The Sustainist

Witness to Goodness (Part One)

I was walking by the World Trade Center site in New York City last week. Partially finished buildings had sprung up since the last time I was here. I sensed the urgency for getting all the constructions done for the 10^th anniversary of September 11, 2001. 

I saw a child, no more than 10 years old, holding her parents’ hands, head tilted back, watching and listening to the sounds of construction. If I were to tell this child about what happened here, what would I say? This child was not even born when it happened!  How would I explain to this child the people and things that were once here before? 

I could tell this child how the destruction of the twin towers stirred up our hatred for the enemy. And with this hatred, we, as a nation, started two wars to retaliate. Over 7,000 military personnel died and 44,000 troops were wounded fighting these two wars. I could also tell this child how we let the fear of our enemy destroy our trust of our neighbors at home. On second thought, I would not begin there.

Instead, I would choose to tell this child about how the twin towers were the pride of the city and how I used them as a reference point whenever I was lost. All I needed to do was look up and find the towers and I would know which way was south. I would choose to tell her how the destruction of the towers had brought the people of the U.S. together, how compassion, prayers and goodwill poured out from all around. I would choose to tell her that among the 2,752 victims who died, 343 were firefighters and 60 were police officers who gave their own lives trying save others. I could choose to tell her about the recovery workers risking their own health working tirelessly through the rubble for months.

We have tremendous power in spreading what we witness through our network. Stanley Milgram, through one of his famous experiments, showed that people are all connected to one another by an average of “six degrees of separation.” That is, your friend is one degree from you, your friends’ friend is two degrees, and so on. For example, there are about 200 people who read this blog weekly. If each one of you had 10 friends with whom you shared and acted on what I wrote, we would have influenced 2,000 people at the second degree. If each of your friends had 10 friends with whom they shared this material, we would have influenced 20,000 people and this is only at the third degree of separation. In the technologically-enhanced hyper-connected world in which we live, what we witness to each other has great power, and “with great power comes great responsibility,” as Spiderman’s uncle said before he died in the movie.

In this week that started with Memorial Day, how shall we witness to the ones who are no longer with us? I invite us to witness to their goodness. In this time of remembrance, witness to the love that was shared, graciousness that welcomed, trust that built community, working-together that sustained us. Witness to the things that show how we are interconnected – past-present-future.  A sustainist re-circulates knowledge and wisdom that help us see and act on creating a sustainable future for all. I believe we can transform the world by witnessing to the sustaining goodness that we experienced through our powerful networks today locally and to the ends of the earth.

(Please check in on Wednesday this week for part two of Witness to Goodness – Ascension Day.)

Gather your community for a time of remembrance. Invite them to call to their minds a person who had died but was a part of their lives. Invite them to focus on the goodness of this relationship, the blessings that were shared. Invite them to share something from this remembrance in small groups. After some sharing time, invite them to complete the sentence and share: As I witness to the goodness of this relationship, I promise to . . .

Reflection Questions for Seventh Sunday of Easter – Ascension Sunday (Year A): Acts 1:6-14   How can you be a witness of Jesus locally and to the ends of the earth? Psalm 68, 1-10, 33-36   How does God give power and strength to her people? 1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11   What does it mean to be connected to the community Christ? John 17:1-11   How do you receive God’s Word and keep it?

Eric H. F. Law
Kaleidoscope Institute
For competent leadership in a diverse changing world
www.kscopeinstitute.org

Register now for the upcoming Kaleidoscope Training Institute in June and July at Cathedral Center of St. Paul, Los Angeles, California June 22-26 Kaleidoscope Homecoming:  Opportunities for Kaleidoscope Institute graduates to network, share, and receive the latest training materials. July 25-27 Fundamental Skills for Building Inclusive Community July 28-August 1 Media and Faith: Creating Audio Visual Electronic Media to Build Inclusive Community

Spirit of Truth

The Chinese word for truthful or genuine, 真 (zhēn) consists of the two ideograms 十 (shí) and 目 (mù). 十 is the number ten while 目 represents the eye. The number ten symbolizes completeness or wholeness. Discerning the truth requires that we look at an issue or event in a wholistic way, perhaps through 10 different eyes, 10 difference perspectives. 

