The Loving Evolution of Christianity and the World
Part Five – Manifesting Generative, Microsystem Alternatives
So How Do We Do It?
In our world in crisis, the current structures and systems can no longer hold. They are largely, for the most part, already collapsing or failing. Propped up by the old ways, greed, and inertia, so many of our systems are no longer serving the flow of life, and often are actively doing the opposite. They have become destructive forces damaging individual lives, communities, and the earth itself. We all cannot help but participate in these systems, as much as we may try to individually opt-out, resist, and reject the destruction caused by these systems.
At ICN, the hope is that we can begin to work to cocreate and collaborate into micro-system alternatives that operate in a different consciousness from that which has come before.
These will not be the same sorts of “structures” and organizations. They will have different forms. They will have different energy.
This series has been about a beginning look at some of the various ways that energy can be different—emergent, cocreative, regenerative, faith-full. But what about the forms? What can those look like? How does a mystical network of global transformation come into manifestation?
Or to put it another way, so then now how do we do it?
A Generative Presence in the Midst of the World
“Immanent spirit becomes manifest, through collaborative action, as relational and situational sacred presence. Participation in this presence engenders a liberating wholeness, a personal regeneration – which is given expression amidst the practicalities of everyday life and work, empowering whole relations with others.” -John Heron and Gregg Lahood
The first manifestation of our mystical network is a transformed and generative presence.
There can be no generative systems without an underlying individual and collective consciousness that is, at least to some degree, integrated, liberated, and loving. We will manifest what we are—and so the creation of new systems, our collaborative action, must be rooted in love and generative presence.
This happens through our daily lives, the practicalities of our everyday life and work. Our very presence becomes a sacred offering of generativity. And it is always continually unfolding. It is not necessarily a point of attainment we reach in our spiritual development so much as an opening to the flow of life from the depths of our being. Reconnecting to our vitality. To the source of creative and generative energy.
We all have it within us, though it often remains latent amidst systems that do not encourage originality outside of “creative outlets.” Outlets by definition do not change the fundamental flow and primary order. Our unique, inspirated energy is far too often pushed divergent from our work and so too our lives.
When we are able to integrate, to infuse this originality, this inspired energy back into our lives, it comes into manifest form through our very presence. We are the fundamental structure. The first flowers of spring. Not in an egoic exaltation, but the owning of living from our divine-human love and power, blooming in radical presence.
But this is not an individual process. It comes not through the fruit of our individual spiritual journey alone, but through the transformative companionship of empowerment that we find in whole relations with those who would be our sacred kin. We best come into this way of being through the support and co-journeying with others seeking to live in this same power.
Relational Participation toward Generative Collaboration
Conscious participation in the evolutionary process of life invites us to hold the seeming paradox of existence as simultaneously part and whole. From a relational participatory perspective all being takes place in the polarity between ‘being for oneself’ and ‘being as reciprocal expression of the whole’. We are both at once.
– Daniel Christian Wahl
At the simplest level, it’s about living it. First and foremost, in your life. In our lives. We find our giftings, our roles. We learn how to live in our unique expressions from this vitalized core of our being.
That’s one of the things our WeSpace groups hope to help offer one another—the support, encouragement, and feedback in our own integration processes of living with more loving and generative presence.
And then, perhaps, we might also come into collaboration.
As we learn to live more in the flow of this generative energy, we will sense more and more how limited we are by ourselves, how we cannot do it on our own. And so at the same time, as we are open, we will find ourselves coming into the synchronicities of spirit that bring us to the people and places we need to be. This is not a passive movement—though often we are especially graced in this way early on—but an active movement into our relational participation in the underlying web of life, the unfolding manifesting of the loving evolutionary process of life which we sometimes call the Body of Christ.
While it’s personally restorative to dwell in our transcendent connection to the whole, to the vast totality of life and spirit, it is in the immanent relational space where our generative work most often manifests. In the WE. In the vital particularity of our unique gifting and passion coming into relational connection with others who are responding to the same movements of spirit in themselves.
In the past, this type of relational connection has been more bound to our geographical place. With the internet, our ability and capacity to discover these connections is exponentially increased. While the pandemic has helped show how much is possible online, these are also still just the earliest expressions of what is possible. The limitations are there too, and we will always need to localize our forms into our place—but so too can we find a host of generative expressions and relations through non-localized relations and forms.
In our emerging interconnections we are more able to discover these among one another. In the fruitions of our mystical network, we are able to come into the interweavings of one another—not just for relational support and camaraderie, but also into the generative collaborations that are seeking to be born. Cocreating the mystical microsystems of a regenerative future.
