Author: PantaRhea

The World is a Neighborhood

This truth (that the world is a neighborhood) as expressed by Martin Luther King Jr.:

“We have inherited a large house, a great “world house” in which we have to live together – black and white, Easterner and Westerner, Gentile and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, Moslem and Hindu – a family unduly separated in ideas, culture, and interest, who, because we can never again live apart, must learn to live with each other in peace.” 

– Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here:  Chaos or Community? (Beacon Press, 1981), p. 11.

NEIGHBORHOODS AND POLITICAL POWERlessness

A friend living in Orange county was recently forced by government enforcers to give away his pets – ten chickens.  A “crazy neighbor” (as he put it) had complained about another neighbor’s chickens, and when the enforcers acted on the complaint, they happened to notice the chickens in my friend’s backyard, and gave him the option to lose the chickens or lose his money AND his chickens if he didn’t comply.  Chickens and organic gardens go very well together, and my friend has a large organic garden.  He suspects that the law against chicken keeping in the county was put on the books in order to protect the monopoly of food production by the poultry industry.  Of course he feels powerless to do anything about the absurd law (it is legal to keep a dog in the backyard which can disturb a neighbor’s peace by barking and might be a danger to small children – my friend’s chickens have neither bark nor bite).  Gaining the liberty to keep his chickens by appealing to the “crazy neighbor” was not an option.  Experience teaches many of us that resistance is futile.  

I was thinking about my friend’s experience and the very recent calls to get people involved in civil  religion through the ritual of voting.  In talking to my neighbors about a decision being made by city commissioners here in North Port – a decision that is opposed by most of my neighbors – I find the same sense of powerlessness.  Their vote in the last election was the only form of participation in democracy available, and they recognized the almost total insignificance of the act.  The difference of power between individuals and those who govern seems unbridgeable.  And yet, it shouldn’t be and doesn’t have to be.  As I wrote my friend in Orange County, “Too little control exists at the neighborhood level.  When neighbors don’t interact with neighbors, they lose their collective freedom.”  In other words, residents of a place should have a voice, a collective voice, in decisions that affect that place.  A law restricting the ownership of chickens should not cover an entire county.  Ideally, neighbors should have decision-making power to decide issues that affect them, and not those outside the neighborhood.  The decisions (again ideally) should exist in the form of agreements based on relational conditions (covenants) rather than laws.  Covenant agreements are made between subjects; under law neighbors become objects . That layer of decision-making might exist in a few neighborhood associations but even there, few neighbors get involved.  Many of the reasons are revealed in a book by Matt Leighninger, The Next Form of Democracy.
He says,

At the local and neighborhood level, most communities don’t provide the kind of meaningful political opportunities that will compel and sustain long-term development.  ( p. 25)



And one reason?

In most places, local democracy is like a boring college lecture course with a tedious professor: most of the students skip every class until the final exam, when they troop into the room, chewing their pencils with fear, anger, and determination. (p. 26)



A major advantage of decision making at a neighborhood level (or a neighborhood block level) is that a consensus can be achieved through dialog rather than a divisive vote-taking which results in the formation of two camps – winners and losers.  Dialog takes place where there is face-to-face horizontal relationship between persons in small groups. There is no dialog in a college lecture, and dialog is purposely inhibited by Robert’s Rules of Order.  Only through dialog can we create a “communion of intuition”, a shared understanding of the issues we care about. Dialog is also necessary for the development of critical thinking skills, something which is desperately needed today in order to solve complex social issues.


One story in Leighninger’s book seems especially relevant to my friend’s chicken problem:

Giordano’s interest in protecting her property led her into relationships she hadn’t expected; in order to maintain her good fence, she became a good neighbor. (p. 28)

The story is also relevant to my motivation to create a network of small groups of neighbors within walking distance.  I listed some of the benefits that could be realized by the creation of such groups here , including political power.  However, as I explained on the page, if the purpose of the group becomes an effort to create political power, most of the other values listed would not be realized.

Although people come together because they have similar concerns, building relationships is the first priority, the foundation for defining and acting on public issues that represent an accumulation of personal and local concerns. (Robert Putnam and Lewis Feldstein: Better Together, Kindle Ed., loc. 349-52) (My emphasis)


In a country that is becoming increasingly polarized, and where citizens are becoming increasingly frustrated by the failures of “expert rule”, the kind of participatory democracy that is made possible by Neighbors Gatherings is not only desirable, but critically important. 
If we wait til the chickens get kicked out, it will be too late.

