We have been discussing paradigms, paradox, and paradox as a dominant paradigm within the Christian tradition, though not so at home in the modern world. The move from one dominant way of viewing the world to another is hard because those lenses have become so firmly lodged in our thinking we are quite sure this IS the way reality IS.
Quantum and integral understandings require a bit more breadth (quantum and integral), a bit more connectedness (quantum) and a for sure the coming together of various vantage points to help complete the picture. The hard part for all of us of course is realizing we have lenses and no one set is ever adequate… we have four gospels after all…same story different vantage points.
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I had the opportunity this week to spend time with 17 community leaders facilitating their thoughts and ideas about how they could make a mark on their community that would be memorable, artistic, meaningful and important.
I started the session with this quote from the great quantum physicist David Bohm…I have used it here before.
“the tree doesn’t come from the seed. The seed is an aperture that organizes the processes of growth through which the tree finally emerges.”
When people come together whether that is in real time and space or cyberspace, there is an invisible architecture and shape in those relationships. That invisible architecture is called the social field, and it is comprised of visible and external– “what we say and do with each”– as well as the invisible and internal origins of those actions.
I shared with them the invisible and internal is where our intention arises but where our attention rarely focuses. As a result much of what we do is download from our past programing what we think is possible. In other words we move on autopilot — hardly creative sourcing for a conversation on creating the future through collaborative knowing. A couple different times in our several hours together I would stop and say…”what do you feel right now is your chest or your stomach?” “Do you feel the shift in the field that just happened?” We are deeply connected. We create an aperture together.
While we were on one hand trying to ideate and get a creative project off the ground we, on the other hand, all came to recognize there was a quantum field, a palpable soup we were all in together. It was far deeper than ideas, it was spiritual it was originating from a deep place within us. They were learning how we act and interact, learn and unlearn, see and reveal, grow and transform is determined by how the social field is sourced by our interior life and the content of the conversation. This project for them quickly became about how their interior lives collectively were forming an aperture out of which “this thing” was going to emerge.
It was one more example in real time where I got to see, feel and in a small way facilitate (facil-to make easier) a tangible shift in space that will in the next several months impact an entire community.
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So what if we need a Christianity less certain, more mysterious, less concrete and more enfleshed? What if that amounts to a paradigm whose core is paradox?
We live at the intersection of another solid stable certain paradigm that is going all squishy. The quantum world is displacing our modern measureable-certain-cause and effect experience, and saying what you see is definitely not what you get….or more appropriately what you have “got.” Because what we have “got” is not something we can actually see of course, but more than that, what we see is not an accurate indicator of what is actually there.
The atomic world a’la Newton, only accessible to the microscope holder, was a world of tiny billard balls spinning and orbiting in predictable, elliptical and symmetrical paths. The pictures and plastic models in high school chemistry were “the way we were” to quote one of Barbara’s big hits. That WAS the paradigm AND reality.
Atoms were separate from other atoms. Electrons separate from protons and neutrons. Molecules here, totally separate and independent from molecules over there. The implications of all that orderly separate predictability was we lived in a world where what appeared to be space between atoms and molecules could easily be compared to the obvious space between you and me. Space, distance and time were not just realities they were concepts that helped us understand the world.
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The para- words continue to fascinate me. Consider the difference in feel when you hear the words parachute, paragon, or paramedic when compared to parasite, paranoid or even paranormal for that matter. Para- swings back and forth doesn’t it? The word parasol in the context of a hot summer day evokes a different visceral response than the word paraplegic. The same swing I think is witnessed in the words we have been discussing. Paradigm is supposedly solid, stable and certain and paradox so spongy, squishy and shunned. It is this bias I think we have to face as we head further into 2012.
Liminal-in-between space brings us to in-between metaphors. The shores of two eras kissing brings us to new creative space where the old must yield to what is being midwifed in the new.
Para- words were just as important to the rishis seers of India (in Vedic philosophy see parama, paramatma and paramanus), as they were centuries later to Christianity where para-bles are the paradoxical stories used by Jesus to intentionally obscure. Where para-clete the “one called alongside to help” in John’s gospel is the way of conceiving the third person of the trinity. And you can’t forget the para-dise of the book of Revelation that clearly harkens back to the primal paradise of Genesis.
These three biblical/theological para-s sit as paradox deeply embedded within the paradigm of Christianity. When then will we embrace mystery as fundamental? When will uncertainty, because of God’s immensity, be acknowledged as humility instead of lack of faith? The invitation before us is to dance. Dance with the new emerging metaphors. Dance with paradox that IS the new paradigm.
It seems to me the early church started with paradox and moved to entrenched paradigm maybe there is something there we need to explore as we think about how we move from liquid and fluid to supposedly solid but potentially stuck.
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The status quo is attracted to and driven by paradigm; emerging vision is attracted to paradox, the not yet acceptable possibility. A couple days ago I sent a text the next morning to the group of people that had invited me to their new year’s eve soirée. I did so not only because of my thinking about para- words that had started long before my last post, but because it Is possible I have not been in the presence of such visionary folks in along time.
