“We complete our personality only as we fall into place and service in the vital movement of the society in which we live.”*

“We are sensible that behind the rustling leaves, and the stacks of grain, and the bare clusters of grape, there is a field of a wholly new life which no man has lived; that even this world was made for more mysterious and nobler inhabitants than men and women.”**

There will always be surprises.  Hardly surprising in a universe such as this one.  One?

‘According to the current thinking of many physicists, we are living in one of a vast number of universe.  We are living in an accidental universe incalculable by science.^

We may try and insulate ourselves from surprises, but perhaps they are where life is most vitally found.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon with two others pondering how an experience we’ve been involved in designing and evolving might be shared with more.  We had come to an impasse.  The experience had begun with one person’s question, developed into an enterprising community exploring crucial questions.  How to offer this without being to prescriptive?

Someone then said, invitation feels to be the right way to move forward, meaning the experience will only exist as it continues to be co-created.  The other two of us felt this to be good and right.  The word had come through the openness of one, and the other two of us were open to the surprise of this.

Surprise begs improv for the flow to continue: yes and … .

‘[T]he proverb is, when in doubt, scout.’*^

Instead of avoiding surprise, there’re ways to be open to surprise which leads to us being more alive, even more human.

‘I wanted to be with people who were humble and hungry, had healthy relationships, and were working to create new and better realities in the world.’*^

(*Peter Forsyth, quoted in Eugene Peterson’s Run with the Horses.)
(**Henry David Thoreau, quoted in Peter Senge’s The Necessary Revolution.)
(^From Alan Wightman’s The Accidental Universe.)
(^^From Alex McManus’s Makers of Fire – eBook version.)
(*^From Donal Miller’s Scary Close.)

They said it wasn’t possible, but you have shown that it is.

There’s a reason you’re doing what others are not, why you’ve chosen this path and not the paths so many others are using.

For now, your ways appear odd to others, but there’s too much to lose by giving up your path.

You’re touching the future.

This is an uncrowded position:

“Immaturity is the inability to make use of one’s own understanding without the guidance of another.”*

So is this:

‘The three abilities – seeing systems, collaborating across boundaries, and creating desired futures – must continually develop institutions as well as individuals.’**

Crowded is losing our essential distinctiveness in order to fit in (whether consciously or unconsciously) with everyone else.  The tension we find between these two quotes, above – being our own person and bringing our best Self to working with others – is where we find the brightest life.

(*Immanuel Kant, quoted in Richard Sennett’s The Craftsman.)
(**From Peter Senge’s The Necessary Revolution.)

‘[T]he essence of teamwork is the development and maintenance of reciprocal helping relationships among all the members.’*

“The universe is a communion of subjects rather than a collection of objects.”**

When it comes to participating teams, here are some tests to see how complexly the team organises itself beyond the organisation’s hyperbole:

Is everyone invited to bring your skills in ways that make it possible for people to succeed?
Does everyone find it possible to progress things intuitively, to be in their flow?
Is it possible to see everyone growing in the process?
Do people find their contribution meets a need, so that everyone leaves at the end of the day feeling personally fulfilled?

The universe teaches us that all things exist in relationship, and evolution leads to more complex relationships.  Evolutionary theorist Thomas Berry suggests there are three dimensions of evolution: variety, interiority,^ and communion.  The more developed our interiority, the greater the possibility of communion, or relationship.   As part of this larger story, it feels like humans are still evolving.

By this argument, we’re becoming ever more sensitive instruments to the outer universe in which we live and breather an have our existence, and also the inner universe of our lives.  We’re able to see and feel and do more together.

Perhaps, as a species, we have hardly begun.

(*From Edgar Schein’s Helping.)
(**Thomas Berry, quoted in Peter Senge’s The Necessary Revolution.)
(^From Peter Senge’s The Necessary Revolution: ‘Interiority refers to a richer perceptual universe and awareness of self.’  Another name for this might be complexipacity – the capacity to interact with greater complexity.)

Everyone has a great story to tell, a remarkable life to live.

