Learning As We Go - Growing in Unity Group

Let me start by thanking everyone who looks at and engages these posts. My hope is that over time, folks will feel encouraged to share your thoughts, reflections, and questions and use this space to build even deeper community here at CSC.

Part of why I felt led to start this group is based on a Buckminster Fuller quote that I use all of the time and have probably already used here. But it always bears repeating.

This quote has almost served as a mantra for me over the past few years. Over the decades, I have had the gift of experiencing what doesn't work. Like the apocryphal Thomas Edison quote about learning 10,000 ways not to make a light bulb, I have learned many ways how not to help people see that they are an unrepeatable miracle worthy of the entire Universe's support in awakening to their greatness.

Even though that has always been my greater knowing about the truth of who we are, I was never in the right environment to talk like that. But that didn't keep me from trying and facing the consequences.

Take Facebook for example. I have thought about getting rid of Facebook for a long time. But, there are a few reasons why I haven't deleted my account:

• Memories

• Contacts

• Sharing

Back before it became a tool for division, I innocently or naively thought Facebook and other social media platforms were going to be "Unity" accelerators. I imagined millions using all of these technologies to learn about people and parts of the world that were at one time disparate and facilitating a global community built on shared wisdom and wonder. It was very exciting to someone who at my core knows that Oneness is reality. But, something else happened instead. The polarization got worse.

The excuse I made for why this illusion of separation seemed to have such a stronghold on the consciousness of so many of us was based on my assumption that most of us never had the opportunity to learn directly from people and cultures different than our own. Because of my own complex background, I had deep and intimate exposure to a variety of peoples and learned to see that at our cores almost everyone wanted the same things, to be loved, to belong, and to be safe. And I was certain that with this gateway to the world and an ability to see who was connected to whom, we just might realize our common humanity faster.

Turns out I was wrong. And I don't have to tell all of you what happened instead.

But now, there are approximately 3.1billion people who are considered active users of Facebook. That's more than half of the people who have access to the internet globally and almost two-fifths of all of humanity!!!

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?

So here's a thought experiment. What if, with all of that access, someone were to send a message to all of Facebook's users that said:

How would that message serve you? I know I would love it.

But that isn't what is on much of social media. What we most often find is that rather than build people up through positive connections, because of the content, increased social media usage tends to contribute to isolation, anxiety, and depression. And I won't even get into the impacts of cyberbullying because my point is not to scare you, but to encourage you.

Positive Infection

When I first saw the direction that Facebook was going, I tried to counteract it with as many positive messages as I could. I started a blog, made videos, posted positive thoughts, etc. Then, when that didn't work as I hoped, I started trying to challenge ideas that I thought were harming people by getting very vocal and sometimes aggressive to people I thought were bullies. And when that didn't work, I tried bridging divides. And finally, when that didn't work. I pulled back because I finally realized that from a communication standpoint, I was doing the equivalent of trying to sell tofu in a butcher shop. I was breaking the cardinal rule of communication--know your audience.

Once I learned that the hard way, I started pulling back from Facebook and shortly after, I was invited to start here with you all at CSC. It didn't take long for me to realize that folks here are open to hearing that they are unrepeatable miracles, that the Christ dwells within them, that God (the Good) is the only causal Power in the Universe and that we emerge from this Source, etc. In this place there is room for our humanity and our divinity and we give ourselves permission to live into all of it fully.

Realizing this, I thought that while Facebook may be too crowded to foster the kinds of uplifting communities more of us need, the technological platforms and structures that they are built on can still be used that way. That's what groups on this app allow.

So my encouragement to you all is to use this platform the way you would wish Facebook was used. There is a world waiting to be born where we see the best in ourselves and others and we create systems that reflect it. But as Bucky taught, it won't emerge from fighting the existing reality. It will come from creating something new that makes the other way that isn't working obsolete.

I look forward to creating with you all.