Heaven is a Collaboratory

First of all, I want to say that writing is a great way of expressing a lot of depth and yet I find myself more inspired through conversations with others...even if the 'conversations' often result in me talking a lot more than the other person. Sometimes I allow myself to get carried away, which isn't always a great thing. If this happens to you at some point, I apologize.

I do deeply care about what others have to offer but even more than that I'm interested in the emergence of that which is new, whether that's through my own life and words, through those of another, or (ideally) through authentic engagement with others, which just means the interweaving of the highest dimension of my self with this same self expressed in and through others.

The interesting thing is that there are, in fact, perspectives, possibilities and potentials that emerge in this kind of intersubjective context that cannot emerge through any one individual. This is where community ceases to be important and becomes essential.

Do we need others to live? Technically, no (case in point: Tarzan).

Do we need others to develop and mature? To a significant degree, yes.

Do we need others to help us take significant steps forward on the spiritual path? Almost always, yes.

Even in all of this we don't need to be consciously and intentionally involved with others for us to take some significant steps forward in our own personal journey of spiritual transformation. Nevertheless, it would be absurdly difficult and require an incredible degree of uncompromising intention for us to really take some huge leaps without the support of others.

The only thing we absolutely and unequivocably need this kind of deep engagement with others for is to consciously create new human culture. Yes, I speak as if such things are possible. But we cannot create the world on our own. For many people, it may sound outrageous and arrogant to think that we can create the world at all and yet that is what we are all doing, whether we're aware of it or not. The world of culture is the world of shared agreements with others, implicit and explicit, conscious and unconscious, that provides the framework and structures for human relationships and our existence together on this planet.

However our world began, it seems to be moving forward in a direction, evolving. Not only biologically but also culturally, socially, and even morally. That last point is likely the most contentious, as we tend to romanticize the past of those 'days gone by,' when the world was a 'better' place compared to the postmodern stew of relativism, narcissism, and a general ambivalence or even hostility towards certain values and ideals of those 'days gone by.' It can be easy to casually dismiss the developments of modernism and postmodernism when so many things still seem to be so wrong with the world but such a perspective does not take into account the very real change and forward development that has actually occurred through these cultural and philosophical paradigm shifts.

While individuals may still seem as depraved as ever (though such a view ignores some theories and findings within developmental and evolutionary psychology), human rights within the developed world has never been more culturally accepted, valued and even demanded. Of course, this progression of thought and values has led to challenges and follies in other areas, no doubt, but when viewed from a process perspective of development these very real issues and problems can be seen as expected and unavoidable, that any time we take a real step forward into a new way of seeing and being, new challenges emerge that we were not even aware of previously.

This is not bad news! It just means we have to reorient our perspective a bit.

It's part of the process, part of creation. New potentials are born out of the death of the old but there is always further to go. That is what our understanding of life has revealed to us thus far. However this might end, assuming there is an end (perhaps not), we can't know about such things with any kind of certainty. At the same time, it seems we do have a significant role to play in getting to wherever we're going through awakening to this relatively new perspective of an evolving world and consciously taking responsibility for the direction we are heading by choosing to be co-creative participants in the shaping of our world. What could be more important?

Whatever heaven might be, it's only going to come into being through our willful participation, through our conscious collaboration with God. I no longer believe God is going to step in and fix things, which I've expressed previously. This doesn't mean that salvation rests in our frail human hands alone, nor does it reside solely in the hands of a divine being, but rather in the conscious union of the Creator and the Created.

One without the other is not enough to get us to the gates of heaven. God alone is not going to force this upon us and we do not have the power on our own. The universe has made it this far without much divine intervention, but now we are the ones who must divinely intervene, who must choose to become vessels for Spirit to emerge between and through us, who must take responsibility for our part in the perpetual, unending and miraculous act of creation through these 'frail human hands.'

If we awaken to this spiritual imperative and impulse in the context of an evolving universe, that can really change everything - our entire relationship to life - if we are willing. In undertaking such a shift in perspective we begin to find the idea and expression of perpetual development ceaselessly compelling. Not only that, we discover the task of evolving the world to be undeniably our own.

Embracing this orientation as individuals is essential and is certainly radical enough but the real path towards genuine and lasting transformation of our world for the better is doing this with others. It's a tall order, no doubt, and yet if such things are true this would seem to be the most important endeavour we could possibly undertake. Are we up for such a challenge?

We all must come to our own conclusions on such matters and I am deeply convinced such contemplation is entirely worthwhile, even if we don't all come to the same conclusions.

Whatever our understanding might be, if we're interested in changing the world, one thing is certain: we can't do it alone.



[A friend of mine has made use of a 'word limit' for posts on her blog that I intend to adapt to this space...eventually. Sorry for the length but thank you for being willing to participate with me in this engagement!]