Integrated
Whole
“I
have one major rule: everybody is right. More specifically,
everybody—including me—has some important pieces of the truth,
and all those pieces need to be honored, cherished, and included in a
more gracious, spacious, and compassionate embrace.”
Ken
Wilber
I
don't know about you, but I have a very hard time accepting the
“truths” of other people when they are radically different from
mine. I fuss internally and externally over all the things others
hold up as true when they do not fit into my world view. It seems
that we as a species have moved to the far ends of a
polarity on almost every subject and there is hardly anyone holding
the middle—in fact, anyone who takes a middle position is shamed,
reproached and invalidated. This is, of course, unsustainable. The
image that comes to mind is a see-saw with two rotund people, swollen
with righteousness, on each of the far ends, and spindly support in
the middle. Eventually, it splits in the mid-section and the whole
thing falls violently to the ground. We can sit at our opposite poles
and be swelled with pride in our “rightness,” but when we go
down, we will all end up at the same place of “wrongness.”
The
now-famous question of Rodney King, “Why can't we all just get
along?” rings in my ears. Power is such a corrupting influence when
it relates to human affairs. It's like crack-cocaine—instantly
addictive. We humans must find a way to respect one another's world
views, to look at ourselves honestly, and ask questions such as:
What
am I willing to give up in order for peace to prevail?
How
can I bring myself to respect world views other than my own as
equally valid?
How
can I reach out to my fellow humans in graciousness, spaciousness
and compassion?
How
can I move toward the middle through negotiation, compromise, and
honor?
Our
world is at stake. We share it. We exist in an interrelated,
integrated network as fragile as a spider web. Can we all just get
along?
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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