The Sustainist

Surprise and Free

A few years ago, Ed, Lucky Lynch, and I finally produced my first video called “Who Am I?” and uploaded it to YouTube. With great excitement, I told a friend who had been involved in the entertainment industry about it.  She asked, “How much did you get paid?” It never occurred to me that I would make money out of the making of the video. So I said something like, “It’s not about money.” In fact, I was teaching a course every summer called Media and Faith to get more people to make videos and share in local communities and the internet. My answer surprised her. She could not comprehend how someone would put all this work into creating a video for free!

Clay Shirky wrote in his book Cognitive Surplus, 

“. . . Daniel Kahnerman, the first noneconomist to win a Nobel Prize in economics, for his work on ways in which humans aren't rational economic actors, calls this effect “theory-induced blindness”: adherence to a belief about how the world works that prevents you from seeing how the world really works.”

“. . . the question, Why are all these people working for free? presupposes a theory of human action based mainly on personal and financial motivation: The sensible reason to do things is for money, so doing things for free requires a special explanation. Within that theoretical framing, there is no good reason why someone would upload their video to Youtube or edit a Wikipedia article. The problem here isn’t with the behaviors, it’s with the explanation. Once you stop asking why people do these things “for free” and just start asking why they are doing them, the whole range of intrinsic (and nonfinancial) motivation becomes part of the explanation.” (P. 99, Cognitive Surplus: How Techonology Makes Consumers into Collaborators by Clay Shirky.)

The Bible is full of surprises if we really read and listen to it: a king humbly riding on a donkey, love poems (yes there are love poems in the bible) without mentioning God at all, puzzling courting rituals, a lord who upholds all those who fall, and a teacher who eats and drinks with sinners, just to name a few. Why are we surprised when we read these things in the Bible? Maybe we have what Kahnerman calls theory-induced blindness. We are so conditioned to think about how things should be that we are blind to what the Bible is really saying. Perhaps this is why Jesus said that God has “hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and revealed them to infants.” 

Those of us who think we are wise and intelligent, would often see the world with many filters that block us from seeing the whole truth of the world. A child would take in the world as is and welcome the gifts that the world has to offer without judgment.

The sustainist way of thinking is new to many of us. We are often surprised by how the sustainists actually believe that we can do more with less. We can’t understand why they want to be authentic individuals, and at the same time want to live in interdependent-networked communities. We are puzzled by how they want to exercise their individual power and yet want to share power in things like open source. We can’t figure out how they think of waste as resources. We are surprised by how they can offer their time and talent for free and yet be sustainable. Some of us might actually intellectually understand sustainism but are struggling with why we cannot seem to whole-heartedly act in ways that support it.

Why is sustainism a surprise to so many of us? What are the assumptions and theories that are blinding us from seeing and accepting it? Open our eyes and ears as an infant would and truly receive the world as it is, not what we think it should be, and maybe we will catch the sustainist vision.

Gather the unemployed and retired folks in your community. Invite them to share what they see are the needs in the community. Invite them to consider what gifts, talents and skills they have. Divide them into small groups and invite each group to explore: With the time they have, what is a project they can do using their skills and talents to address one of the needs of the community?  Invite each group to report. As a large group, select one of the projects and implement it this coming week.

Reflection Questions for Proper 9 (Year A): Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67   How does this passage challenge your ideas about courtship and marriage? Psalm 45:11-18   What does a royal wedding has to do with God? Song of Solomon 2:8-13   Why do you think this love poem is in the Bible? Zechariah 9:9-12   How does this passage challenge your idea of God? Psalm 145:8-15   How does the concept of God relate to you in this Psalm? Romans 7:15-25a   In what ways do you identify with the struggle of the writer of this text? Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30   How can you see and hear the truth like an infant again?

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 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

Sacrifice No More

In 1927, a man walked out to Lake Michigan intending to throw himself into the icy waters.  He was still mourning his first daughter’s death 4 years before.  He was jobless and broke with a wife and a newborn daughter to support.  He said to himself, “I’ve done the best I know how and it hasn’t worked. I guess I’m just no good.”  He gave himself a choice: jump or think.  Fortunately, he decided to think.  After a long time at the shorefront thinking, he realized that he did not have the right to kill himself.  Instead, he eventually dedicated his life to "the search for the principles governing the universe and help advance the evolution of humanity in accordance with them... finding ways of doing more with less to the end that all people everywhere can have more and more"

The man was R. Buckminster (Bucky) Fuller, the famous inventor, thinker and futurist. Since 1927, he considered his life a living-experiment; he gave himself the nickname 'Guinea Pig B'.  Part of this experiment was for him to denounce personal success and financial gain.  By deciding to contribute to the wellbeing of the earth and human communities, he believed that he would not have to worry about material and financial needs.  And he was right; for 56 years until his death, he and his family were well taken care of and he had 28 patents, 42 honorary doctorates, and 28 books published.

