Judith Weiss wrote:
"Any attempt to take spirituality into the workplace (or schoolplace) will
cause many to feel that their particularities are being threatened, and
there has been enough cultural genocide in this world that these fears
cannot be dismissed."
Linda Ortberg wrote:
......... if one has had a spiritual awakening how in the world would we
not take it with us into the workplace or wherever we would go.....I
believe we should have more spirituality in the workplace, in the schools
and in our society. I won't try to define it.....I wish we could look more
for our similarities instead of our differences.
Judith again. I am reminded of a comment an American Buddhist made to her
teacher, when complaining how her Jewish family did not accept her choice.
She said, "They are angry with me when I am a Buddhist, but they love me
when I am a Buddha." ****
Our spirituality and our ethics would be pointless and shallow if we did
not take them into everything we do, but I see a distinction between
enacting our values -- which are nourished and informed by our
spirituality --(being a Buddha) and advocating or imposing the form of our
spirituality (being a Buddhist).
(BTW I am not picking on Buddhism, that's the form in which that person
experienced her dilemma.)
I don't think it is possible to get to deep spiritual understanding except
by a specific path, and different paths work for different people. You
can't just "be spiritual" any more than you can just "love people." If you
attempt to love specific people, or walk a particular path, that's the
discipline of personal mastery that Senge talks about. So we cherish our
paths and want to share them with others, we want to say "here's what I do
that makes me the Buddha which you delight in." And before we know it
we're proselytizing.
So I was trying to figure out what bugged me about the messages that made
me say "ooh, looks like a flame war on the horizon....." They weren't
overtly proselytizing, but the language was the same -- it was
"testifying" language. There is a big difference between talking about
one's path in personal language, and advocating a path using jargon. The
former opens up your experience to others and leaves you vulnerable. Even
if others don't share your path they can connect with the similarities
because you are using simple descriptive language. The latter is
alienating and self- protective. What's more, if your jargon is similar to
that used by TV evangelists or management fad gurus it is hard to see YOU
in there, and those of us who have been hurt by the behavior that often
accompanies that jargon will get mad or just want to go away.
Also we don't understand what you are talking about. No one has ever
explained Christianity to me in a way that made it comprehensible or
attractive. I am currently reading Karen Armstrong's "History of God"
which follows the development of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam -- with
side trips to Buddhism -- from the Canaanites to the 20th century. The
amount of cultural and philosophical borrowing that has gone on is
eye-opening, but if it has gone on with music and language and cooking why
not religion? Anyway I am learning some history of Christianity from
that, but I still don't get it.
Judith Weiss
**** The quote is from Rodger Kamanetz' "The Jew in the Lotus," a great
case study in sharing particularities. In 1990 the Dalai Lama invited a
cross-section of Jewish leaders to visit him at his home in exile in
India. His people facing cultural genocide and diaspora, he figured he
would ask experts in cultural survival for advice :-) He also had good
counsel for the Jewish delegation on meeting the challenges of
assimilation, and it was a rich exchange, and it's a humorous and loving
book.
--jsweiss@mail.utexas.edu (Judith Weiss)
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>