Living Spirituality Connections

Resources for deeper living

Leading from the Emerging Future: Book Review

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Review of Leading from the Emerging Future: From Ego-System to Eco-System Economies
by Otto Scharmer & Katrin Kaufer Berrett-Koehler.

Reviewed by Keith Beasley

leading_emerging_future_coverAny book that quotes Thich Nhat Hanh and Master Nan’s reinterpretation of Confucius’s Great Learning in a discourse on the evolution of Economics and Business has to be worth at least a second look. In fact I read it (very nearly) cover to cover. As someone who fine-tuned the art of rapid reading and scanning of books during my PhD, this is huge compliment to Otto Scharmer, a senior lecturer at MIT, and Katrin Kaufer, co-founder with Scharmer, of the Presencing Institute (www.presencing.com). Charting the formation of the ecological, social and spiritual-cultural divides, the authors identify the underlying disconnects in the various systems that have, until recently, kept the world’s governments and businesses running.

This message is not new, but this presentation of it is both succinct, readable and, most importantly, offers a solution that not just satisfies logic but also heart and soul. Even more usefully, they include many real-world examples of how their ‘presencing’ and ‘Theory U’ approaches have led to major shifts in how old-paradigm organisations have becomes shining examples of what can happen when all parties co-sense and work with the new future which they are convinced is emerging.

In many ways this book reflects many of the themes of my own thesis: how courage and compassion, feeling a situation from another’s perspective and connecting to our common humanity is essential in changing behaviours. The trouble with many books, no matter how insightful or full of worthwhile ideas they might be, is that they’re taken in as facts and theories and remain in our minds as just that and no more. This book practices what it preaches: describing a way of co-creating a more aware, connected, future; enabling and encouraging the application of the theory in the real world and daily lives. It does this in a number of ways.

Firstly it is linked to a free on-line course which itself is linked to U-Lab (see www. presencing.com/ulab/overview ) which encourages students of the course to meet with fellow students in their locality and apply the theory to their own communities or organisations. Secondly, each chapter includes a ‘Conclusion and Practices’ section which prompts you, the reader and student, to reflect on key issues and personalise the ideas presented in a journal. Then you are asked to share your perspective with your group and suggest ways of ‘prototyping’ what you’ve learnt, in your own office, home, organisation or community. Thus, the gist of the text, which emphasis experiential, inner engagement over objective analysis, is immediately grounded in practical application.

There are, of course, many alternative approaches to the specific processes and techniques offered by Scharmer & Kaufer, but they do admit that the intent in such activities is usually far more important than the detailed procedures. That being said, the exercises given and support provided by U-Lab and its local hubs, when added to the theories and insights in this book, together offer a rare, workable, approach to turning an ego-based organisation to one in tune with the needs of society and the planet as a whole. If the idea of an ‘emerging future’, to replace our current dying reality, appeals to you, then don’t just read this book: open your heart and mind and you’ll find others you can work with to co-create it!

Keith Beasley is course director at the Body Mind Institute (www.bodymindinstitute.com) and has just become Living Spirituality Connections Regional Contact for North West Wales.

 

Thank you to the Scientific and Medical Network (www.scimednet.org) who have given permission for us to reproduce this review, which first appeared in the Network Review Winter 2015-16.

LEADING FROM THE EMERGING FUTURE: From Ego-System to Eco-System Economies
by Otto Scharmer & Katrin Kaufer Berrett-Koehler. 2013, 287 pp., £16.10, p/b – ISBN 978-16050-99262.

Changing our name

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We have changed our name to Living Spirituality Connections.

Our Steering Group has met and worked together to bring energy and life to LivingSpirituality since 2012.  The focus and purpose of LS has become clearer as a result of this process, and we now feel more established. We now see that a key need we are responding to is to connect people with another and with diverse resources, and want to communicate that aim in our name. There will be more about our future vision in our forthcoming autumn newsletter.

Posted by the Living Spirituality Connections Steering Group

Music and Spirituality – London event

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june_boyce_tillmanWe are holding our annual partnership event with St James’s Piccadilly on 25 September from 1.45–3.30pm to celebrate the launch of Rev Dr June Boyce-Tillman’s new book Experiencing Music – Restoring the Spiritual: Music as Wellbeing.

The launch of Experiencing Music will explore the variety of ways that music can put us in touch with the spiritual. It is dedicated to making the musical experience accessible and understandable to people with and without musical expertise. It will include a variety of activities and discussion that will help participants to understand the place of music in their own lives and that of the wider cosmos.  This will enable those present to understand the relationship between music and spirituality and find ways to cross musical borders with understanding and respect. Rev Lucy Winkett, Rector of St James’s, will chair the session.

Rowan Williams has said: “This book is an astonishing achievement ….. Learning to sing is ….. connecting with the world we inhabit in a fresh and life-giving way. A deeply enriching study.”

June Boyce–Tillman is Professor of Applied Music and Artistic Convenor for the Centre for the Arts as Wellbeing at the University of Winchester, and Extraordinary Professor at North-West University, South Africa.