The Hebrew word for truth, emet, is composed of the three letters, א-alef, מ-mem, ת-tav - the first, middle, and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The composition of the word may signify that in order for something to be true, it must start at the beginning, continue to the middle, and complete at the end. There is no half truth in the Hebrew emet. 

The Chinese and Hebrew essence of truth point to a comprehensive inclusive approach to discerning the truth. This “spirit of truth” is difficult for the world to receive. We live in a world conditioned by the paradigm of either-or thinking – something is either true or false (remember all the true/false tests you took in school?). Many prefer the simplistic and often adversary approach to truth – it is easier to define the truth by proving that the others lie (remember the “You lie!” outburst of a U.S. senator during the President’s state of the union address?) It is easier to claim my own experience as the only truth and not listen to other’s perspectives. The spirit of truth calls us to attempt to understand the multiple points of views. This truth-discerning process is always complex and messy.

As a Christian, I struggle with Jesus’ call to love my enemy. That is the radical demand of the spirit of truth. I don’t know the truth unless I am willing to see the conflict from my enemy’s viewpoint. I am challenged to see the world from God’s perspective, not just mine. God created a world where many different people and nations have their places/homes. God loves me and my people. God also loves those whom I considered my enemy. Now what do I do?

The spirit of truth is at the heart of sustainism which does not see the world in either-or binary form. Technologies are not always against nature. Human action and nature’s process are not always at odds with each other. Globalism and Localism are not mutually exclusive. Immigrants and citizens do not have to be fearful of the other. Gay and straight are not enemies. Pro-life and Pro-choice people are not necessarily adversaries. Men and women are not opposites. Archbishop Desmond Tutu said, "Differences are not intended to separate, to alienate. We are different precisely in order to realize our need of one another.”

A sustainist community discerns the truth by taking into account the different perspectives even when they seem to be opposite or contrary to each other. The truth emerges out of the exploration and understanding of the many different points of views based on different experiences of the people in the community. In the same spirit, a sustainist community also speaks the truth by raising up the experiences and perspectives that might have been ignored by the dominant view. In doing so, we present the more complete truth. When we insist on listening and presenting additional points of view, it may put us into conflict with those who still live in the either-or, right-wrong, true-false, good-bad, saint-sinner world. But this might be the cost for following the spirit of truth, seeing the world as God sees it – with 10 eyes, from the beginning, middle and to the end.

Select an issue with which your community is currently struggling. Begin your exploration of the issue by listening to the different perspectives starting with the powerless person or group in your community. How does listening to the powerless in your community first affect your understanding of the issue as you listen to the more powerful ones’ viewpoints?  After sufficient listening, write an imaginary dialogue with 2 or more voices representing the various perspectives.  Allow the dialogue to go on until there might be a resolution. How would you use a similar process to engage more people in your community to address this issue?

 

Reflection Questions for Sixth Sunday of Easter (Year A): Acts 17:22-31 What does it mean for you to be a God’s offspring? Psalm 66:7-18 In what ways has God heard you in truth? 1 Peter 3:13-22 How do you share your hope in gentleness and reverence? John 14:15-21 What does it mean for you to abide with the spirit of truth?

Eric H. F. Law
Kaleidoscope Institute
For competent leadership in a diverse changing world
www.kscopeinstitute.org

Register now for the upcoming Kaleidoscope Training Institute in June and July at Cathedral Center of St. Paul, Los Angeles, California June 22-26 Kaleidoscope Homecoming:  Opportunities for Kaleidoscope Institute graduates to network, share, and receive the latest training materials. July 25-27 Fundamental Skills for Building Inclusive Community July 28-August 1 Media and Faith: Creating Audio Visual Electronic Media to Build Inclusive Community

