HOPE
Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of Hope—not the prudent gates of Optimism, which is somewhat narrower; nor the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense; nor the strident gates of Self-Righteousness which creak on shrill and angry hinges (people cannot hear us there; they cannot pass through); nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of “Everything Is Gonna Be All Right.” But a different, sometimes lonely place of truth-telling about your own soul first of all and its condition, the place of resistance and defiance, from which you see the world both as it is and as it could be, as it will be; the place from which you glimpse not only struggle but joy in the struggle. And we stand there, beckoning and calling, telling people what we’re seeing, asking them what they see.
Welcome to Revolution of Hope, a blog for the spiritually active, socially engaged, boldly experimental individuals living on the edge, who want to feel the pulse-beat of their time and be part of the winds of change. You will hear in the next installments about spiritual experiences and their impact on individuals and culture; about phenomenology, new science, and spiritual science; about tools of so-called ‘experiential spirituality’ and ‘social technology’; about sustainable social change in the new forms in which it is appearing in the world; about historical figures and developments in the United States or worldwide that have laid the foundations for and ushered in these changes.
So, is there a unifying melody uniting all these little songs of hope? Is there a larger theme behind the variations? Yes and it is symbolized by the title of this blog. It can be spelled out in the vision of a global civilization paradigm shift, articulated at three levels or dimensions of existence:
- the individual
- the group, community or organization
- the regional, national to global level.
In addition to the present situation I will look at how this paradigm shift has been in preparation in historical figures (think of anyone from Benjamin Franklin to Martin Luther King for the US) or in the history of this nation and this continent, and eventually worldwide. I trust there will be material to stretch our imagination, creativity and desire for innovation and hope in the future of our small, threatened planet. Significant events, famous individuals, small new breakthroughs we may not know often hide unsuspected threads and themes of unity of which a revolution of hope is made.
A paradigm shift is what requires all of us to think and gain levels of experience beyond the ways of thinking and behaving that have laid the conditions for the present impasse. This means different things at different levels.
LEVEL 1: THE INDIVIDUAL
Spiritual experiences are a signpost to summon the individual to new ways of thinking. They are not the real thing, just an avenue to it. How can we truly overcome the quantitative mindset that imprisons us to material experience alone? How can we get out of the cave where our thinking condemns us? People who have a concrete spiritual experience know of the challenge to think and express themselves about realities that move beyond the five senses. But others also know how to do it, who may not have had the blessing of these experiences. Think of the breakthrough of the new science, anything from chaos theory, systems thinking or quantum mechanics to phenomenology and spiritual science. Ultimately the individual challenge lay in finding a bridge to reality beyond the materialistic thinking of the 19th and 20th centuries, the deepest cause for all our woes. The solid foundations of the new thinking are already present. More new and bold thinkers are needed!
LEVEL 2: GROUP/ORGANIZATIONAL
Experiential spirituality is what I refer to as the tools that allow us to engage differently in relationships, act upon and impact our close environment and the world. This means realizing that we can take full responsibility for our lives, such as we know it from the legacy of Twelve Step, a pioneer in the field. It is also what we can learn through Life Coaching, Nonviolent Communication, Family Constellations, Destiny Learning, and many other practical tools that have subtle spiritual teachings embedded in them, which we may only experience after months or years of practice.
Moving forward, it is also possible to change the way organizations and communities and lead them with confidence into a highly unpredictable future. The social technology formed in this field offers a plethora of approaches at present. Suffice to think of Appreciative Inquiry, Future Search, Theory U, World Café, Open Space Technology, Dialogue Circles, Peacemaking Circles, etc. New thinking and new engagement in the world lay the foundations for the renewal of culture that our time desperately needs when ideologies or traditional religions can no longer sustain it. See experiential spirituality.
LEVEL 3: GLOBAL
Finally, there is also hope at the global level, when we can look beyond the two crumbling giants of capitalism and socialism and their false promises. The end of the century brought a global new actor on the scene of world affairs: Civil Society. Its size and spread is already considerable! Through the inclusion of a third to the equation of governance and the world economy we can break the deadlock of ideologies and their grip over the mind; socialism with its emphasis on the state, capitalism with its emphasis on the economy. We can think beyond dualistic opposition to three way dialogues. Here lay the promise of tri-sector partnerships that truly honor the culture building power of Civil Society. And much more lies beyond these beginnings. See trisector partnership.
Welcome to a thorough exploration of the synthesis offered by many streams of renewal for which we hope to be an amplifying voice.
Tags: experiential spirituality, experimental individuals, global paradigm shift, luigi morelli, new science, phenomenology, revolution of hope, social technology, socially engaged, spiritual experiences, spiritual science, spiritually active, sustainable social change
