Crisis, Vision and Community

This workshop will include some variety of lecture/presentations, videos, interactive exercises (including outdoor), group discussion, and individual writing/drawing activities. There will be some formal opening and closing worship daily, but in addition we will use worship and worship-sharing to reflect on our experience together, and to contemplate the beauty of nature, music, art, poetry, humor, good news, etc, that we may be led to share.

Our work will be to explore the disconnect between our testimonies and our participation in a lifestyle that plunders the earth. How do we move from the crisis of this awareness, through a vision of real change, to a community through which we are transformed? Crisis provides a sense of urgency, it gives us the motivation to get us started. Vision provides a sense of direction, it provides principles to guide us on our path. Community provides a sense of commitment, it reinforces the habits that keep us going. How do we engage these and other components of effective change and transformation?

And what is the nature of the transformation that is needed? Joanna Macy and David Korten call it The Great Turning. Steve Morningthunder and Albert Bates call it The Great Change. Thomas Berry and Miriam McGillis call it The Great Work. This workshop asks, What is our response to this transformative crisis of our times?

Our emphasis will be on working together to create a positive response while fully recognizing the truth of our global predicament. Not a litany of ills, or prophesy of doom and gloom, but an exploration of deeply held ideas that have led us to this crisis of inward faith as reflected in the problems of the outward world.

We will seek to strengthen our foundation as we undertake this work. We will experiment with exercises regarding the Psychology of Change, such as the transition from Resistance to Engagement. And we will sit with the values that actually drive our worldly decisions along with the values that inspire and guide our journey of spiritual intimacy. We will listen for where the Spirit leads us.

Advance Preparation: come with hearts and minds prepared for an experiment in seeking new perspective and the possibility of being changed. This is our work to do together. Bring your readings, inspirations, insights and ideas. For those who want to do some advance reading, take a look at the six authors mentioned above. All have multiple resources on the web (don’t forget YouTube). Macy, Korten, Bates and Berry have readily available books. Hopefully, among the six you will find something that speaks to you – they certainly do not all speak equally to me, but I love the diversity and it is only a drop in the bucket: you will find many others addressing the need for deep transformation. With Morningthunder and Bates in particular you will probably need to scan and be selective.

• Steve Morningthunder is not easy to find - see his website, http://www.greatchange.org/index.html Once there, in addition to checking out Morningthunder’s own quirky material, please read Catton’s “The Problem of Denial,” which Morningthunder links under “Other Voices”.
• Albert Bates is closely associated with The Farm in Tennessee, but also see his website http://www.thegreatchange.com/ .
• Miriam MacGillis is closely associated with Genesis Farm in NJ, but also see her talk at: http://www.sevenpillarshouse.org/video/item/sister_miriam_macgillis_introduces_cosmology_theme or read her interview at: http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC24/MacGllis.htm

Two other sources that really spoke to me (although I read only parts of each) are Sacred Demise by Carolyn Baker and The Spirituality of Resistance by Roger Gottlieb.