Cornerstone, Living Stones

When designing a “sustainable” building, the design team attempts to reduce the environmental impacts during the production of building components, the construction process, and the lifecycle of the building (heating, electricity use, carpet cleaning etc.) This design practice emphasizes efficiency of heating and cooling systems, alternative energy sources, appropriate building siting, reused or recycled building materials, on-site power generation, and on-site waste management. This requires close cooperation of the design team, the architects, the engineers, and the client at all project stages, from site selection, scheme formation, material selection and procurement, to project implementation. (Ji Yan and Plainiotis Stellios (2006): Design for Sustainability. Beijing: China Architecture and Building Press.)  This way of designing and building is already a reality. In 2004 the 59 home housing community, the Solar Settlement, with integrated retail, commercial and residential building, called the Sun Ship, were completed by architect Rolf Disch in Freiburg, Germany. The Solar Settlement is the first housing community world wide in which every home produces a positive energy balance.

As a cornerstone is the first stone set in the construction of a building’s foundation, from which all other stones will be set in reference to it, thus determining the position of the entire structure, sustainable design principles functioned like a cornerstone for a sustainable building – everything has to be reconsidered in reference to sustainability.

In a human community, each person is like a stone (a living stone) connecting and supporting each other, forming a structure and network of relationships. I have seen communities that are strong, healthy and sustainable, characterized by a spirit of abundant living– there is room for everyone. I have also seen communities that are not sustainable, characterized by in-fighting, unhealthy competitions, and a spirituality of scarcity. We can always find the reason why a certain community is sustainable and not by discovering the cornerstone from which the community is built. 

Living in the United States, I sometimes feel like I am living in a house of which the cornerstone is greed, short-term selfish gain, and exploitation of the powerless. The large rooms are getting larger (for the rich only) with fewer people in them. And the smaller rooms are disappearing and the people who used to dwell in them are homeless—symbolically and physically. The sign of unsustainability is everywhere – the rising gas price, the healthcare system, the future of social security and medicare, the housing market, and the list goes on. 

But unlike a physical building where, once built, the cornerstone cannot be changed, human communities are fortunately made of living stones and we can reset our community’s cornerstone, therefore re-orienting our community-building toward sustainism. Like the design team of a sustainable building, we need to identity and claim the principle of sustainism as our cornerstone and re-build our communities. By connecting to the source of sustainism, a sustainist community can rebuild its network for that which is life-giving, not life-draining; relationship-building, not just getting the job done; recycling human resources, not leaving certain people on the wayside; doing more with less, not keeping what we have for fear of not-enough. Everything will have to be reconsidered and changed if we are to move toward building a house, a sustainist community, where there are many rooms for many different kinds of people.

Gather the people in your community and invite them to consider what their community could be like with a different cornerstone: Invite the group to name at least 5 programs that their community provides. Divide participants into 5 small groups and invite each group to take one of the programs and reimagine what it would look like if its primary goal were to build relationships (as oppose to just getting the job done.) After some time for the small group to work, invite each group to report. Conclude by asking the following questions: What other values do we, as a community, want to uphold that will move us toward greater sustainability?  What would happen if we set these values as the cornerstone of our community?

 

Reflection Questions for Fifth Sunday of Easter (Year A): Acts 7:55-60 How have you covered your ears these days? Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16 What does it mean for you to ask God to guide and lead you? 1 Peter 2:2-10 What does it mean for your community to be made of living stones? John 14:1-14 How do you find your way to God’s house?

Eric H. F. Law
Kaleidoscope Institute
For competent leadership in a diverse changing world
www.kscopeinstitute.org

Register now for the upcoming Kaleidoscope Training Institute in June: June 12-16  - Trinity Conference Center, West Cornwall, Connecticut Emerging Grace: Missional Ministries in the Grace Margin Holy Currencies:  Conversation on Money and Sustainable Ministry June 22-26 – Cathedral Center of St. Paul, Los Angeles, California Kaleidoscope Homecoming:  Opportunities for Kaleidoscope Institute graduates to network, share, and receive the latest training materials.