Linda Rottenberger’s counsel is, ‘Stop planning, start doing.’*

Her words are offered up to those who think they have to put some complicated business plan together before they can begin their dream work.  Rottenberger’s are also pertinent to the one who’s thinking of pursuing their life passion and purpose.

The people you look to for permission to begin are often comfortable with how things are; they don’t want you to come along and subvert this.

Instead of trying to impress people in authority, why not start living your dream in some small way – let it unfold.

Maybe, just maybe on the way, you’ll find on the way, that you are becoming ‘creative nonconformists, … difference makers, aliveness activists, catalysts for change.’**

‘Humans feel more alive when they understand their purpose.’^

(*From Linda Rottenberger’s Crazy is a Compliment.) 
(**From Brian McLaren’s We Make e Road by Walking.)
(^From Alex McManus’s Makers of Fire – eBook version.) 

‘[W]ithout people pushing against you quest to do something worth talking about, it’s unlikely to be worth the journey.  Persist.’*

When electrical lighting looked to be a possibility there was resistance: too much exposure to such light would result in eye problems, nervous breakdowns, and even freckles.

We may smile on this side of the invention of electric lighting, but right now there are things we are resisting and there are things we must advance: thresholds to cross so that we might grow in our humanity, growing through the journey.

(*From Seth Godin’s Tribes.)

‘It’s that juncture between doing what’s safe and expected and doing what’s uncertain and unknown.  It’s a crux between fear and hope.’*

[W]hen some systems are stuck in a dangerous impasse, randomness and only randomness, can unlock them and set them free.’**

You are the one who looks on less than hopeful situations and imagine what can be.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to bring your strongest and best self into these places, bringing renewal and creativity.

You know you cannot bring what someone else is able to, but you know it is your responsibility to bring what you can bring.

Your are an imagineer.

(*From Linda Rottenberger’s Crazy is a Compliment.)
(**From Nassim Taleb’s Antifragile.)

‘The only person who can give you permission to take risk[s] is you.’*

‘[P]art of me believes when the story of earth is told, all that will be remembered is the truth we exchanged.  The vulnerable moments.  The terrifying risk of love and the care we took to cultivate it.’**

In the beginning there was physics, and physics begat chemistry, and chemistry begat biology, and biology begat consciousness, and consciousness begat story.

There would be no story without consciousness.  Only a vast universe without eyes to pursue curiosity, without hearts beating wildly at all the beauty, without any dreams to become artists and makers.

Humans are the storytelling species, responding to infinite stimuli: worlds of colour and diversity and sound and smell and shape.

What a strange word boredom is within such a universe of possibility.

Perhaps, most of all, boredom is our lives telling us to find or create a better story.

We help each other to begin a different story, but at the end of the day the opening sentences, and where they lead, belong to us and us alone.  Amr Shady names this self-censorship.^

I’d found myself awake in the night, with some thoughts coming together of what I might say at the wedding celebration of friends tomorrow.  Like all of us, they are storywriters, creating a third story together, one which their personal stories will serve, but not replace.   They will give themselves permission to exchange truth (trust), share their vulnerability, and cultivate love.

‘Once upon a time … .’

‘A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away … .’

‘When he was nearly thirteen my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.’

‘Mr and Mrs Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal thank you very much.’

‘A busy and crowded station, full of people trying to go somewhere.’

‘In the beginning … .’

What might your opening line of a new story be?

(*From Linda Rottenberger’s Crazy is a Compliment.)
(**From Donald Miller’s Scary Close.)
(^Amr Shady found himself bored successfully running his father’s electrical engineering company in Cairo.  He found his greatest obstacle was himself.  His story is told in Linda Rottenberger’s Crazy is a Compliment.)

“You need to be generous to yourself in order to receive the love that surrounds you … a few inches away … at the edge of your soul … .”*

‘New social movements do not come from those in the centres of power.  The same will hold true for much of the leadership required to create a regenerative society.  Look to the periphery, to people and places where commitment to the status quo is low and where hearts and minds are most open to the new.’**

Words are vital to our existence.  We fill our days with words: speaking, writing, broadcasting, digitalising them.  Our technologies mean it’s possible for us to send our words faster and more accurately around the globe.  With the growth of information and experience industries, words are being commoditised like never before:

‘We live in the gossip of the moment and the rumours of the hour.  It is not as if we never hear the truth at all, but we don’t realise its overwhelming significance.  It is an extra, an aside.’^

Words rush over in in busyness, or comfort us in our tiredness, they reinforce us in our perspectives and worldview.  Sometimes, though, a new word comes to us, breaks through into our consciousness.