Dude #1 — A guy that has established paradigm busting call centers for companies all over the world amounting to literally tens of thousands of people he has employed in tough economic contexts . Just one of those companies is named for some fruit where he has helped them revolutionize customer service all over the world and set the bar for call centers. But the way he combines this with social entrepreneurship and helping the people around him in need made me tear up a couple times. His dream right now? Can’t divulge it. But imagine a guy that has done all this. Yea, he is bold audacious and moves with a confidence and humility that you can only say is bestowed from above.
Dude #2 — at 23 yrs old was making decisions for 14 million constituents as chief of staff for arguably the most prestigious AND influential govern-ship in the USA, all while still connected to politics enough to have had dinner with a former president a couple weeks ago is actually overseeing a division of a company influencing and creating a new paradigm of telecommunications globally and responsible for b-billions. His next dream? The magnitude of what it could do to help others? Unbelievable! I will have to keep you posted.
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In 2012 I have two words I feel need my personal exploration and deeper engagement; the words quantum and integral. The whole world of experience behind these two words sit at the forefront of a new frontier many of us are just starting to engage as readily as we have the world of cause and effect we have grown up with since we were kids.
I grew up in the Newtonian world and was trained to see the world it that way. Now saying something like that might make you think I was some ridiculous and outlandish thing like a physics nut (sorry physics teachers). Well you would be wrong. I was not, though my Dad made sure we all took advanced science and math because “though you may never use it, it helps you learn to think in new ways!” What I mean is the way the world was presented to me, and therefore the way I experienced it, was very predictable because the world was built on cause and effect. It is the old billiard ball illustration. The cue ball hits the 4 ball and at that angle of contact it will hit the 6 ball go into that bumper on the table and will go in the right corner pocket. There is no mystery to that, if you calculate the angle rightly the outcome is totally waxed. It is predictable, assumed, and certain.
I am not sure about you but that illustration typifies the world I grew up in and the view of the world I had. It wasn’t just the world though it was deeper than that. Newton’s cause and effect and “laws of gravity” even extended to the spirituality and Christianity that I experienced and the way the Bible was “used.” There were laws and principles in the Bible and when rightly applied the outcomes were certain. And since I was in a charismatic context the outcomes were VERY VERY certain. You still find much of this thinking in large segments of Christianity. Faith leads to… real faith will certify these outcomes, and even if you don’t see those outcomes right now, they will come.
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Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’’” Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him. Matthew 4.8-10
After what appears to be Jesus’ ah-ha moment at his baptism, he finds himself in a place of personal eremos; the lonely, desert place of self questioning, self evaluation, and self motivation. The dialogue he is in brings three tests to establishing a false sense of self.
The first test to Jesus’ manufacturing a false-self sense of identity was through him acting to meet his own needs. Will personal agency be the main medium through which felt need it met?
The second test was whether or not Jesus would manufacture a false sense of self and worth through the exercise of power in front of others. Will personal power be a vehicle of identity building?
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Matt. 4:5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“ ‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’’”
Matt. 4:7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’’”
The first test to Jesus manufacturing a false sense of identity and self was through Jesus acting to meet his own needs when he knew he could but at the same time knew he actually needed something deeper. In some ways this is one of the most fundamental human dilemmas. Will I act to momentarily satisfy my own cravings or realize those are indicators of something more, something deeper?
This second egoic challenge has to do with power. Picture this. You are in the middle of a busy business district of a world-class city. Lunch hour has arrived and there is a hustle and bustle of activity and a buzz of city sounds all around. But you pause as you notice something irregular there is someone at the top of the highest and what also happens to be oldest cathedral in town. Here is the stage for what could be the ultimate super hero entrance. That someone at the top places their hands straight in the air and slowly starts leaning forward. As their feet leave the highest steeple of the cathedral their back gently arches into a most graceful swan dive. A few people notice – gasp – a few more and as a larger number begin …all of a sudden everything seems to go to slow motion and the guy in the swan dive gently and effortlessly lands Spider Man style in the middle of the awestruck crowd.
An ego trip? Head rush? Winsome display of super powers? Yes, yes and yes. And this is apparently what Jesus was challenged with.
Should he establish a sense of self through the exercise of
power in front of other?
Isn’t this the temptation we all encounter? The propensity to posture ourselves in front of others? To use personal power to feel good about ourselves and make others think we are something other than we are?
What examples of this have you seen? How do you read this temptation of Jesus?
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Jesus decides to respond to the movement led by his cousin, is baptized, showing his solidarity with the movement, and is then gifted with a moment of “enlightenment.” This moment, whether audible voice or internal impression, would obviously be a watershed event for anyone. There is no reason to assume this is anything less for Jesus and the construction of the narrative by Matthew highlights the gravity of this baptismal moment.
Jesus is instantly thrust/driven/compelled to go to the eremos. I use the word eremos here not to give you a Greek 101 lesson but to highlight a clear and obvious usage in language of the metaphorical. Eremos here in Matthew 4 may very well refer to a literal desert, as in a sandy, arid, cactus dotted landscape. But interestingly the idea may be something much more subtle.
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Had the honor to speak at Mosaiek again this past week up in Johannesburg. Here is a pdf of the art and slides I used with the quotes people have been asking me for. Below is the link to the message. Please retweet this. My guess is at this time of year there is hardly a more important message for us to assimilate.
Lettinggospeedofblur PDF of Slides
Life at the Speed of Blur
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