Power of Networks

Osama Bin Laden is dead and I don’t feel any safer. On the contrary, the TV news kept reminding me that the death of Bin Laden might cause retaliations and therefore more terrorist activities against the U.S. This is because Bin Laden was part of network of which he was at the center and the people in this network listened to his voice and would do anything he said.   Bin Laden is gone but his network is still here.

In the book, CONNECTED, Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler wrote:

Social networks have value precisely because they help us to achieve what we could not achieve on our own. . . . . . . networks influence the spread of joy, the search for sexual partners, the maintenance of health, the functioning of markets, and the struggle for democracy. Yet, social-network effects are not always positive. Depression, obesity, sexually transmitted diseases, financial panic, violence, and even suicide also spread. Social networks, it turns out, tend to magnify whatever they are seeded with. (Pages 30-31)

Bin Laden’s network continues to threaten violence because it was seeded with violence. 

Jesus also died a violent death 2000 years ago, but his followers did not retaliate precisely because his network was not seeded with violence and revenge but with grace and forgiveness. His followers recalled Jesus’ voice like sheep that recognize their shepherd’s voice. They knew that by following Jesus’s footsteps, they would be guided to green pastures. And their network grew. 

But through history, people connected to Jesus’ social network had strayed from their original calling. They spread hate and excluded others. In the name of Jesus, they incited violence on others and started wars. 

Christakis and Fowler, through their research on social network describe the “Rules of Life in the Network” (pp.16-36) as follows:

1. We shape our network
2. Our network shapes us
3. Our friends affect us
4. Our friends’ friends’ friends’ affect us
5. The network has a life of its own.

While I know that my social network shapes me, I also know that I can shape my network by influencing my friends who in turn can influence their friends and so on. I am a Christian because I value my role in this network. I want to do my part in calling the people in my network back to following Jesus, who seeded this network with love, not hate; with inclusion, not exclusion; with forgiveness, not retaliation.

We have a choice in choosing who is in our network or what network we are part of. We also have a choice to decide what to spread through our network. Do we use it to spread lies or truth, bring fear or trust, propagate hate or share love, control or empower, break down or build sustainable communities?  Christakis and Fowler wrote the book Connected to remind us that “our interconnection is not only a natural and necessary part of our lives but also a force for good.” (p. XVI)

A sustainist knows the power of networks. A sustainist knows the voices of sustainism and connects with them forming this network/ movement to share knowledge and ideas for a sustainable future. If this movement is to grow, the sustainist network/community must also be diverse. By connecting with those who are not yet believers, we create a trust that through the network, will affect, influence, convert, and transform those with whom we establish new connections, thus sharing the work of building a sustainable future.

Gather the people in your community and invite them to examine their social network with the following instructions: Write down the names of 5 people you know who are part of this community.  Recall the last few contacts you had with them. What knowledge, resources, feelings, etc. were exchanged?  Write down the names of 5 people you know who are outside this community. Recall the last few contacts you had with them. What knowledge, resources, feelings, etc. were exchanged?  Form small groups and share your insights from this examination of your social network.  Conclude by asking the following questions: How does your social network shape who you are? How have you influenced your social network through these relationships? How can you use your network as a force for good?

 

Reflection Questions for Fourth Sunday of Easter (Year A): Acts 2:42-47 What did you learn from this passage about growing your community? Psalm 23 What does it mean to have goodness and mercy follow you all the days of your life? 1 Peter 2:19-25 How have you strayed from Jesus and how can you return to following him? John 10:1-10 How do you recognize the voice of Jesus?

 

Eric H. F. Law
Kaleidoscope Institute
For competent leadership in a diverse changing world
www.kscopeinstitute.org

Is Your Heart Burning?

A year ago, I was invited to give an Emerging Grace workshop for the clergy of the Episcopal Diocese of Iowa.  At the end of the workshop, Bishop Alan Scarfe invited me to accompany him for a friendly chat with Mr. Terry Waite who happened to be giving a lecture in the area. This is the same Terry Waite who was held hostage from 1987-1991 while he was sent as an envoy for the Church of England to Lebanon to secure the release of four hostages. As the two British gentlemen connected as Englishmen did, I sat back and listened. 