A gentle whisper.

A thin silence.

Coming from outside our familiar world, forming in the extremities of our consciousness, perhaps from a stranger, someone who brings a thought to us that no one else in our hermetically sealed world speaks.

Sherry Turkle poses many questions about the kind of world we are creating through our technologies.  We’re advancing our technology from the work place to relationships.  It is easier to send a text than phone someone, an email is easier than a meeting; in a sharp insight, Turkle proffers :

‘We ask technology to perform what used to be “love’s labour”: taking care of each other. … Philosophers say that our capacity to put ourselves in the place of another is essential to being human.  Perhaps when people lose this ability, robots seem appropriate company because they share this incapacity. … People are scarce, or have made themselves scarce.’^^

We live in a world of more than seven billion citizens, but as technology becomes increasingly immersive, those who bring us the enlivening word from the edge appear to be more scarce.

Last night, I was part of a small group of people, around a dozen, who’ll be coming together every week for the next two months.  Although there’s an online course at the centre of this tribe, offering incredible ideas and possibilities, this human gathering will be where the promise of possibility and transformation are found.

(*John O’Donohue, quoted in the Northumbria Community‘s Morning Prayer.)
(**From Peter Senge’s The Necessary Revolution.)
(^From Eugene Peterson’s Run with the Horses.)
(^^From Sherry Turkle’s Alone Together.  Turtle has earlier told of how Japan has decided not to care for its senior citizens through foreign labour, but will build robots to do it.)

Those who come to the morning with alacrity awaken the day.

‘The word hashkem (“persistently”) has a sunrise in it.’*

‘Imagining possible futures is also where we must face both our deepest fears and greatest hopes.’**

It is the domesticated who come to the new day only expecting a repeat of yesterday.  There is a wildness, though,  to those who come with alacrity and expectancy.  Though the day is familiar in many ways to those preceding it, they live knowing something new will happen today.

And they are open.

Open in their looking and thinking, open in their feeling, open in their willingness to act.  Through practice, they have come to know that the future is more about being their best self than finding the best door:

‘It’s better to go through the wrong door with your best self than the best door with your wrong self.’^

While some are still waiting for the perfect opening, others develop their self every day, knowing that they don’t need a best door to move forward.

Their openness may sound like aimlessness, but the untamed eye, heart – knowing that who they are is more important than what they do – make new openings happen:

‘”A very original man must shape his life, make a schedule that allows him to reflect, and study, and create.”^^

“It’s still Day One.”*^

This is the world I love, not as some expert or teacher, but as an explorer with others.

(*From Eugene Peterson’s Run with the Horses.)
(**From Alex MacManus’s Makers of Fire – eBook version.)
(^John Ortberg’s All the Places to Go.)
(^^Gary Wills, quoted in Eugene Peterson’s Run With the Horses.)
(*^Jeff Bezos, quoted in Linda Rottenberger’s Crazy is a Compliment.)

[P]otential difficulties were avoided best through two processes: 1) self-inquiry to gain awareness of what was happening inside me in order to avoid falling into destructive traps, and 2) humble inquiry to get more information from my wife … .’*

‘[P]eople learn through failure, that where people do failure avoidance, they will never achieve the kind of courage and risk taking that lead to bold innovation.’**

To be a good helper is about more than providing what we think another needs, more than make available even what the other needs.

We have to recognise how helping others helps us to grow and meets our own needs, avoiding the kind of helping that leaves us a level or two up on the person we’re offering assistance to.

This also makes it possible for the other person to avoid taking responsibility, or feeling they have nothing to give to their own need-meeting.

Helping is something we undertake together, and is a beautiful art.

(*From Edgar Schein’s Helping.)
(**From John Ortberg’s All the Places to Go.)