Biophila, a great point of departure on the Monday after Easter Sunday.
On his death bed the great author and psychologist Erich Fromm asked his friend Robert Fox, Bob why is it that the human race prefers necrophilia to biophilia?”
(Fromm → E.O. Wilson in his book of the same title, Biophilia: The Bond with Other Species, the mid 80’s popularized this term)
A fine memoir by one of America’s foremost evolutionary biologists. E. O. Wilson defines biophilia as ‘the innate tendency [in human beings] to focus on life and lifelike process. To an extent still undervalued in philosophy and religion, our existence depends on this propensity, our spirit is woven from it, hopes rise on its currents.’
He broadly defined biophilia as, “The passionate love of life, aliveness, and all that is full of life”
I came across this term a few years ago for the first time and it has since informed some of my reflections on what I think Jesus is trying to bring to us. Shalom wholeness and wellness is the essence of the Gospel according to Isaiah 52. Shalom wholeness and wellness is biophilia.
Ironically our culture seems entertained by necrophilia (love of death). This not only seems true in terms of many movies, TV shows and without a doubt news coverage but also many churches. American Christianity and the places we have exported it, are often more lovers of the legal…which according to our Christian writers only brings death, instead of lovers of life.
For whatever reason, while we say Jesus is all about relationship not rules apparently what the general public hears from the church is we are all about rules not relationship. Rules and regulations as a dominant expression of religion in general and Christianity in particular is necrophilia. Relationship with Jesus that is all about bringing abundant life… or biophila.
Today Robert Kegan may be one of the most important figure in adult ego development and how we make sense of self, his latest book Immunity to Change is an important contribution and the culmination of a career of research and work.
Our last post we discussed the idea of self development, ego development or adult meaning making schemas… all refer to the same idea that adults have the ability well into their golden years to continue the mental development that gives greater choices, the ability to assimilate broader complexities and a posture of embracing more mystery, paradox and ambiguity. [read more...]
Jane Loevinger is one of the pioneers in the area of ego development or how we see the world and how we make sense of our lives (including God, others and the universe around us) are what experts refer to as meaning making systems. Meaning making, or the development of the “self” or “ego,” is what goes on as we learn to make increasingly sophisticated meaning of the world around us.
A five year old thinks there are monsters under the bed at night. When we come in and turn on the light and show them there is nothing to be scared of we are often greeted with the explanation that “of course the monsters hide for the light they are only there in the dark.” This is the way a 5 year old makes sense of their world. If that was still going on at 13 years of age we would be concerned. Most of us are familiar with child development and the name of someone like Jean Piaget. We are less familiar with adult development. [read more...]
I had the opportunity this weekend to speak at an incredible church in Nassau that is led by one of my favorite dialogue partners, Christian McCabe. I have been on a journey with their staff and elders for about a year. They care about transformation. They are motivated to make sure real life change is actually happening. They are committed to a spirituality of awareness, a spirituality that is founded and rooted in Jesus’ invitation to Notice.
For those having compatibility issues you can purchase a mac or could click here for the link
Well if you hit this site periodically you will notice a new graphic to the right of this post. We are very excited about our new e-learning section of this website. We are a couple months out from launch but the site is under serious construction as we get ready for our initial offering.
We have been trying to figure out the best way to broker the work I do that is shared with the churches I work with monthly, the conference speaking and writing I do. There is a small body of growing work that we want to make more widely available and this seems like the perfect avenue to make it happen.
If you want to be aware of the details, special offerings and the contours our approach to e-learning please visit the Morph 2.0 page by clicking here or on the image to your right and submit your email address and go through the confirmation process. This is going to be a pretty incredible venue. Videos, pdfs, podcasts, forums, calls, free one day conferences… get ready for 21st century learning at it’s very best.
In my post from the 8th I mentioned three things I more convinced of than ever before, and for where the church sits in culture and our needed response. I said… Spirituality will be more creational, relational and communitarian into the 21st century There are always two things in play when it comes the church’s role/response to culture. There is reflective and informed biblical reading and there is insightful and aware cultural sign post reading. We need both for the church to be effective. [read more...]