Relationships

Are Relationships Essential or Accidental?
In other words, are relationships something added to an already existing thing or substance, or are relationships the very essence of existence?  The question concerns the ontological status of relationships.
A Process View
From my point of view (influenced by Process Philosophy), we don’t exist… we happen.  The whole universe is happening – not in time or space, but time and space are created from the myriad of happenings.  Every happening or event is a “drop of experience”, and every experience is a creative integration –a “concrescence” of all preceding experiential events.  It might be better said that we are not “human beings”, but we are “human becomings”.
The “self” does not first exist and then have relationships added to it.  We are relationships – the “self” emerges from relationships.  Thus, relationships precede the self.  To be is to be in relationship.  The process of reality is that (to quote Whitehead):“The Many become One, and are (thereby) increased by one.”  The “I” is synonymous with an experiential event which, after it happens (or following its creation), it becomes a “me” which is a potential for the next becoming “I”.
If this is true, the individualistic effort to improve the “self” may be misguided.  The “self” (because it is created out of relationships) can only be improved by improving the quality of our relationships rather than striving for personal success or happiness.
A Substance View
An alternative view is that the “self” is a substance.  By substance I mean that which is in need of nothing other than itself in order to exist.  The concept is not limited to that which can be detected by the senses – or what some might describe as physical stuff.  Many religions have a substantial understanding of the “self”, “spirit”, or “soul”.  According to classical Christian theology, each “soul” is created “ex nihilo” (out of absolute nothingness) by God at the time of conception.  Others believe that God, or the ONE, is a primordial substance which, according to several different myths, became differentiated somehow (as sparks from a fire, or drops of water from the ocean) and which through a process of involution is being put back together again as One.  Or, perhaps the separation of the ONE is an illusion which must be overcome in order to be enlightened.  Perhaps this illusion can’t be overcome in one lifetime so that the seemingly separate soul substance must be reincarnated again and again until it finally reaches enlightenment.  Regardless of the myth, the one commonality is that Ultimate Reality is non-relational and that relationships are unessential to existence. 


Possible Questions for Discussion

  • ·         Is there a correlation between the concept of an autonomous individual (which seems to be especially valued in our western culture) and the Newtonian scientific worldview of reality consisting of autonomous atoms?
  • ·         Are there both external and internal relations?  If so, how can we describe them or what’s the difference between them?
  • ·         Is the quality of our relations affected by our worldview?  How?
  • ·         Are there different types of relationships (other than internal and external) and, if so, how can we describe them?  For instance, what do we mean when we talk about intimate relationships?
  • ·         What happens to children who have been isolated for long periods of time at an early age?  Does research on these children shed any light on the essentialness of relationships?
  • ·         Do we have anything we can share concerning ways we can improve our relations with other people, with nature, with God or Spirit?

 

The Story of Life

[I read this at the beginning of the feast prepared and served to us fathers and sons by the mothers and daughters of the La France Area Gathering to celebrate Father’s Day.]

Lea’s father passed away yesterday afternoon.
Both Jon and Lea’s birthdays were yesterday.
My dad died 13 years ago on this day.

Today we are gathered as neighbors AND as friends AND as an extended family to celebrate Father’s Day together.
Not all of us are fathers, of course, but everyone of us began our life with a father – and an act of connection.
I’m overwhelmed this morning as I think about all these events and how they are connected – connected by MEANING.

As Jon and Lea travel this morning (and we will miss their presence here), they will be considering the loss of Lea’s father as an active participant in the big Story of life (we could call it the Book of Life)  that is in a continual process of being created.  They will be thinking of the stories that Lea’s father shared with them, and they will be remembering and telling the stories of his life to one another and their friends and family as they get together over the next few days.

Jon and Lea have been gathering with us for the last year and we have become included in their stories, and, in turn, we have become included in Lea’s father’s story as his chapter of life has come to its conclusion.  Even though Lea’s father’s story telling days are over, the meanings of his stories and the meaning of his story as a whole continues, connected by meaning to our stories and to the meaning of the Story of Life – and that Story has no ending.

We are celebrating Father’s Day, but we are doing it in a womb which is this Gathering, a matrix where new stories and meanings are being birthed, and here we are nursed with the milk of kindness and love that flows through us to one another… and the Story of Life continues.

What can we create together?

