The Great Integrity
The shift, the personal and social transformation that so many -- especially young people -- hope for (and deserve), will be found in the simple conviction that the person is the nexus of change and evolution. This collective shift to a "personal" understanding of history and every social relationship opens the "wisdom door" through which we may choose to advance -- an advance which is of vital importance for the preservation of life upon this precious blue Planet. The Dominator Paradigm, with its justifications of exploitation, injustice, oppression, inequality, violence -- and especially the religious "theological" marginalization of women -- has put both civilization and this Planet at risk of collapse into chaos. Young people especially are aware that life -- the system -- is not working: they are beginning to intuit that every one of the "old masters" who have served the Dominator Paradigm "so well" must be sloughed off like tired old dead skin...
Theodore Roszak wrote, "Begin with the person and you make an end of ideology, an end of political rhetoric generally." The root of both history and civilization is the person: more specifically, the root is you and I: you, with your name, with your face, with your body, with your sexuality, with your mind, with your soul, with your dreams and imagination, with your ideas, and with your every possibility for fully developing in life: towards your liberation: along with everyone else. Every one of us has a name and a face: every one of us has incredible potential for development, service, and liberation: we have each appeared on the stage of life as a person.
This essential -- core -- realization necessitates a second corresponding realization: we are all in this together. There will be no :happy ending" to the play of life upon this Planet, or to the final story of humanity, without this realization: and a politics that flows directly from it. If we correctly understand politics to be the dynamism of every "rub" in relationship -- and not simply the quest for position and power in electoral office -- we can change course and construct a network of relations that serves both the Planet and our personal dreams of full development and liberation. Every political conversation -- from this new perspective -- will now be different: it will be truly radical: it will go to the roots of our social problems with vigor and courage and cease the mindless patter of the servants of greed, power, and privilege.
Every word here is as a sort of "dance to the music" of "personalism unleashed", of the "Great Integrity": the collective shift into an economics of sustainability, solidarity, and mutual aid; a politics of service and compassion; a spirituality of everyday kindness, equality, the divine feminine, and the practice of justice and mercy; and a culture of beauty, imagination, and increasing harmlessness. Of course, the joy of dance is the joy of partnerships: the dawning age of "personalism unleashed" is the bliss of life lived on the ragged-edge of hope and possibility: a mystic-activist communion of delight... with only one question for you: what are you waiting for?
Core Personalist Principles -- The Challenge of Integrity:
1. Love is our essential nature and our highest call as human beings. "We were created by Love, for Love, to become Love." (Simone Weil)
2. The well-being of every person is the highest value. "Love one another as I have loved you." (Yeshua the Poet)
3. Service to the common good is the responsibility of each one of us. "Service is the rent we pay for being alive." (Marian Edelman Wright)
4. Every institution (economic, political, religious, educational, and cultural) has only one essential purpose and responsibility: to fully develop and liberate every person into the fullness of their possibilities.
5. We are all members of one another and so cannot justify leaving anyone behind. Justice, equality, and compassion as social values are infinitely superior to greed and greed's ability to purchase power and privilege.
6. The earth belongs to all the children, seven generations from now. All of life exists in a symbiotic web of relationship: of "inter-being"...
7. Reverence for the earth and all life is essential spirituality...
8. "Property, the more common it is, the more holy it becomes." (St. Gertrude)
9. Only social justice can create the conditions necessary for peace to prevail.
10. Authentic rEvolution and cultural transformation begins and ends with absolute equality between women and men, facilitated by a guaranteed human right of equal access to personal, social, economic, religious, and political power.
The essential mystery inherent in the philosophy of personalism is that there is a song in every human heart (indeed, within all of creation): it is the song of "Oneness", of wholeness, of holiness, and of the divinity of Being. We are all worth the very best -- we are worth the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven -- and more and more! That that great song of our hearts can be corrupted into disorder and forgotten is the rub of life... but that we can remember is the daily evidence of grace and of our essential goodness! To summon and live the Integrity of Oneness is personalism and the revolutionary value that is the promised New Creation...
The practical evidence of the Integrity of Oneness is kindness and compassion and forgiveness: activated through public service and service learning. There is no other way into a future worthy of the great song that lives within our children -- within every child... "Love one another as I have loved you" is the religion, economics, politics, and culture as taught by Yeshua, the Poet of Nazareth. This, the Integrity of Oneness, is a deeply radicalized faith: a radicalized faith that is meant to shake the foundations of the world! The Integrity of Oneness is an experiment in the possibilities of grace: study the examples of Yeshua, Rumi, Francis, St. Hildegard, Ibn Arabi, Hafiz, St. Theresa... and on into Mother Jones, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Cesar Chavez, Dorothy Day, Bede Griffiths, Thomas Merton, Aung San Suu Kyi, Vandana Shiva, Alice Walker, and Thich Nhat Hahn... If you are giving any attention to the voices of division, inequality, racism, injustice, oppression, violence, and hate: stop it! Turn off Rush, Sarah, Ted, Rand, and the rest of the so-called "right wing" -- "conservatives" -- or "Tea Party": the tea they are serving is weak with privilege and the thirst for power: the "powerlessness" of, in all things, compassion and Oneness is both the Great Integrity and the rEvolution that we must seek above all things! Why? Because they are, unmistakably, love in action...
