A recent reflection on a particular process has brought forth this writing…
Inquisitive questioning has been a characteristic theme of my life… the nature of questioning process that, at age nine or so, brought forth the question: Is there a God?
…a questioning process that led me along a path of scientific research and development, business development, and community development; and along the way, some thinking about our thinking… with particular focus on work – our work, our ways of working. And, as my questioning evolved into such questions as “Why am I here; why are we – as a people, as a country – here?” and into questioning regarding intent and intended ways of working of life on this earth, I found myself more focusing on work relating to run up – realizing potential processes – and less and less on arresting rundown – segmented problem solving approaches… a focus which required a move towards the wisdom seeking, seeing and understanding of process, pursuits of intuition, and away from the limitations of the structural, analytical, factual patterns of reason, of reasoning – not diminishing the value of such, but rather transcending its inherent limitations. Out from this increasing focus on potential, and the wisdom seeking process of intuition, emerged an understanding of the path determining process regarding how we work… that being:
The perspective we hold, where we start our thinking from,
determines the path we take, what we move towards, what we move away from;
and ultimately what we create – what we bring into the world…
and experiencing within that, a real shift in our seeing, understanding and pursuits when we are coming from a perspective of potential versus a perspective of problem… a shift evident through our reflecting on a statement such as this: Children are not a problem to be solved, rather a potential to be realized; the same being true for humanity.
And in addition, this focus led to some added clarity with regard to some of the issue-resolving work now before us – our becoming a healthy working society, our being and becoming truly human:
- A healthy working society is an ethical society… one that is living and working in increasingly ethical ways – ways that are right and good, right for the one, good for the whole. Working hard in increasingly unethical ways, regardless of how hard we work, is not a path to a healthy working society.
- At the heart of being and becoming authentic – a truly human person, a truly human community – lies compassion… compassion and love entering our processes. We are intended to love one another all inclusively. Without love in the process, nothing real is possible.
Within the Day Center for the Homeless is the potential for developing our ableness for being and becoming a healthy working society… for our being and becoming authentically human, as a person, as a community… and within that, the potential for creating a culture that works for all children in our community, and ultimately in the world… all of which is work essential to our becoming an intentional people of earth. And too, there is a realness present within the process and the way of working of this place that continues to draw me in… it is this ongoing experience of realness, and the potential with regard to essential work of now, that answers the question “Why am I still here?” One can see similar realness and potential in other intentional processes. And finally I have come to understand there lies within philosophy the potential for developing reconciling ethics, and for advancing our humanness… potential requiring a philosophy that is whole enough, complete enough for the work now before us.
Terry P. Anderson, a developer of the Living Philosophy of Potential …a work organized, here and unfolding now philosophy.