Pete sent me this “interesting illusion” in an email message.  My reply follows.

I guess it’s just in my nature to reflect a bit on these “illusions”.  And… I suppose it is also in my nature to share my reflections – at least it’s a desire that I’m going to give myself license to act on.  If you choose to read what follows, you’ll have made yourself either a victim of my self-expression (you can seek revenge in a reply), or the recipient of a gift, a portion of myself.  Besides, it IS Sunday morning!!  
I think these “illusions” provide opportunity to question our basic Western assumptions about reality.  We think that the “illusions” are tricks of the mind and in one sense they are.  What we often do not understand or realize- and in fact, has not been understood until  very recent times – is that these “tricks” are exactly how our minds work all the time.  

Metaphor is for most people a device of the poetic imagination and the rhetorical flourish—a matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary language. Moreover, metaphor is typically viewed as characteristic of language alone, a matter of words rather than thought or action. For this reason, most people think they can get along perfectly well without metaphor. We have found, on the contrary, that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.

 

The concepts that govern our thought are not just matters of the intellect. They also govern our everyday functioning, down to the most mundane details. Our concepts structure what we perceive, how we get around in the world, and how we relate to other people. Our conceptual system thus plays a central role in defining our everyday realities. If we are right in suggesting that our conceptual system is largely metaphorical, then the way we think, what we experience, and what we do every day is very much a matter of metaphor.

 

But our conceptual system is not something we are normally aware of. In most of the little things we do every day, we simply think and act more or less automatically along certain lines. Just what these lines are is by no means obvious. One way to find out is by looking at language. Since communication is based on the same conceptual system that we use in thinking and acting, language is an important source of evidence for what that system is like.

–George Lakoff and Mark Johnsen (2003) Metaphors we live by. London: The university of Chicago press.
 
We think, for instance, that we “see” a house, but what we really “see” is a symbol or metaphor which is formed from the patterns of colors and shapes we perceive.  Just as the word ‘house’ is a symbol or metaphor for what we perceive, so also, what we perceive is a symbol for the word ‘house’. The house is a construct of our mind – but not simply our own individual mind – it is socially constructed.  Without taking the concept too literally, it can be said that we “co-create reality”.  And so, the first “illusion”  is an excellent illustration of what we do in community – what we do at our neighborhood gatherings.  We create something together that is added to the world. We create meaning – something which is incredibly important to do.  As David Bohm writes in his book, ON DIALOG:

I”m saying that it is necessary to share meaning.  A society is a link of relationships among people and institutions, so that we can live together.  But it only works if we have a culture – which implies that we share meaning; i.e., significance, purpose and value.  Otherwise it falls apart.  Our society is incoherent, and doesn’t do that very well; it hasn’t for a long time, if it ever did.

This is really what drives me, this realization of how important and necessary to the survival of humanity this creating of shared meaning (which is really just the same thing as learning to be neighbors in other words) is, and how important it is for each of us to live meaningfully and with purpose.
I’m extremely thankful that, perhaps without fully realizing how important our gatherings are, and with little “philosophizing” about what we are doing, we are sharing the fruit of putting these ideals into practice.  And, as Jack Nicholson might remind us, “that ain’t bad”.

We Speak Love Here

I’ve had another one of those sleepless kind of nights, but this time I can’t blame it on an overstuffed belly. Please indulge the following diarrhea of words. I almost got up really early since I wasn’t sleeping anyway, and because I had an almost overpowering urge to express my thoughts. Was it George Carlin or someone else who said that sometimes he really felt ambitious, like there was something he felt that he just really needed to do, and whenever that happened, he learned that he could just lay down and eventually the feeling would go away. Well I was already laying down when the feeling came… so what do I do? I get up and write a message to my neighbors.