Theodore Roszak wrote, "Begin with the person and you make an end of ideology, an end of political rhetoric generally." The root of both history and civilization is the person: more specifically, the root is you and I: you, with your name, with your face, with your body, with your sexuality, with your mind, with your soul, with your dreams and imagination, with your ideas, and with your every possibility for fully developing in life: towards your liberation: along with everyone else. Every one of us has a name and a face: every one of us has incredible potential for development, service, and liberation: we have each appeared on the stage of life as a person.
This essential -- core -- realization necessitates a second corresponding realization: we are all in this together. There will be no :happy ending" to the play of life upon this Planet, or to the final story of humanity, without this realization: and a politics that flows directly from it. If we correctly understand politics to be the dynamism of every "rub" in relationship -- and not simply the quest for position and power in electoral office -- we can change course and construct a network of relations that serves both the Planet and our personal dreams of full development and liberation. Every political conversation -- from this new perspective -- will now be different: it will be truly radical: it will go to the roots of our social problems with vigor and courage and cease the mindless patter of the servants of greed, power, and privilege.
Every word here is as a sort of "dance to the music" of "personalism unleashed", of the "Great Integrity": the collective shift into an economics of sustainability, solidarity, and mutual aid; a politics of service and compassion; a spirituality of everyday kindness, equality, the divine feminine, and the practice of justice and mercy; and a culture of beauty, imagination, and increasing harmlessness. Of course, the joy of dance is the joy of partnerships: the dawning age of "personalism unleashed" is the bliss of life lived on the ragged-edge of hope and possibility: a mystic-activist communion of delight... with only one question for you: what are you waiting for?
Core Personalist Principles -- The Challenge of Integrity:
1. Love is our essential nature and our highest call as human beings. "We were created by Love, for Love, to become Love." (Simone Weil)
2. The well-being of every person is the highest value. "Love one another as I have loved you." (Yeshua the Poet)
3. Service to the common good is the responsibility of each one of us. "Service is the rent we pay for being alive." (Marian Edelman Wright)
4. Every institution (economic, political, religious, educational, and cultural) has only one essential purpose and responsibility: to fully develop and liberate every person into the fullness of their possibilities.
5. We are all members of one another and so cannot justify leaving anyone behind. Justice, equality, and compassion as social values are infinitely superior to greed and greed's ability to purchase power and privilege.
6. The earth belongs to all the children, seven generations from now. All of life exists in a symbiotic web of relationship: of "inter-being"...
7. Reverence for the earth and all life is essential spirituality...
8. "Property, the more common it is, the more holy it becomes." (St. Gertrude)
9. Only social justice can create the conditions necessary for peace to prevail.
10. Authentic rEvolution and cultural transformation begins and ends with absolute equality between women and men, facilitated by a guaranteed human right of equal access to personal, social, economic, religious, and political power.
The essential mystery inherent in the philosophy of personalism is that there is a song in every human heart (indeed, within all of creation): it is the song of "Oneness", of wholeness, of holiness, and of the divinity of Being. We are all worth the very best -- we are worth the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven -- and more and more! That that great song of our hearts can be corrupted into disorder and forgotten is the rub of life... but that we can remember is the daily evidence of grace and of our essential goodness! To summon and live the Integrity of Oneness is personalism and the revolutionary value that is the promised New Creation...
The practical evidence of the Integrity of Oneness is kindness and compassion and forgiveness: activated through public service and service learning. There is no other way into a future worthy of the great song that lives within our children -- within every child... "Love one another as I have loved you" is the religion, economics, politics, and culture as taught by Yeshua, the Poet of Nazareth. This, the Integrity of Oneness, is a deeply radicalized faith: a radicalized faith that is meant to shake the foundations of the world! The Integrity of Oneness is an experiment in the possibilities of grace: study the examples of Yeshua, Rumi, Francis, St. Hildegard, Ibn Arabi, Hafiz, St. Theresa... and on into Mother Jones, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Cesar Chavez, Dorothy Day, Bede Griffiths, Thomas Merton, Aung San Suu Kyi, Vandana Shiva, Alice Walker, and Thich Nhat Hahn... If you are giving any attention to the voices of division, inequality, racism, injustice, oppression, violence, and hate: stop it! Turn off Rush, Sarah, Ted, Rand, and the rest of the so-called "right wing" -- "conservatives" -- or "Tea Party": the tea they are serving is weak with privilege and the thirst for power: the "powerlessness" of, in all things, compassion and Oneness is both the Great Integrity and the rEvolution that we must seek above all things! Why? Because they are, unmistakably, love in action...