I feel like three things are more clear to me after being gone 37 days in South Africa and Namibia. I will unpack these over the next three posts. But here they are briefly.
1. Spirituality will be more relational, creational and communitarian into the 21st century
I have mentioned this before but haven’t much unpacked it. I need to. I am more convinced than ever and I see these yearnings and core longings from the Nassau to Namibia and Stellenbosch to St. Louis. If we can break the textual addiction we have the relegates formation to bible study we are going to be dead in the water in the postmodern world. (and obviously I love the bible my latest book released 8 days ago is about the good Book)
2. The best ways of doing ministry have yet to be found and we are in an “idea” crisis
This was one of the core values we as a staff owned at the DNA level of our being when I was a local church pastor. We need church leaders that continue to think into new frontiers and arenas.
3. People aren’t craving church, or sermons or bible study…the are dying to be in small community where real dialogue and doing life together happens.
Many of us as leaders in the church still don’t seem to get this. We have been so conditioned by the old modern world where obligation and belonging were premium values we don’t seem to heard the wake up call of the information age…. it is ubiquitous therefore our brokering of it is of little value to this world. We will have to broker much more.
I continue to be struck by how we live in in between times; in between modern and after-modern worlds, in between Christendom and after-Christendom worlds, in between Gutenberg and after-Gutenberg worlds, these are a few of the in betweens we are navigating.
The church is in between these and other things as well. What kind of leadership is called for in in between times? What kind of spirituality will nourish this new leadership? What kind of user generated content will change the outcome of the experience for those involved in meeting we call “church?” What will the navigation of these in betweens mean to how we architect new meeting spaces for the new ways of gathering as the people of God.
I have been a part of conversations over the last month where we have probed and discussed all of these in depth. In 61 different sessions over nearly 30 days we have bumped up against these questions and more. But I wonder if all of these things will only be answered when a key shift within the church’s self understanding happens…the shift from belonging to transformation.
For a long time we have trumpeted the need for the church to be a place of belonging, and while that is true I am not convinced that is the biggest need, calling or commission we have. The church has people belonging but not being, people being informed but not transformed.
I am willing to admit I might be wrong and maybe I don’t have the best vantage point. But I wonder what might happen if we in the church started shifting the questions we are asking from how people connect, to how they change, from how they belong to how they become.
Neuroplasticity is the capacity of connections between neurons in the brain to change in response to experience and our environment. The good news? It isn’t age dependent. We have brain plasticity till we die if we exercise our brains.
I was just at a spirituality conference in South Africa where an expert on brain science talked about how up until just recently the medical community was convinced that our brains could be mapped showing where each of our abilities, for instance the ability to see, was located in the physical structure of the brain. In other words it was thought this map was the hardwired diagram of our brain. But not so. [read more...]
I said we would explore the notion found in almost every tradition, the renewing of the mind as a critical consideration for transformation. Unfortunately I think our love affair with the biblical text (not a good thing I might add, I think we are textually addicted) has clouded our reading of that very text.
When Paul says be transformed Romans (in 12.1-2) by the renewing of your mind I have yet to hear instruction on how this is to be done except by taking in more bible text, memorize more bible text, study more bible text, think about bible text. Maybe I was just exposed most of my life to one narrow strand of teaching. [read more...]
By subscribing with your email here, you will receive Ron's blog posts in your email inbox as and when he posts something... This way, you don't miss anything, you don't have to keep visiting the site (although we like that!) and you can unsubscribe again with a click! Now that's user friendly, right?
About Velocity Culture
VelocityCulture.com is a web and conference based resource brokering the best leadership, cultural and theological resources. Through consulting, conference speaking, learning communities and e-learning all over the world and a redesigned seminary-like learning experience called III:TEXT, VelocityCulture.com is helping bring about deep shifts in the way people live, think and lead.