The conversation moved to Mr. Waite sharing excitedly about a project called Emmaus UK, a charity for formerly homeless people, of which he is the president. I had attempted to work with homeless persons during my days as the campus minister at the University of Southern California; I knew how hard it was to find a sustainable model to support this work. As he described these Emmaus Communities with vivid details, my heart was burning with excitement – this is a model that works!

Homeless persons can join one of 20 Emmaus Communities. In order to do so, they have to sign off unemployment benefits and agree to participate in the life and work of the community and abide by its rules, for example, not bringing drugs or alcohol into the community. Companions, as residents are known, work full time collecting, renovating and reselling donated furniture. The work not only supports the community financially, it also enables residents to develop life skills, rebuild their self-respect and help others in greater need. Companions receive accommodation, food, clothing and a small weekly allowance, but for many, the greatest benefit is a fresh start.

Terry said, “I support Emmaus fully because it does not patronise homeless people... Emmaus enables people to get back on their feet and regain their dignity as human beings.”

 The perception of homeless people is that they are a drain on society, but the Emmaus Communities see them as resources and potential – their time, energy and developing skills – that can be planted in nurturing communities and allowed to grow and produce and become self-sustaining. This is sustainist thinking and community-making. 

Central to the ethos of Emmaus Communities is the concept of Solidarity which takes many forms; sometimes surplus income generated from the business of the Community goes towards starting new Emmaus Communities, sometimes it is donated to other local charities or to disaster appeals.  Companions also volunteer their time to other organizations; they clear playgrounds, cook lunch for pensioners, drive people to and from their homes and work in soup kitchens.

This is sustainism at work. The re-circulating of resources – money and human sources – not only allows the initial investment to be sustained but also allows it to continue to grow and expand.

Christians recognize Emmaus as the name of a town in an Easter biblical story from the Gospel of Luke. In this story, two confused disciples, on their way to Emmaus, encountered the resurrected Jesus. They did not recognize him at first, but when they invited him to stay with them in Emmaus, and as they broke bread together, they recognized Jesus. The whole story of Jesus suddenly made sense to them and they regained their hope and they recalled, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?"

Emmaus is not a religious organization, but Communities around the world have kept the name because of its symbolism. Emmaus is a movement, spanning 36 countries, with 20 Communities in the UK. The organization's goals can be found in the Universal Manifesto of Emmaus International:

Our guiding principle is one which is essential to the whole human race if there is to be any life worth living, and any true peace and happiness either for the individual or society: Serve those worse off than yourself before yourself. Serve the most needy first.

At the end of the chat with Mr. Waite, he said that whenever I am in the UK, look him up and he would gladly show me the wonderful work of the Emmaus Communities. And I am sure I will take him up on the offer.

If your community is struggling to find a sustainist way to address homelessness in your neighborhood, invite a group of key leaders to come together to study how the Emmaus Community model work. Here are the Key stages in setting up an Emmaus Community that I found in the Emmaus UK website: Forming a local steering group of volunteers with a range of skills and backgrounds • Finding out about Emmaus and how Communities work. Looking at local homelessness and furniture re-use provision to make sure that there would be demand for an Emmaus Community Acquiring a suitable site for both the residential and business parts of the Community • Raising the money to build or convert premises and set up the business Recruiting the staff who will run the Community  If there is enough interest and excitement (are hearts burning?), why not invite Mr. Terry Waite to come to town and share the work with the community? He might just take you up on it.

 

Reflection Questions for Third Sunday of Easter (Year A): Acts 2:36-41 What story have you heard that cuts to the heart? Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17 When have you called upon the name of the Lord? 1 Peter 1:17-23 What does it mean for you to be born anew of imperishable seed? Luke24:12-33 How do you recognize the presence of something/someone holy?

Eric H. F. Law
Kaleidoscope Institute
For competent leadership in a diverse changing world
www.kscopeinstitute.org