Venue: St James’s Piccadilly, 197 Picadilly, London W1J 9LL

We hope you can join us. The event will include refreshments, so please book by emailing petragriffiths@livingspirit.org.uk. Donations to the work of LivingSpirituality are welcome.

Art as disruptive and prophetic intervention

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St James’s Piccadilly has hosted two striking and disruptive art installations in recent months. Below we hear from the artists concerned.

Her floe-fall lament by Sara Mark

At Advent, close to the culmination of the Paris Climate Change Summit (COP21), Sara Mark’s ice melt sculpture was placed at the entrance to the sanctuary at St James’s Piccadilly, preventing people from walking down the central isle. The sound of the sculpture was audible throughout the morning service. See the video at www.sjp.org.uk/ice-melt-2015.html.

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Her Floe-fall Lament (COP21) – Sara Mark, 2016. Frozen water, steel, wood-ash. Duration 20 hours. Size approx. 200 x 200 cms. Photo credit. Sara Mark, 2016.

Sara comments: “Her floe-fall lament (COP21) was made by freezing 66 litres of water into an oil drum. I placed it in the central aisle of the church to cause maximum disruption to the usual events on Sunday and the constant amplified sound of the melt-water pouring into the oil barrel beneath was an insistent reminder of something happening in real-time elsewhere in the World.

My first ice-melt piece was made in 2006, after attending a Climate Change seminar for artists at the RSA. I was so shocked by what I saw and heard, I wondered how I could make work about anything else. Since then I have used ice as a symbol for issues that need time to transform and resolve. The outcome is inevitable. The ice melts drop by drop, but with it come release, warmth and a certain stillness after perhaps several days of thaw and agitation.”

[Read more…] about Art as disruptive and prophetic intervention

Exciting plans for a new Tavener Centre for Music and Spirituality

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tavener_centreIn an age of searching for meaning, music is often a place where people find hope and inspiration. The Tavener Centre for Music and Spirituality, directed by Revd Dr June Boyce-Tillman, will be a place where the links between spirituality and music can be examined – those established by the great world faiths and those made by people in their everyday lives. The Centre will produce writing and creative projects in this area and will attract people from a variety of backgrounds and experiences.

The University of Winchester organised concerts in the Cathedral celebrating Sir John’s music, and an interview in 2005 in the Theatre Royal, Winchester in which he talked honestly and openly about the interplay between his own faith. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Winchester.

Sir John has given us a wonderful insight into interfaith dialogue. In 1997 he embraced the Orthodox faith where he was drawn to its traditions and mysticism. He stood clearly for religious tolerance throughout his work. He illustrated how to deal with intense suffering and he felt deeply for the suffering of the world. He saw the need to transubstantiate suffering through music in an artistic culture which saw fit to represent the most shocking and violent aspects of our culture in a raw untransformed state.

He stands as an icon for a view of artistic expression of a way of generating hope and transcendence. Our age owes him deep gratitude. The Centre celebrates this and wishes to bring together others who share this vision of music, spirituality and healing.

The Centre’s aims are:

  • to mount a festival of Sir John Tavener’s music every three years in the Winchester area
  • to explore the relationship between spirituality and music with particular reference to the great faiths
  • to organise a conference on music and spirituality associated with the festival, leading to publications in this area
  • to disseminate Sir John’s own understanding of the relationship between music and spirituality.

The Centre, led by June Boyce-Tillman in association with Lady Tavener, will work with the Tavener Foundation, Winchester Cathedral and Chester Music.

Revd Dr June Boyce-Tillman MBE FRSA FHEA is Professor of Applied Music at the University of Winchester, and is coordinator of LivingSpirituality’s Music and Spirituality Special Interest Area.

For the new Centre’s leaflet go to: www.livingspirit.org.uk/tavener_centre_leaflet.pdf.

For full information about the new Centre, email June.Boyce-Tillman@winchester.ac.uk.

Save the Date!

Tavener Centre event in Winchester: Nov 11th 2016 10.30-4.30. A day conference exploring the spiritual in music, its meaning and its place in contemporary life.

Nonviolence – a hidden treasure in the Christian tradition?

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by Heather-Jane Ozanne

“Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time” – Dr Martin Luther King

Nonviolence is not a specifically Christian concept, indeed it has been developed and lived by exponents from many different faiths and none. In the Muslim tradition Ghaffer Khan, dubbed ‘the border Gandhi’ was a leader who led a nonviolence movement in the North West Frontier of India. He rooted his belief in the teaching of the Quran, seeing nonviolence as the weapon of Jihad, or Holy War, based on patience and righteousness. Jewish exponents include Martin Buber and Abraham Joshua Heschel. For some, nonviolence is simply an expedient political/strategic tool but for those who come to it from a spiritual or faith background, nonviolence often becomes a way of life.

Nonviolence has good ‘provenance’ in the Christian faith and I believe needs to be taken more seriously in our world where violence or superior hard power seems to be an all too easy method of engaging in conflict. The numerous social platforms acting out conflict engagement whether via entertainment or community/national interactions express boldly the above. There are many definitions of nonviolence. Some definitions refer only to non-engagement in physical acts of violence whilst. others, which are far more inclusive, involve refraining from violating the spirit of another or what could be viewed as a holistic or broader scope of the idea of violence.

