Seeing Connections:Winona’s Emerging Practices, Human Maturity, Potentials in Christianity, and the limits by Current Conformist Schooling 3rd draft R. Schenkat 2/04
INTRODUCTION
A time of hope is appearing in Winona. We often celebrate our hard work and giving, neighborly nature as Winonans, but underlying this is a despondency about our world:
- the growing disparity of the rich and poor whether it be in the USA or the whole world and the terrorism and fear engendered
- the refuge to a narrow religious fundamentalism in many sectors of the world which precludes conflict resolution
- the impacts of changing economies are threatening the “Middle Class” and cutting budgets of traditional government services
All of this despondency often leads to a sense of being victims, hunkering down, and protecting what’s mine.
How can this be a time of hope? There is some beginning awareness around what are being called the Emerging Practices in Winona. The Practices have the potential of changing this despondency. This essay will explain the Emerging Practices and ground them in the tenets of Christianity. This is not an attempt to make the Emerging Practices exclusively Christian tenets. Connections will be made to other world religions in subsequent writings. In this essay, however, as Winona is primarily a Christian community, this suggests a place to start. The essay will next note that both the tenets and practices are aspects of transformation that reflects movement on a maturity continuum. To gain a deeper understanding of maturity, a map of human development will be shared. Factors that limit maturity will be considered. And finally, some ideas regarding some possible next steps will be shared.
An earlier draft of these ideas has been received in a mixed fashion. This document is challenging and long. But this is a complex challenge that we face; it can’t be kept simple. Part of the challenge is we are not used to talking about the invisible and this causes a discomfort..
There seem to be things going on invisibly, that do not allow us to in popular parlance - to walk the talk. We all agree that schools should be thoughtful places that bring out children’s potentials, that people should participate in workplaces, and that to be good citizens we need to understand the issues. But we don’t always live in these ways. Is this any different than the conundrum that St. Paul identified , “For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I”? Romans 7:15
As I step back and ponder, I think this question of why we don’t walk our talk has been my professional conundrum. I’ve tried to answer it by articles and books I’ve written in teacher training, higher education, K-12 school reform. However, what I am beginning to realize is that my solution sets haven’t delved deeply enough into the interior dimension. Also, as I’ve sought to understand why Deming’s ideas as a package haven’t caught on like wild fire or even why his simple ideas such as “drive out fear “or “mistakes are our friends” are even hard to actualize, I’m beginning to see the missing ingredient is a deeper spiritual grounding.
It is my best guess today, that we’re not going to figure it out –“out there” whether that “out there” be either at the national level or the exterior world in general. We are going to have to consider more of the interior. Ken Wilber talks of recovering from the flatland view of the world that has been interior free. We have to honor both the interior and the exterior self. Further, a community wide response maximizes the chances of success. By pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, there could be great benefits to be gained in this vastly changing world if we figure it out and proceed ahead together.
This is a supreme leadership challenge that seeks to bring together initially the group of individuals dubbed the “Catalytic Leaders” for their role in surfacing the Emerging Practices and the Winona clergy who have had a taste of this confluence by participating in the Transformation in Spiritual and Secular sectors series. By coming together, it is hoped mutual connections will be built that create a synergistic , positive way forward.
This can be a time of great opportunity for churches in Winona to reclaim their early Christian roots. There has been much in the so called enlightenment that has plunged us into a type of darkness that has existed with and modified Christianity from its early days of being a religion of hope, joy, love. But it is time for us to step back and see how invisible systems work within the secular world that constrain Christianity and also appreciate how changing awareness and life conditions are creating openness to reclaim our Christian roots.
THE EMERGING PRACTICES AND RELATIONSHIP TO CHRISTIAN TENETS
Locally the effort around the Emerging Practices in Winona as featured in the HBC video series “Working Together” is calling for the mind and spirit to be engaged in different ways than the old way of ”parking your brain at the door”. In fact,Gatto(NY Teacher of Year and Education Critic) claims,” genius is as common as dirt. We suppress our genius only because we haven’t figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women”. It seems Winona is willing to trust in the goodness that can come from unleashed genius and will benefit from it .
A group of 10 senior leaders from the various sectors of the community including:Winona State University president, hospital CEO, CEO from Hiawatha Broadband Communications, a bank president, executive director of 200 staff providing services for individuals with developmental disabilities, and a Catholic priest and Protestant minister assembled in Winona in May of 2002 to ponder issues such as how have things changed in the last decade in leadership, empowerment, and the pace of change? The result of this series of meetings was a commitment to make a video that attempted to characterize this change. In coming up with a way to describe the video’s content, it was noted that nine emerging practices captured most of the insights shared by the leaders. These 9 Emerging Practices included: -Teams with dispersed knowledge pulling in same direction ;-Focus on agility and innovation;- Change is constant(pace is increasing) and always asking how can we do better; -Seeing things in context of big picture;-Proactive and constancy of purpose; -Open to seeing the world through other lenses; Beyond the need to control; - Competence and confidence without fear/anxiety; -See how system works not simply blaming; - Passion in work.
I would like to point out some connections, as I see them, between these Emerging Practices and tenets of Christianity. This occurs over the next several pages where the practice is identified and contrasted with common practices. Also, generally one or two quotes from the local leaders illustrate the practice. This is not done to be exclusionary to non Christian religions. It only represents a place to start in a vastly Christian community.