It was more than just an urge to express my thoughts, actually. Am I the only one, or has anyone else had this kind of experience – a feeling that you have something to do… and you kind’a know what it is, but you can’t exactly put it into words? It’s not exactly a feeling that something needs to be done either… it’s more like a desire or urge… like needing to pee really badly… but getting up to pee doesn’t make the feeling go away. I also have to confess that I’ve had this urge or desire for many years. Last night (or very early this morning) I remembered a biblical story (hey, it’s Sunday morning… indulge me more) that I related to a lot before becoming a confused teenager. It was the story of Samuel, who, as a very young boy, was sleeping in the Temple and heard someone calling his name. So, thinking it was the priest, Eli, who was calling him, he got up and asked Eli why he had called him. The story is in 1 Samuel 3 and I won’t go into further detail… but I found it interesting that Samuel had this experience at night when he was trying to sleep. Is it possible that there’s this voice that “calls” each one of us, but, like the voice that another prophet (Elijah) heard on the mountain, it can’t be heard in the thunder of life, but only when we are quiet and able to listen? I think almost all my neighbors know that I spend about an hour every morning listening (or meditating and praying), and sometimes I “hear” that voice but more often not… but every morning I express my desire in a prayer to have ears that are open to hear, and eyes that are open to see. Maybe the answer to that prayer comes when I’m trying to sleep. On the other hand, maybe it was something I ate.

Anyway, a lot went through my mind last night but I won’t share it all here. I’ve been thinking quite a bit (and not just last night) about our last gathering. If you were there, you will know what I’m referring to; if you weren’t, it might be enough just to write that there was a very clear expression of anger and hurt that made everyone very uncomfortable and continued until another neighbor interrupted. She said that one of the reasons she was coming to the gatherings was that they were for her, a refuge, a safe and comfortable place to come away from the stress and strain of the week. Another neighbor echoed her feelings. I mentioned that the main reason I had started the gatherings was so that we could learn how to be neighbors – neighbors care for one another – and we need to learn how to do that. Some of us grew up in homes where caring for one another just didn’t happen and so we didn’t learn how to do it… and even if we know how, we can always improve with practice.
I’m really glad that the expression of anger and pain happened – even though it was uncomfortable. I think maybe some healing took place… or at least the opportunity for healing was there. Our gatherings really are not for personal therapy – we are not trying to “cure” anyone – although that may be a byproduct. Our gathering is a microcosm of our society, so, if there is a “cure”, it’s the beginning of a much larger “cure”. Because we are all connected, there is no such thing as an individual healing.

Learning to be neighbors and learning to care for one another is really like learning a new language. Language expresses our understanding of reality, our view of the world. Unfortunately, the language we hear most often is an expression of rage, of disappointment, disapproval, condemnation, disgust, bitterness and discouragement. We form patterns of speech ourselves that express destructive feelings and thoughts. We hear that language in our heads in our ‘self” talk and the destructive patterns become habit – an addiction we can’t break in isolation from others. If you grow up in China, you’ll speak Chinese. If you grow up in an atmosphere of hostility, you’ll know a lot of cuss words.

I believe it is very, very important that, in the process of learning to become neighbors, that we learn to speak a language expressing encouragement, hope, compassion, cheerfulness, kindness… the language of love. That’s what the sign on our refrigerator means:

We speak love here… Please become fluent.

The Worship of Power

When we lived in Kansas City, Terry and I joined a church whose primary mission was to integrate blacks and whites in one church community. I was on the Leadership Team and met weekly with the co-pastor – a young guy who had recently graduated from seminary. Most of our conversations seemed to revolve around the issues of leadership and authority and the nature of Divine Power. I tried vainly to persuade him that the ultimate form of power is synonymous with love. In other words, the assertion that “God is Love” is an assertion about God’s power. I’m convinced that this is true from personal experience, from rational thought, from biblical and theological studies, from science, and from philosophy. All of these provide important perspectives on the nature of reality. A single perspective should not be trusted. A perspective from Classical Theology (or traditional Christian theology) is in contradiction to my understanding of Divine Power. Using theological language, it asserts that “God is Omnipotent”. In commonly used terms, it asserts that God is in total control of all events. It asserts that God’s power is like the kind of power a king has – the kind of power that the Caesars used to control the citizens of Rome – a power exercised in force and violence, domination and control. It is a type of power that legitimates control under an ethic of “Might makes Right”, and which has produced male-dominated social structures (including the human family), and competing national armies. Religions such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam base their dogmas on an understanding of “inspiration” as the domination of human writers by a Divine Spirit in a puppet-like manner. These writings continue to justify the infliction of tremendous suffering and environmental damage to humans and animals. A glaring example of this justification of inhumanity on biblical authority can be seen in this quote from John Henry Hopkins (1864):

The Bible’s defense of slavery is very plain. St. Paul was inspired, and knew the will of the Lord Jesus Christ, and was only intent on obeying it. And who are we, that in our modern wisdom presume to set aside the Word of God … and invent for ourselves a “higher law: than those holy Scriptures which are given to us as ‘a light to our feet and a lamp to our paths,’ in the darkness of a sinful and a polluted world?”