When we are in trouble, one of the typical things that we do is bargain.  If I give this up, will you give that to me? If I sacrifice this, will I get that in exchange? This is zero-sum thinking; there is a limited amount of money and resources, so if you are to have one gain, another must lose.  In this scarcity spirituality, if someone is rich, someone else has to be poor. If someone is happy, someone has to be sad. For someone to be right, someone else must be wrong. If someone were to have life, someone must die. In order to have peace, we have to have the sacrifices that come with wars. 

Perhaps Bucky figured out on that decisive day that by sacrificing his own life, there wasn’t going to be any gain for anybody, to say the least, for his family. By choosing not to sacrifice himself, he found a sustainist way to address his problem, by contributing—doing good, not just for himself but for humanity and the earth. Instead of measuring his own success by selfish gain, he gave himself unselfishly, trusting that whatever he needed would be provided.

Instead of sacrificing something or someone in order to solve a problem, a sustainist chooses to contribute to the solution by doing that which is good for all, passionately and unselfishly.  Instead of debating for an either-or decision, a sustainist searches for a “both-and” answer. Sustainism holds in tension things that might initially be seen as opposites and insists that these differences are parts of a whole. If both sides contribute positively, as opposed to negatively depleting/sacrificing the other, there would be a “both-and” resolution. 

A sustainist believes that we are rewarded when we welcome a stranger’s point of views into our thinking. We are rewarded when we dare to welcome even a “prophet,” who would confront the foundation of our thought pattern, in our midst. The reward is the realization that we are all inter-connected. No one needs to be sacrificed in order for another to gain. In order to have peace, we don’t have to have wars. If we all contribute to the solution, we will have a win-win resolution. The reward is the recognition that there is enough for everyone. The earth, if we co-create with it, will provide. In Judeo-Christian terms, we trust that God will provide and in the belief in this abundance, we don’t need to sacrifice anyone in order to get what we need. Our responsibility is to be grateful and continue to contribute in ways that will improve and enhance our humanity and cooperation with God’s creation.

Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and make good your vows to the Most High.  (Psalm 50:14)

Gather your community to experience a “both-and” approach to issue: Select an issue that your community is facing, especially an issue to which there are different points of view. Invite people to form groups based on similar points of view. Invite each group to describe the issue as fully as they can from their perspective. Invite each group to report, without debate.  Just listen and understand. Invite people to return to their own groups to answer the following question together: Focusing on the wellbeing of the whole community, what are we willing to do? Invite each group to report. Engage the community in a discussion to discover the best way to address the issue together.

Reflection Questions for Proper 8 (Year A): Genesis 22:1-14   What would life be like if you truly believe that God will provide? Psalm 13   What does it mean for you to trust in God’s mercy? Jeremiah 28:5-9   How can you be a prophet who prophesies peace? Psalm 89:1-4, 15-18   In what ways can we proclaim that God’s love is established forever? Romans 6:12-23   What does it mean for you to be an instrument of righteousness? Matthew 10:40-42   What reward do you get if you welcome a prophet into your life?

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

1 and 0 of Community

When Johannes Gutenberg introduced movable type to the western world in the mid-15^th century, it began an empowering revolution through the medium of printing.  By having carvings of little individual letters that could be arranged into any word, sentence and page, more people were able to have their writings published and distributed widely.  When we reduce something complex into basic building blocks, we create a means for creating and sharing that is flexible and efficient.

In the 21^st century, when we began to digitize information – that is reducing numbers, words, sounds, images into 1’s and 0’s – we began another empowering revolution even more impactful than Gutenberg’s movable type. For example, the number one is represented by 001, two is 010, three is 011, four is 100, etc.)  Now all information can be reproduced and transmitted without the loss of quality.  Unlike printed material, which has a greater cost involved—paper, the digitalized information is almost free.  Notice all information, programs, and social media that are available free through the internet – Youtube, facebook, Skype, Hulu, Google, Wikipedia, etc.  All you need is a computer with a camera and you are ready not only to be a receiver of media but also a producer and distributer.  The costs of equipment used to create digital image, sound and information have become so low that many more people can afford to own them. Again, when we reduce complex things into basic building blocks, in this case 1s and 0s, we empower many more people with the means to create and share their ideas, thoughts and images.