Several sources were drawn upon in making these connections. Rick Warren’s “Purpose Driven Life”(w), John A. Sanford’s “The Kingdom Within”(s), Marcus Borg’s “The Heart of Christianity”(b), Walter Wink’s “The Powers That Be”(w-p) and The Human Being:Jesus and the Enigma of the Son of the Man”(w-h), Jacob Needleman’s “The Little Book of Love”(nl) and “The American Soul: The Vision of Our Founding Fathers(n-as), Eric Butterworth’s “Discover the Power Within You”(eb), Matthew Fox’s “Creativity: When the Divine and Human Meet”(f), Beatrice Bruteau’s “Radical Optimism” (b-ro) and “The Grand Option” (b-go), E. F. Schmacher’s article “Good Work” from his book
” Guide for the Perplexed”(s-gw), Huston Smith’s “ The Religions of Man(hs), Michael Morwood’s “Is Jesus God? Finding Our Faith”(m). Where appropriate in the text that follows, initials and page references will be indicated.
FINDING PASSION IN WORK.
Past Practice Emerging Practice
-Just doing the job,sticking with the SOP -Finding Passion in work
What makes me really passionate in what I do… is working with the people and helping them find the same passion, and seeing them grow and develop.Schultz
The expression” park your brains at the door” has been used. Finding passion in work is the antithesis. As I observe the secular world, there seems to be a forgetting of the divine within us.
Bruteau comments, “there is a basic urgency in life to grow, to expand, to become renewed. We might almost say that the very meaning of being alive is to be constantly in the process of becoming a new creation” (b-go 147) . Warren notes, “ St Irenaeus said, the glory of God is human being fully alive!”(w-55) Warren goes on to say part of the church’s responsibility is to identify and release your abilities for serving God(242). God designs each of us; there would be no duplication in the world(241) We’ve been made in the image and likeness of God who doesn’t make junk(235). Ernest Holmes echoes this, “man is not individual in God, for this would presuppose isolation and separation and disunion. Man is an individualization of God.There is no God, beyond Truth, and no revelation higher than the realization of the Divinity within us”(eb-55). Sanford notes the life of creative consciousness has tremendous importance to God(s-157)
Fox “suggests that there is a special encounter with the Divine where creativity occurs. He ponders, Is any place more intimate than the place where we create? He also wonders, “will we use our creativity to destroy or to bless with? Original sin means the repression of creativity, and redemption ought to be understood as liberation from our fear of creativity. Salvation is the return of creativity , which is the return of the spirit.”(f-4&6)
Needleman connects the ideas of passion to the founding of our country,
"The original and deeper meanings of these ideals may be astonishingly different from what we now understand them. For example, the ideas of human equality and independence in these communities are rooted in the notion that God, or "the inner light", exists in every human being, and that the aim of life revolves around the endeavor and the necessity for every man or woman to make conscious contact with this inner divine force, ---- which is the source of true happiness, intelligence and moral capacity, and is meant to be the guide to ultimate authority in conduct and assessment of our lives and obligations. ----- seen from this perspective, no human being can have ultimate authority over another, not because the individual has the right to satisfy the desires of the body or ego; not because every individual has the right to plot the scheme of his or her own actions with respect to the social , economic or sexual aspects of life, not because every individual has the right to say whatever he wants. No, a human being, is his own authority only because he has within him the inner Christ, the inner divinity. "(n-as 43)
Relating back to work, St Aquinas asserted, there can be no joy in life without the joy of work and Coomaraswany added, it is not if an artist is a special kind of man but every man is a special kind of artist.(s-gw 61&62).
Competence and confidence without fear/anxiety
Past Practice Emerging Practice
-Management based on Fear -Fear in the organization minimized
(drive out fear),
Competence and Confidence
They are confident and then they take actions without having fear. Krueger
A culture in your agency that allows people to be open about their concerns or mistakes that they make. Theede
I’ve always been taken by Huston Smith’s description of early Christian community. He talks about the time from 40-70 A. D. and notes the qualities of equality , joy, and love based on a freedom from fear, guilt, and ego (hs 266-285). One of Deming’s classic 14 Points was Drive Out Fear.
As I think of fear, I’m reminded of Roosevelt’s classic depression era line- “All we have to fear is fear itself”. It seems there are two ways to think of fear- the outer and inner levels.
Relating to the outer level, Borg notes, “We can afford to establish a Department of Homeland Security that costs more, and as I write this, we have initiated a war that will cost more. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that fear is a more powerful political motive in our society than compassion”(b143).
Warren addresses this inner fear as an existential issue. He terms it, the fear of what we might discover if we honestly face our character defects. Not facing these fears, we stay living in a prison of denial(w-220) This fear is the antithesis of having faith in a life of love and abundance. How do we live, “Be not afraid?” Morwood notes, “when we live in love, we live in God and God lives in us”(m-76). Needleman describes agape love that descends on humans with fullness or abundance and contrasts this with ordinary love from a sense of personal need and incompleteness which is conditioned by society(nl-94).
The secular communications program called Crucial Conversations(designed for fostering organizational effectiveness) says we have two choices in any communications interaction when the stakes and emotions are high and strong emotions are present. Choice 1, we can act to be right, look good, keep the peace, avoid conflict and save face. Or Choice 2 we can learn, find the truth, produce results, and strengthen the relationship.
I’ve wondered if fear drives the first choice while love drives the 2nd choice? . It seems to me , that the 2nd choice is acting in agape love in the Christian context. These two choices bear a close resemblance to what organizational theorist Chris Argyris calls Model 1 and Model 2 behaviors; described next: .