More examples could show how this misunderstanding of God’s power led to the subjugation of women and other races, and equating those with a different religious view with demons and forces designated as being “against God”. It is the kind of power that Jesus and the early Christians rejected.

Until recently, power was not differentiated into its two modes: power as love (or subjective influence), and power as force (power applied to objects). Also, adequate thought has not been given to God’s status as the unique Divine Individual. By ‘individual’, I mean any entity which can influence and be influenced by others.  An ‘individual’ as I define the term, acts as one and responds as one to the actions of others. Therefore, in describing God as an ‘individual’ I understand that God shares the attributes of individuality purely as such.  However, there are two categories of individuals that are related in the same way that the universal is related to particulars:

  1. Non-divine individuals with contingent non-universal existence. All individuals in this category have bodily existence which can interact with other bodies, and all the interactions between bodies can be defined by the science of physics studying the phenomena of objects.
  2. The unsurpassable Divine Individual (God or Spirit). The individual in this category has necessary universal existence, is the ground for all other forms of existence – but has no individual form or body with which to interact bodily with other bodies.

It is impossible for the individual in category (2) to use power in the mode of control and domination. That kind of power can only be used in the interaction between bodies or objects. Just as it would be impossible to move a rock with your hands if you had no hands, Spirit cannot move rocks. This limitation of Divine Power is often referred to when it is stated that we (humans) are God’s hands and feet. Subjects (like biblical authors) can be influenced by other subjects, but cannot be controlled by other subjects (although they can be forced to submit by the threat of violence to their bodily existence). Therefore, we can see God’s influence (if we have eyes to see) throughout the universe in forms of order, creativity, and beauty. We do not need to, nor should we, credit God with the evil that we see all around us. When we are sick, impoverished, or oppressed, we should not be asking ourselves why God is doing this to us or to others we love. We should not become angry when it doesn’t seem like God is answering our prayers. And we can stop trying to defend God to the atheists. Instead, we can agree with them, that the ancient mythological controlling God who jealously protected his Divine Supreme Ego, never existed except in mistaken human mythologies. That God and the Santa Claus who climbs down chimneys at Christmas have the same ontological status. Unfortunately, it is that mythological god which is often worshiped on Sunday mornings, rather than the God that Jesus spoke about and for which he was accused of blasphemy and executed.

Worship of the mythological ‘Omnipotent God’ has produced an eschatology with the universe ending violently – an end which could only be applauded by an audience of demons.

Worship of the God of Jesus, on the other hand, leads us to belief in the Divine Eros, the Spirit that calls us to love our neighbor as ourself – to be perfect in our love as God is perfect (all-inclusive). It is under the influence of that Spirit that nature conceives and brings forth life. It is the influence of that Spirit that works to transform ‘that which is’ into ‘that which should be’.

At this point in the evolutionary path of the universe, a path that has led up to creatures with the ability to be aware of, reflect on, and respond consciously to Spirit, and thus be co-creators of the future, a sort of crossroads has been reached. As co-creators we are also co-responsible for the future. It is imperative, it seems to me, that we wake up and grow up, to become spiritually mature, to put away childish and foolish ways of thinking and acting, to take our place in the community of life forms existing all around us, to become channels of Divine Power, working in partnership with God and with one another (it’s the same thing), to build the Body of Christ (which has nothing to do with a particular institutional form or belief system).

Something Significant

Hi Neighbors,

It’s 3:00am and I’m not sleeping.  Instead, while my body is attempting to deal with the overload of food I put in it last night at the Progressive Dinner, my mind won’t shift into sleep mode. One thought in particular won’t quiet down.
Last night, as we sat around the table in Ginny’s lanai just before we began to eat, Ron looked at me from the opposite end of where I sat and said, “Well Don, you’re at the head of the table so it’s up to you to say something significant.”  I replied, “But I don’t know anything significant!”.  
I lied.
The truth was that I did know something significant.  It was in plain sight.  ‘Significant’ … an important sign… something that needs to be interpreted because it has valuable meaning.  
I was thinking about a story I’d heard:  A farmer brought his family to town to eat at a restaurant.  Before they began eating they bowed their heads and the farmer said a short prayer of thanksgiving.  Some men at the next table were amused by this, and one of them said, “Hey Farmer!  Do they all do that where you’re from?”  The farmer thought for a moment and replied, “Well, no… the pigs don’t.”
Eating food together is an ancient religious ritual practiced by every known culture.  It is an activity filled with symbolic meaning.  The ancients believed that when they ate, they weren’t simply consuming calories, they were consuming the essence or spirit of an animal, or if it was a vegetable, the spirit of the earth.  They  consumed life so that they could live and share life in community.  Like breathing, where ‘spirit’ (pneuma) or air was taken in to the body, and then given back, life was not something that could be stored or used only for individual gain.  Existence required both receiving and giving. Eating food and concepts of sacrifice went hand in hand.  
So, right in front of me at the table was a sign – a symbol of community. In graphic form it looked like this:


The symbol
Something else that we should be able to see as we interpret the symbol of a meal is that everything is sacred. Spirituality cannot be separated from the details of life or reserved only for “Holy Days” (holidays) or special religious gatherings.  Wherever and whenever we gather, and for whatever purpose we gather, we are always sharing life or Spirit.  Different religions may use different forms of language to express this idea, but under all the excess baggage of dogmas, creeds, sacraments, traditions, and clerical orders, you’ll find this common concept. 
The difference between pigs and humans, is that a pig, even though it is just as interdependent in its environment as a human, and both a receiver and a giver of life, it doesn’t have the capacity to be aware of it – to be ‘mindful’ as a Buddhist might say (
I’m especially mindful of my most excellent neighbors this morning, who are willing to share life with me, especially in the forms of good food, laughter, and love.
Now, leave me alone and let me sleep.

Update on Neighborhood Gatherings

Hi Friends, Family and Neighbors,

Thought I’d provide another update on our Neighborhood Gatherings to those interested.  Unfortunately, I can’t share the same kind of optimism and excitement that I’ve shared in past updates.  I’m afraid that we’ve become stuck and I’m not sure what to do about it.  Yes, we still have Gatherings at our house every Tuesday, and we are still having fun (the last Progressive Dinner was great!), but we are not seeing growing numbers of involved neighbors and we have not been able to see the start of a network of Gatherings.  On the other hand, I’m more convinced than ever that, (1) we (human beings) are facing economic, ecological, and social crises that could lead to a major collapse of global civilization, and (2), the root cause of the various crises is a pathology existing in the way we humans relate to one another and with nature.  Just this morning I read a news article here that should act as a warning to any complacent person.  At this point in our evolutionary history, we don’t need change, we need transformation.  
There is hope – and no, it isn’t in the “Rapture”, the strange twisted interpretation of biblical apocalyptic writings of J.N. Darby.  Those who are waiting for God to miraculously teleport them off this planet before the Unelected go through the Great Tribulation, are part of the problem if their belief system lulls them into disengaging with those seeking solutions.

If men [and women] are unable to perceive critically the themes of their time, and thus to intervene actively in reality, they are carried along in the wake of change.  They see that the times are changing, but they are submerged in that change and so cannot discern its dramatic significance.  And a society beginning to move from one epoch to another requires the development of an especially flexible, critical spirit.  Lacking such a spirit, men [and women] cannot perceive the marked contradictions which occur in society as emerging values in search of affirmation and fulfillment clash with earlier values seeking self-preservation.  The time of epochal transition constitutes an historical-cultural “tidal wave.”  Contradictions increase between the ways of being, understanding, behaving, and valuing which belong to yesterday and other ways of perceiving and valuing which announce the future.  As the contradictions deepen, the “tidal wave” becomes stronger and its climate increasingly emotional [“Tea Parties”].  This shock between a yesterday which is losing relevance but still seeking to survive, and a tomorrow  which is gaining substance, characterizes the phase of transition as a time of announcement and a time of decision.  Only, however, to the degree that the choices result from a critical perception of the contradictions are they real and capable of being transformed in action.  Choice is illusory to the degree it represents the expectations of others. – Paulo Freire, Education for Critical Consciousness.

I think the reason why our Gathering has become stuck, is that we’ve adopted a trivial purpose for gathering (planning for Neighborhood events).  My drive for unification (love) – my desire to create community, has overpowered my drive to engage in social transformation (power).  I haven’t achieved a balance between power and love.  Love without power is anemic. I think some of the ideas that I’ve presented in my website (www.neighborsgathering.com) are pointing in the right direction.  I’ve failed to introduce dialog into our Gatherings to discuss them.  Not too late though.