Being Human in Public

Community as an Intentional & Sustained Spiritual Conversation

Life opportunities have offered to me the experiential difference between solitude and isolation. Given my need to write, a degree of seclusion is necessary to create the space into which the words will inhabit. The process of entering that space is always wrought with distractions, amusements, and emotional digressions as that which is hidden, is so for purposes currently veiled. Those things out of sight are secrets to me at this point.

However, the concealed for many is wet and heavy with shame making this burial mutually and complicitly a bond the heart makes with the tongue. The contract of the soul is made inside the hiddeness so many are unaware of this pact and wonder why their voice seems so small and attenuated. It is this sense of smallness and mystifying discomfort that causes many to drop out of the human conversation all together.

Wellspring is a loosely held together community of misfits, spiritual wanderers, and those in the process of being broken open. Maybe it is this initial condition of imperfection that offers up the beginning stages of a brand new way for humans to be themselves in public. My beginning declaration offered up the possible distinctions between solitude and isolation.

Solitude it would seem is a much more generative escape into the confines of the soul and goes there for restorative purposes although it might be led through pain and tears. Isolation is a different posture altogether. It is one of seclusion and remoteness. It is an intentional attempt to separate oneself from others and to foster the powerful emotion of loneliness.

Humans are indeed lonely and to push away the experience may close windows on the soul that are opening for deeper purposes. However, when isolation rules the process of disclosure, little to nothing gets in or out. We set ourselves apart, heighten our emotive state and declare to all that no one or anything can remove this mantel of shame and distance we feel from ourselves and others.

Generally we do not think about the distance we feel from ourselves. In fact, loneliness is usually attributed to someone or something else that is not aggressively seeking us out. We are lonely because we do not deserve to be in this state. Someone should see this and offer up their life and gifts to us in grace. We are lonely because others do not see our worth.

Solitude is not a stance that seeks to separate oneself. It is a bearing that comes from a deep desire to unite all things and do so both individually and corporately. There is work to do alone so that community can take place. But if solitude is seen as isolation, our ability to then be human in public is diminished if not made impossible.

The statement made above that we are lonely because others do not see our worth has a ring of truth. Is it possible that the worth of the soul is not ultimately meted out in private? Is it possible that who we are at the most profound level comes only when we are with others and they see what we offer to the conversation. In this setting we are offering up our voice to the mix, our words to the story, and taking our place at the table. The place setting has our name on it after all.

Few teachers or scholars have studied the impact of dialogue and conversation on groups and individuals like the now deceased physicist David Bohm. He offers in his research some amazingly spiritual reasons for making sure real dialogue is taking place in communities all over the word. Bohm contends that “generative listening” is essential for profound conversations to take place. Because life is so multi layered and mysterious, it is vitally important to listen to others with a desire to understand rather than build a case. As the race for the presidency has now taken center stage, it is often observable that this posture or demeanor is lost in many a conversation. I would contend this posture is lost or deeply buried in most conversations.

We talk much about the need for a safe container in our community. We do so in many ways to foster this kind of conversation. It is a great battle internally to hold in tension opposite ideas and allow for someone else’s beliefs, conclusions, and assumptions to rise to the fore. When I begin to be truly human in public I allow my voice to offer up my personal meaning but I do so assuming that there are countless meanings in that space in which I now reside.

To discover the host of differing, contrasting, and even opposing assumptions and conclusions about life, truth, and experience is to begin to see the shockingly and beautifully exquisite assembly called humanity. It has always been this way. Bohm and other scholars tell us this through their research but we want to assume that the group we hang with thinks much like we do and that allows us to feel like a self in their midst.

Is it possible that our fears to express our loneliness in public settings are because we wonder if it will be heard and taken in as valid or real? If our experience in community is that certain voices are stifled and muffled or removed, that is a message to beware of being too open about our thoughts. Could it be that prolonged isolation creates profound loneliness and this is due in part to our inability to be human in public?

I learn how to be me. One would assume that being a self comes naturally but it appears that the dance of life is just that and we learn from one another the blessings and cursings we offer up to the conversation of life. What happens when our listening is deep and generative? We begin to not merely offer a space for others to be human but the container itself offers up this space. This is a divine operation not merely ours. This safe container is what allows for us to live out our meaning and express our voice in public. Who we are was meant to be shared. We are a gift. Our voice was meant to be heard.

Much of life feels like a rehearsal and in fact it is. No one comes to this life the second time around thus none of us are experts. We often want our voice to dominate, or we purposely hide our voice and make the community discover from where its quiet cries are emanating. Is there a brand new way of being human in public and is it essentially connected to our place in the conversation and our solitude? Will all our native giftedness begin to arise and serve others when we allow our voice to be heard, when we step away from isolation and offer up our voice, our meaning?

The Kingdom is being ushered in as we speak. Listen.

1 Corinthians 12
Spiritual Gifts
1-3 What I want to talk about now is the various ways God's Spirit gets worked into our lives. This is complex and often mis-understood, but I want you to be informed and knowledgeable. Remember how you were when you didn't know God, led from one phony god to another, never knowing what you were doing, just doing it because everybody else did it? It's different in this life. God wants us to use our intelligence, to seek to understand as well as we can. For instance, by using your heads, you know perfectly well that the Spirit of God would never prompt anyone to say "Jesus be damned!" Nor would anyone be inclined to say "Jesus is Master!" without the insight of the Holy Spirit.
4-11God's various gifts are handed out everywhere; but they all originate in God's Spirit. God's various ministries are carried out everywhere; but they all originate in God's Spirit. God's various expressions of power are in action everywhere; but God himself is behind it all. Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people! The variety is wonderful:
wise counsel
clear understanding
simple trust
healing the sick
miraculous acts
proclamation
distinguishing between spirits
tongues
interpretation of tongues.
All these gifts have a common origin, but are handed out one by one by the one Spirit of God. He decides who gets what, and when.
12-13You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts—limbs, organs, cells—but no matter how many parts you can name, you're still one body. It's exactly the same with Christ. By means of his one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which he has the final say in everything. (This is what we proclaimed in word and action when we were baptized.) Each of us is now a part of his resurrection body, refreshed and sustained at one fountain—his Spirit—where we all come to drink. The old labels we once used to identify ourselves—labels like Jew or Greek, slave or free—are no longer useful. We need something larger, more comprehensive.
14-18I want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less. A body isn't just a single part blown up into something huge. It's all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. If Foot said, "I'm not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don't belong to this body," would that make it so? If Ear said, "I'm not beautiful like Eye, limpid and expressive; I don't deserve a place on the head," would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell? As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it.
19-24But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn't be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, "Get lost; I don't need you"? Or, Head telling Foot, "You're fired; your job has been phased out"? As a matter of fact, in practice it works the other way—the "lower" the part, the more basic, and therefore necessary. You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach. When it's a part of your own body you are concerned with, it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. You give it dignity and honor just as it is, without comparisons. If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn't you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair?
25-26The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don't, the parts we see and the parts we don't. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.
27-31You are Christ's body—that's who you are! You must never forget this. Only as you accept your part of that body does your "part" mean anything. You're familiar with some of the parts that God has formed in his church, which is his "body": apostles prophets teachers miracle workers healers helpers organizers those who pray in tongues.But it's obvious by now, isn't it, that Christ's church is a complete Body and not a gigantic, unidimensional Part? It's not all Apostle, not all Prophet, not all Miracle Worker, not all Healer, not all Prayer in Tongues, not all Interpreter of Tongues. And yet some of you keep competing for so-called "important" parts.
But now I want to lay out a far better way for you.