How Do We Be Together Well?
Values of Mystical Community
Practicing Community – Part Seventeen
“Butterflies” by Susan Lu
In this series on Practicing Community, we have explored many aspects of how we come into and practice mystical community with others on this evolving spiritual path. Undergirding this whole series are the foundational identities and fundamental values of Integral Christian Network. We approach practicing community from the heart of being Christian (in an evolving way), Mystical, and Integral. We hold everything we do to our values of Love, Mystical, We, Uniqueness, and Emergence.
When we look particularly at our practices of community, we may also identify some more specific values of community that have been implicit throughout this series. I’d like to now bring those up to the forefront and consider these more directly, as they make up the energetic source of how we are together—of how we seek to be together well.
Descriptive & Aspirational Values of Mystical Community
Values in community describe the basis for how we are together. What energies and ways of being will guide our engagement with one another. They are our causal motivations, affecting our choices and our actions. We can be conscious of these, or they can be so embedded that we don’t recognize them. They can be the unconscious forces underlying how we act and why.
All of us bring our own personal values into every situation in our lives. And when we come into community, there is always a navigating of personal values with the collective values of the group we are becoming a part of. If there is dissonance, the force of collective values can be a significant challenge to an individual. A common example of this happens in the workplace when corporate values—stated or unstated—clash with what the person feels is right or is passionate about.
Most of us will feel drawn into a spiritual community that has a lot of the same values that we already hold, as well as areas that we feel challenged to grow into.
In both our personal and collective values, there is normally a dance between what is descriptive and what is aspirational. There are the ways we want to be and the ways that we already are. And both belong. If we are striving to grow and evolve, then we need to invite these energies of how we want to become.
At the beginning of a community, the values lean heavily toward the aspirational, for the collective is just beginning to discover how they are and will be together. It can be helpful not to try to name values early on in the process, as that can strain too hard into idealism rather than being with what is.
The longer a community has been going, the more the energies of the group values crystalize and come into shape. They can be felt and recognized more easily, and so can be named in accurate description. Over time, the challenge then becomes to not settle into a static establishment, losing the aspirational which brings growth and evolution.
So what follows are some values, both descriptive and aspirational, of mystical community as we are practicing and discovering in ICN. This is not a definitive and complete list but a collection of recognitions and naming that we have identified so far. We are still very much in process and forming our communal values, while our foundational values are more definitive.
Many of these values might be reflective of the shape of things to come, of things many communities might focus on more in our evolving spiritual landscape. And some may just be particular to us. See what resonates with you and what else you might name that isn’t listed here (and share in the comments below if you would like!).
Radical Receptivity
In mystical community, we deeply value the posture of radical receptivity, where we hold an openness of heart and spaciousness of mind. It is listening deeply, genuinely receiving what is being offered in word and presence.
This is the opposite of being wrapped up in our own thoughts, ideas, or comparisons. If we are relating to others only from the space of self-reference, our default is toward agreement or disagreement, affirming or countering what others say with what we think, with our opinions, with the distinction of our perspective. We are planning and thinking of what we want to say, rather than deeply listening. This reinforces our separation and difference—even in agreement. For there we are still caught up in our own perspective and experience.
Yes, we want the healthy distinction of our uniqueness in the midst of the collective, not falling into groupthink or abandonment of self (which we’ll look at more next week). But very often our assertions of self—especially those that come quickly—are rooted in envy, competition, self-doubt, and other unhealthy energies stemming from fear and insecurity. Even positive response can step over the other before we’ve fully received what they are bringing.
Radical receptivity is different because we make space for one another without the need to immediately relate it to ourselves. We begin with open welcome, receiving everyone in the collective space as they are, where they are. This, in turn, frees us to be ourselves as we embrace “the other” in their goodness and gifts, as well as their limitations, knowing that we all are still arriving in so many ways.
Generous Presence
We not only radically receive the other, but we also hold our own presence with generosity and freedom as well. While still practicing discernment, we let go of being guarded against “the other.” This is a hospitality of being that we can ease into, especially as we experience safety and trust in growing intimacy.
In practicing this value, we are freeing ourselves from the pervasive game of give and take. In the economy of individualism, our time and presence are commodities to be leveraged. We can subtly turn ourselves into a tradeable resource. And just like any resource, we unconsciously guard it. We may withhold in the name of privacy. Or perhaps under the auspices of efficiency.
Yes, we all have our limitations and needs. We all need to practice discernment and focus, especially in this age of endless opportunities ever more accessible. This value is less about time than it is about how we are when we are present.
