season of winter with ten inches of snow last Thursday and waking up to frigid temperatures since that tell me it was no fluke, I am slowly acquiescing to what will most certainly remain for the next four or five…maybe even six months: cold and probably gray weather. I do not usually mind winter. In fact I sometimes glory in the crisp cold and the beauty of the winter wonderland provided by  snow-covered hills. I wonder if this year will be different or if this difficult start is a sign of change in my outlook as well as in an aging body. Fearing the worst, I turn for encouragement to Meg Wheatley’s book, Perseverance, and am once again called to a new way of seeing. The title is Clarity.

It can take many years of being battered and bruised by events and people to discover clarity on the other side of struggle. This clarity is not about how to win, but about  how to be, how to withstand life’s challenges, how to stay in the river. 

We never learn to triumph over life, but we can learn that every defeat, every problem, every terror is a teacher that prepares us for the next hardship. And we learn to expect that there are more difficulties ahead.

When this clarity emerges from our experience, what also emerges is trust in ourselves. We realize that we can cope and learn and grow from hardship and trials. We learn to accept difficulty and setback as part of life’s normal processes. We cease feeling threatened by most things…

The encouragement continues but, for now, that’s enough to get me ready for the day when I will get out the winter tires for my car, take them to the dealer to be installed and balanced and hope that I will proceed – balanced as well – back on the road that leads me forward.

The Human Spirit

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apartheid, courage, extraordinary, human spirit, Meg Wheatley, Nelson Mandela, prison, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Turning To One Another

Recently it seems counterproductive to watch – or even listen to – the evening news. The destruction from weather events is bad enough, but the way people are judging and treating each other around our country and in the world is unconscionable. We need more stories of courage to keep the light strong and our willingness to fan the flames of unifying love alive.

Meg Wheatley has a brief but powerful story that speaks to the power of the human spirit. She was touring Robben Island in South Africa where Nelson Mandela and others struggling against apartheid were imprisoned for over 25 years. She recounts the event as follows.

We were standing in a long narrow room that had been used as a prison cell for dozens of freedom fighters. They lived in close quarters in this barren room – no cots or furniture, just cement walls and floors with narrow windows near the ceiling. We stood there listening to our guide’s narration. He had been a prisoner in this very room. The cold came up through the floor into our feet as we gazed around the lifeless cell. We stared through the bars of the door as he described the constant threats and capricious brutality they had suffered. Then he paused and gazed down the length of the room. Speaking very quietly, he said: “Sometimes, to pass the time here, we taught each other ballroom dancing.”

She concludes: I have never forgotten that image, of demoralized and weary men teaching each other to dance in the cold silence of a long prison cell. Only the human spirit is capable of such dancing. (turning to one another, p.74)

All I see in my mind’s eye in the wake of that story is the face of Nelson Mandela on the day of his release from that prison – and again on the day that he was elected president of South Africa. His smile was so broad it lit up the world.

Let us think on these things when we are feeling bowed down. We say, “Yes, but he was extraordinary.” We need, rather, to turn to one another and draw the extraordinary out of each other – together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday Morning, Still In the Dark

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appearances, enjoying each other, judging others, Meg Wheatley, stereotypes, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Turning Toward One Another

This morning, another entry from Meg Wheatley – from a different book of hers:

Whenever we get past the categories and stereotypes, when we greet each other as interesting individuals, we are always surprised by who we are. I’m sure you’ve had the experience of stereotyping someone because of their appearance, and then being surprised when they didn’t fit that judgment. This has happened to me so often you’d think I wouldn’t keep labeling people – a laborer in ill-fitting clothes who talked to me about his love of Shakespeare, a youth with brightly dyed blue hair and body piercings who described his work teaching non-violence to young children, a factory worker who shared her poetry, a desperately poor village woman who invited me in to her immaculate one-room home. But still I am surprised. When will I be free of these categories that prevent me from enjoying who you are? (turning toward one another, p. 117)

 

 

 

 

 

Light In the Darkness

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Christianity, Cynthia Bourgeault, difficulty, Joko Beck, life, meaning of life, Meg Wheatley, patience, perseverance, spiritual practice, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, vow, wisdom, Wisdom School

Last evening we sat, a group of 12 seekers, to begin what is the last in a series of events that have taken place over the last six years in different places in the Northeast United States. We call them “Wisdom Schools.” Drawn first by the work of our teacher Cynthia Bourgeault to delve into the Wisdom Tradition of Christianity, we have joined an ever-growing network of people who choose spiritual practice as a discipline for deepening our living. Explaining how that happens, we admit, is something difficult to do and generally only seen in retrospect. We will spend the next three days “swimming in that sea” and hope to go home ready to meet the challenges of our everyday lives with more determination and willingness because of having been together.

As I sat down and opened my computer this morning, I opened as well Meg Wheatley’s  small but powerful book, Perseverance, and read the following paragraph that gave a hint of what I might be trying to say. It is, at least, all I need for now as I go to prayer.

Human life should be like a vow, dedicated to uncovering the meaning of life. The meaning of life is in fact not complicated, yet it is veiled from us by the way we see our difficulties. It takes the most patient practice to begin to see through that, to discover that the sharp rocks are truly jewels. (Joko Beck, Zen teacher)