Martin Luther King’s role

Dr Martin Luther King Jr is a person who rings in many hearts and is on the syllabus in UK schools, not least because he was assassinated on 4th April 1968 and left an important legacy in American history. Yet, how many here know of his legacy in terms of the training and strategy he began to develop in nonviolent action? Based on his Christian ideals, he developed a method which can and did transform many conflicts, preventing them from becoming violent or violating whilst encouraging the highest possible outcome for all parties – a methodology Dr King Jr termed “Nonviolence Conflict Reconciliation” instead of resolution.

From childhood I knew something of the U.S. Civil Rights campaigns in the 1950’s and 60’s and big inspiring speeches King is so well-known for. However I had little idea of the deep Christian theological and philosophical underpinnings of King’s social activism, nor of the legacy he has left both in what he achieved in the Civil Rights campaigns and in the teaching and training in nonviolence he originated, Kingian Nonviolence Conflict Reconciliation (KNCR).

Training

That was until I attended an evening at St Ethelburga’s Centre for Peace and Reconciliation, London in 2008. As Dr Yehoeshahfaht Ben Israel presented some of the key life events and philosophy of King, it was as though Martin Luther King was present. Certainly something of his spirit seemed to come alive.

Subsequently I attended 2 day orientation training, inspiringly facilitated by Yehoeshahfaht, who is possibly the only qualified trainer of Kingian Nonviolence Conflict Reconciliation in Europe. (He received his training from Dr Bernard Lafayette Jr, a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement, who was with Dr King, a few hours on the fateful day, before an assassin’s bullet robbed the world of Dr Kings’ life). I had many light-bulb moments during the training weekend and it is not an overstatement to say that even this basic introduction was transformative in my personal and work life.

Taking root in our culture

How was it that I, with my background in social and community work and many years of work in the field of reconciliation and peace-building, had never before become aware of the depth of teaching and understanding the legacy of King provided, nor how deep-rooted they were in his Christian experience and theology? There are many answers to this question, one being that Kingian philosophy, thought and nonviolence in general are only recently beginning to take root in our culture where until now so many have been too ready to legitimise violence as a means of conflict ‘resolution’. This legitimacy squashes out any notion of the viability of reconciliation, establishing an emphasis on who is right rather than on what is right for social cohesion, harmony and onward development. All conflicts have an impact on society and community, whether large, small, delayed or in the moment unfolding.

Reconciliation rather than win/lose

King was a Baptist pastor and in 1957 he preached on loving your enemies, from the Sermon on the Mount. King says, ‘ it’s significant the he (Jesus) does not say, ‘Like your enemy’……Jesus says love them. And love is greater than like. Love is understanding, redemptive goodwill for all men, so that you love everybody, because God loves them’. This outlook did not condone naively the crux of the conflict, but allowed for the separation of the inherent dignity of all humanity and their ability to move towards higher human transformation from the dysfunctional or destructive elements or “evils” expressed as a part of the conflict.

This to me is the active ingredient in King’s nonviolent philosophy, which seeks to work towards a harmonious and just outcome, a reconciliation instead of a win/loss resolution, where all share in the ‘victory’ or outcome without resorting to physical violence or violation of spirit of ‘the other’, along the way.

Gandhi’s role

King was influenced by Mahatma Gandhi and in Gandhi, perhaps the most famous leader of a nonviolent movement and Hindu ‘great soul’; we also see the influence of Christian teaching. Martin Luther King learnt much about nonviolent strategy from the example of Gandhi and pointed out that “Gandhi was probably the first person in history to lift the love ethic of Jesus above mere interaction between individuals to a powerful and effective social force on a large scale,” King suggested that,”Love for Gandhi was a potent instrument for social transformation.”

Gandhi too was deeply moved by the Sermon on the Mount which he says ‘went straight to my heart’. He also wrote that “the example of Jesus’ suffering is a factor in the composition of my undying faith in nonviolence which rules all my actions, worldly and temporal.”6

In this brief article I have barely scratched the surface of the underpinnings of nonviolence in the Christian tradition. It is something I am learning more of and seeking, however imperfectly, to put into practice in my own environment.

Spirit of Peace programme

In our charity, Spirit of Peace we are developing and delivering talks and workshops on nonviolence, combined with our core training in HeartWisdom.

We are delighted too in continuing to work with Dr Yehoeshahfaht Ben Israel, who has delivered some outstanding Kingian training to schools, community groups and prisoners, a training which can be taken as a basic taster right up to Ph.D. level!

If you would like further information about any aspect of these talks and trainings please contact me, Heather-Jane Ozanne. This link will take you to the contact page on our website from where you can email me: www.spiritofpeace.co.uk/contact.

Thanks to Dr Ben Israel for his contributions to this article.

heather-janeozanneHeather-Jane Ozanne is Founder and CEO of Spirit of Peace, and is a member of the Living Spirituality Connections Steering Group. She is also Coordinator of our Towards Human Flourishing special interest area, which you can find more information about here – www.livingspirit.org.uk/sia/towards-human-flourishing.