When we have come into community and chosen to be there, we can ever more learn to hold our own presence with humility. We can hold our needs loosely, welcoming the dance of how we take up space and how we make space for others. Without judgment and evaluation. Giving more freely in the spirit of generosity, while also not giving ourselves away. We embrace our full, authentic presence, which is also collective. This generosity leads us more fully beyond our small self and into a more expansive presence.
“Dancing in the Circle of Trust” – artist unknown
Fundamental & Ongoing Trust
This value is so important it had its own full article earlier in this series. So here, I’ll just add that trust is really hard! Especially after it has been tested or violated.
Though we aim to start from choosing to see the good and assuming positive intent, we can lose trust, and sometimes rightly so. The longer life in community extends, the more likely we will experience the pain of what feels like betrayal or violation—which may or may not actually be the case.
When this happens, it is easy to give up, wall off, or divide the field into camps of right and wrong. We can so easily fragment through triangulation, which brings together 2 or more parties against someone or something else. This divisive energy is so common and pervasive in community when pain comes, for our instinct is to separate from pain, to protect ourselves. Continuing in our interconnection is difficult.
We can also find energies of suspicion, assumptions, threat, and more that will challenge trust. Open communication, transparent authenticity, and honest feedback are all practices of continuing to cultivate ongoing trust in community. Processes of conflict resolution, repair, and reconciliation are essential for deepening community.
“Light Dance” – artist unknown
Playful Joy
And at the same time, we embrace play and joyfulness! Spiritual communities can so easily get stuck in self-seriousness. The importance of our purposes and missions in the world can lock us into drive and directionality. And they are important. The work is important.
But we are discovering that playing together is equally as vital and valuable. If there is little joy in our midst, how transformative can what we are doing really be?
Laughter is a great sign of the health of your community.
So the invitation is to go play! Welcome silliness and joviality in your communal spaces. It will nurture the soul of the collective in so many ways.
Easeful Grace
Another value that is crucial in any community is easeful grace. If play keeps us from getting stuck or too locked up, grace keeps us from being too wound up, spiraling around or fixating on something.
Grace can be a religious word with baggage for some, but here it simply reflects the great allowing. It doesn’t overly strain but flows with the current of a deeper movement—which may be fast or slow at times. It doesn’t force but responds to what is with care and focused attention. There is an elegant simplicity alongside an open orientation of goodwill.
With grace, we can hold ourselves and others with ease, released from the grip of idealism, which can be a major killer of community. Free from the clinging of oughts and shoulds, everything is just as it needs to be, as it is now.
“Flower of Life” art by Walter Bruneel
Practicing Loving Community
We could describe most, if not all, of these values as dynamics of love. Or elements of how we love one another (and ourselves) well.
Love is what holds it all together. Love is a word that gets thrown around too much and may feel watered-down a bit. Too often, it is overly romanticized and unduly limited to romance.
And yet, it is still perhaps the most powerful force in the world, maybe even the universe. That which bonds and binds us together as the attractive force at the heart of every particle—which is both here and nonlocally entangled across vast distances.
In coming together in community, we intentionally strengthen and unite these bonds into a collective life. It is, in mystical reality, an organism in its own right. Community lives and breathes. We can feel its substance. We are its particles. And love is the lifeblood, the strange attractor that gives shape to our communal form, that enlivens us into being.
That is why it is our first fundamental value of ICN, and why it is essential in practicing community. It is something that is always at work, and yet needs to be actively cultivated and chosen again and again.
What else would you add to these values? What other shapes does love take in our midst? What’s missing here? What would you highlight? What have you found most important and foundational for yourself in experiencing community?
As we take on and move with the energy of these values, of these ways of being together, we are coming into new ways of being. Some flow out from who we were before, while others are evoked and elicited by others in the community and from the whole. The interflow and absorption are initiation processes. We are welcomed into a deeper participation that permeates throughout mystical community.
It moves from something that we are experiencing, to something that is happening to us, into something that is happening through us. It is not a service or a program we are consuming, but rather a being that we are becoming. A collective way we are starting to live. And we can begin to find ownership and possession in our intra-participation. Community has moved from object to subject.
And here we are.
Coming into a new cohesion—but not without variance. For this communal life is not about holding a static equilibrium, as we’ll see next week.
Practicing Community:
Which value do you resonate with the most? How have you cultivated and experienced this in your participation and practice of community? Which value do you struggle with most?
Write out your values of community. What do you think is fundamental for you in practicing mystical community? Or, even better, come together with others in your community (perhaps your WeSpace group) to co-create this list.