There was a religious revolution in the 1^st century when followers of Jesus reduced their faith into the basic building blocks of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit – Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer.

The Grace of Lord Jesus Christ, and the Love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all evermore.

(2 Corinthians  13:14)

The Trinity is the individual letter carvings of Christian faith.  The Grace of Jesus and the Love of God are the 1 and 0 of God’s fellowship.  Like God’s creation, which is given to us, resource-full and free, the Love of God is also free, abundant and unconditional.  Like the earth, this Love is what makes us all interconnected. 

Jesus charged his followers to love God, love their neighbors as themselves.  He even charged them to love their enemies.  Jesus charged his followers to love one another as he had loved them, forgave them and included them in his fellowship no matter how lowly, unacceptable and undeserving they thought they were. The Grace of Jesus was his actions to create a time and a place in which the unconditional Love of God could be shared.  

With Grace and Love, the basic building blocks, we can create sustainable communities in many different forms.  These are the fellowships of the Holy Spirit – the Sustainer.  Like the digital revolution, we are not just receivers of this love, but also empowered to create with Love and Grace and share with others generously and graciously.   Unlike the movable type and digits, love is free.  Unlike the printing machine and the digital equipment, the embodiment of this love – Grace— is free.  We are called to co-create with God developing sustainable communities in which Love and Grace is taught, shared and lived. 

Gather your community to explore the 1 and 0 of their fellowship: Invite each individual to write down:  3 most basic skills that everyone in the community should know in order for their community to be sustainable.  In other words, what are basic building blocks of a sustainable community? Invite them to share and record the skills they mentioned on chart paper. As a group, name the 3 most mentioned skills on the chart paper. Invite them to reflect and share on the following question: What would our community be like if everyone truly knows and practices the 3 basic skills?  How can we teach these basic skills?

Reflection Questions for Trinity Sunday (Year A): Genesis 1:1-2:4a   What does it mean for you to be made in the image of God? Psalm 8   What is humankind that God should seek us out? 2 Corinthians 13:11-14   What will our community be like if we greet each other with a holy kiss? Matthew 28: 16-20   What did you learn from this text about how to create a sustainable missional ministry?

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

Dreams, Visions and Prophecies

Your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old shall dream dreams, your young shall see visions.  Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days. (Joel 2:28-29)

This is a 2,500+ old text from the Prophet Joel recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures. In the biblical world, the ability to dream dreams and have visions and prophesy was reserved for a chosen few and they were usually powerful men – Moses, Abraham, Joseph, David and the Prophets. Hebrew scriptures identify only 55 prophets; only 7 were women.

We can appreciate the radical inclusion of Joel’s prophecy by the fact that he specifically mentioned both sons and daughters, old and young, men and women, and even servants (in some translation slaves) as people who would have the abilities of a prophet, a spokesperson chosen by God to speak on God’s behalf to convey messages from God.  

About 500 years later during Pentecost, a Jewish festival celebrated 50 days after Passover, a small group of Jews who followed a teacher named Jesus claimed that this prophecy was fulfilled. A few days before, Jesus had left this small group (the Ascension) leaving them leaderless and powerless. Certainly no one would expect this small group of people to be spokespersons for God. But on that Pentecost day, they prophesied. But the real miracle was that the crowd who had come for the Pentecost feast was there, and they heard this small group of people, each speaking in their own native tongue, proclaiming God’s deeds of power. Many changed and became believers as a result. Christians recognized that day as the beginning of the Church.

We are living in a world dominated by the voices of the powerful and rich. They can buy TV ads and influence our media to spread lies and make people believe that their lies were the truth. They can manipulate the political system to make us believe that the rich should stay rich because the systems that they created are too big to fail. Their influential voices are moving us away from a sustainable future for all.  We need a Pentecost soon if we are to turn this tide of unsustainability.

Where are the prophets for our world today? The prophetic voices of our time have to come from the powerless ones in our midst. They will tell us where resources are not flowing and recirculating.  They will tell us where in our network are the places of unsustainability because they are the ones who are suffering in them. But even if they are prophesying, are we listening?