What creative forms could emerge if we generate systems not just in response to the apparent problems we recognize, but also from the visions and longings of our hearts? Systems that exist not to capitalize on financial gain, but whose primary reason for being is the thriving of life and the better, more loving world that we know is possible?
What could such “mystical microsystems” look like?
Mystical Microsystems
Let’s call them “mystical” because they are intimately connected to the divine flow of life, not because they will be intangible or ethereal. They can have a very present and substantive function with quite palpable results and effects.
These will be cooperative systems that serve generative purpose—what is most life-giving and restorative for individuals, communities, and the planet. As opposed to competitive systems that respond to the market and are often driven by egoic forces of success and defeating the opposition. The people and the “goods” are not seen as commodities, but vital elements of a synergistic ecosystem.
These systems will be built with structures of interflow rather than of separation. Thriving systems have dynamic processes of communication and interconnected support throughout. They combine generative enclosures made up of permeable boundaries with an almost mycelial knowing, an open and mystical movement of information and feedback to respond to current situations and needs. This flow is non-hierarchical—in that it doesn’t always have to move through a centralized control center before dispersing to where it needs to go, but can move freely and openly directly to where it needs to go. There is still a “holonic” dynamic of healthy leadership and some with greater roles than others, but the whole system is not divided by a top-down pyramid that seeks to control and micro-manage everything.
They are most likely “microsystems,” because they are not seeking to challenge and replace the largest systems of our society, but might come forth as life-giving alternatives to the particular needs and lackings of what is currently available. Starting with one small thing can be enough to make a significant and important contribution to a regenerative turn.
All of these polarities are not simply either/or extremes, but a complimentary rebalancing of current-order realities that have become damaging in their extremes: institutionally-bureaucratic, hyper-competitive, hierarchically-bound, suspiciously-exclusionary.
It will be challenging to try to do things differently. And regular visioning is needed to help us reimagine different ways of functioning together in “work” settings and collaborative endeavors.
The great thing about systems is that once they are created, they are not entirely dependent on the consciousness of those operating within them. To some degree, yes. But if they are built in such a way so as to serve the flow of life—then that will be the default orientation.
We can’t change people’s consciousness, but we can create systems and environments that encourage the best of what is within us. That draw us into more loving, healing, and generative ways of living and working together.
So where do we start?
How: Concrete Steps
So far, I’ve given more of a qualitative “how,” more about the nature and attributes than specific types of forms. So let me try now to give a concrete example.
Let’s say you have a particular passion for the state of the earth and the climate crisis. If there are other organizations or groups expressing a response to this situation that resonates with your deepest, vital passion for what we can do about it, great. Join that. There is no need to reinvent what is already in existence or “rebrand” for a new form when the underlying energy is more the most part the same. Your part may be to bring it to local expression or participate in any way that serves that network in relation to your particular gifting and passion.
But let’s say you feel in your depths a need that doesn’t seem to be recognized or addressed in what you’re aware of (and you’ve searched for it). Perhaps you have connected with the spirit guides of the earth and you want to pray for healing with them and others. Perhaps you want to come together in WeSpace with the subtle body of the earth. Or maybe you want to educate people about the effects of microplastics. Whatever it may be, that is a place to start. That is a potential gathering principle.
These microsystems start with one small thing. With one question, one need, one current reality of life that we are passionate about serving and healing.
We may already know what we’re passionate about and what work is calling us forth from the depths of our vitality. Or hearing something from another may spark and connect to that place within us in a way we weren’t aware of before. Or in the process of WeSpace or other generative communities, we may discover something arising from the field of emergence among us, which just might be the best way to generate from the flow.
I pose again the questions from the first part of this series:
What is alive in me/us that I/we have to offer?
What is mine/ours to give to the world?
Who are the connections and relationships I/we might need to foster further?
Where is life wanting to flow?
To come into the collaborations that are waiting to be born, we first can simply hold these questions. In our own hearts and perhaps too with others in any collective hearts of which we are a part—such as a WeSpace group or other sacred community.
In our hearts and even deeper. From the depth of our deepest identity—our awakened inner being where vitality flows forth into our particular becoming. Here and now, in this time and place.
What can I bring forth? What is bubbling from the crucial uniqueness of my precious life?
From this, where might I look to cocreate or collaborate something new and generative?
It’s not about being productive or accomplishing something—but about living from the fullness of who we are, which will naturally flow out. We will, as we open the tap to our deep vitality, be drawn into expression, into form, into manifestation that may in some way serve the loving evolution of all things.
This is how we come alive. And how we manifest in a world in dire need of generativity. Of your generativity. Of ours, together.