Sunday, March 22, 2009

The Calling to Action

What about this new space?

In this new space, what if we discovered something beyond – where we can touch, embrace, hold and make meaning of our senses and different forms of knowing. One where we can cradle each other as we grow in our capacity to give and receive? Dare we explore this dimension within ourselves and others?

We believe the Ancient Wisdoms are once more becoming accessible. As we grow in consciousness about this presence, our collective responsibility for reflective action is emerging.

The threat of this emergence increases the tensions between fear and love. As this process of movement takes pace, there exists an apparent rapid rise in polarization. We sit in the form of strong currents of resistance and powerful expressions of fundamentalism. We are being called and challenged to act now.

‘God calls on us to be his partners to work for a new kind of society where people count; where people matter more than things, more than possessions; where human life is not just respected but positively revered; where people will be secure and not suffer from the fear of hunger, from ignorance, from disease, where there will be more gentleness, more caring, more sharing, more compassion, more laughter; where there is peace and not war.’
(Archbishop Desmond Tutu – ‘God Has a Dream’)

1 comment:

  1. Yesterday - after an invitation about faith in leadership received from Rene - I extended his invitation to leaders of faith organisations in Wales. This is one reply and videncing of the CCC rippling effect - with love
    C
    x

    Just come back to this to read properly. Thought in my ignorance I might add a comment but couldn’t work out how to and whether you want additional comments.
    To continue the conversation we only started ages ago..

    Some thoughts and comments:

    This is powerful stuff even though going in all directions – which is maybe a virtue. We are treading on holy ground of course in CCC but I guess the political and the personal are related in all the great theories of evolutionary biology, organizational behaviour and emotional and spiritual intelligence. Sometimes the poetic refreshes the prosaic but both are needed as are left and right brain balances within each of us. The visionary has to be earthed in the real; the poetry in the prose; the idea into the reality to be incarnationally embedded and then shared or communicated in ways that make a real difference. This doesn’t mean we have to do this on our own or even for ourselves but build relationships and teams and groups of trust where what we lack is completed by others. At the moment there are many rejoicing apparently in the failures or meltdown of economic systems just as there are many suffering from them. Everyone who is against something has some kind of responsibility to be part of the solution even if that is only partial and emerging from the failure itself. The anti capitalist groups are resorting to moral blame and moral regulations but little more, when neither more blame nor more regulations will ‘save ‘ us.

    At times of conflictual structures or values, it may be therapeutic and right to turn inwards but spirituality too has to be earthed and we all create or contribute to structural sustainability, dysfunction or change in one way or the other. Spirituality that makes no difference to the economy or politics or organizations, or workplaces is perhaps stuck in Platonic places. We need a new balance and dialogue between Plato and Aristotle. The visions have to be grounded in the particular just as the particular needs to be refreshed and inspired by the vision.

    Yours truly,

    Rev. Robin Morrison

    Bishops' Adviser for Church and Society

    Church in Wales

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