With the internet and the World Wide Web, we are more likely able to hear the prophetic voices of the powerless. Youtube.com, for example, offers everyone who has a computer with a camera, free of charge, the ability to broadcast his/her voice and image to millions. The internet-enhanced social media allows people to network globally with each other, bypassing the system controlled by the rich and powerful in our societies.

A sustainist listens to the powerless voices. A sustainist assists the powerless to network with others locally and globally to find their voice together. A sustainist provides the powerless access to technologies that empower and amplify their voices. The fact is there are more powerless people in the world than there are powerful ones. There are more poor people than rich. If we can network and hear each other, support each other, and let our voices be amplified and circulated through our connections, then there is hope for a Pentecost in which the powerful would finally listen. When the dreams, visions, and prophecies of the poor and powerless are listened to, perhaps there is hope for a sustainable future where everyone is sustained and not just a powerful few.  

 

Gather your community and watch the Youtube video: When I Pour Out My Spirit Invite them to reflect on the question:  Who are the powerless ones in your family, your community, your neighborhood, your town/city, your nation, and the world? Invite them to share their reflection and record them on chart paper. Invite them to further reflect on the question:  In what ways can we follow the Spirit of Pentecost and listen to the powerless for their visions, dreams, and prophecies?

Reflection Questions for Day of Pentecost (Year A): Acts 2:1-21   Was this more a miracle of the tongue or miracle of the ear?  What has been your own experience in communication? Numbers 11:24-30   What would life be like if all of God’s people are prophets? Psalm 104:25-35   What will happen if we let God send forth the spirit to renew the earth? 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13   What does it mean for everyone in your community to drink of one Spirit? John 20:19-23   How does the Holy Spirit help you address your fear?

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

Witness to Goodness (Part Two – Ascension Day)

Christians celebrate the Feast of the Ascension, the fortieth day from Easter, to commemorate the bodily ascension of Jesus into heaven. I am not going to debate whether he actually flew into heaven on that day or not. Considering what has been happening in the last couple of weeks – the tornados in Joplin, MO which took away over 100 people and the predicted Rapture that was supposed to happen on May 21 but didn’t – I am more interested in how the leaving of Jesus impacted his followers who were left behind.  Before he left, he charged them to be his “witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

When someone leaves us, amidst the pain and the loss, we are faced with the difficult task of being witnesses to the existence of that person. Perhaps that is all that is left – our memories of the relationship. But to be a witness of this person to the ends of the earth is a very tall order. 

Along with the “six degrees of separation,” Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler (authors of Connected) showed that we have what they call “Three Degrees of Influence.” 

“Everything we do or say tends to ripple through our network. . .  Our influence gradually dissipates and ceases to have a noticeable effect on people beyond the social frontier that lies at three degrees of separation.  Likewise, we are influenced by friends within three degrees but generally not by those beyond.” (P. 28, Connected) 

“If we are connected to everyone else by six degrees and we can influence them up to three degrees, then one way to think about ourselves is that each of us can reach about halfway to everyone else on the planet.” (P. 29, Connected)

So the charge to be witnesses of Jesus to the ends of the earth was definitely possible but with considerable dangers. Jesus had seeded a network with followers who would be his witnesses first locally (in Jerusalem) and then to nearby towns and cities (Samaria) and to the ends of the earth. And Jesus’ initiation of this network worked and Christianity did spread. But somewhere along the way, many in the network lost their original connection to Jesus. Instead of witnessing to what Jesus had said or done, many became witnesses to the interpreters of who Jesus was, many degrees away from the source, resulting in spreading many destructive things, like hatred, exclusion and even wars through parts of the Christian network.

We, who are many generations from the first Christians, need to stay close to the source of our network – Jesus.  Jesus wanted his followers to stay closely connected to him, he who is closely connected to God, the Creator and Sustainer. As a Christian, I am to be no more than two degrees from the God who, according to Psalm 68, is the parent of orphans and defender of widows, who gives the solitary a home and brings forth prisoners into freedom and who sends gracious rain to refresh the land when it is weary.  (Psalm 68:5-9)  As Christians, we have the responsibility to be witnesses of Jesus who confronted the oppressive system of his time by connecting with the poor, the outcast, the displaced, the unclean and the powerless, making those who were on the fringe of the social network the center of where he began his work. We are called to be witnesses of the one who sustains us locally and to the ends of the earth.

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