Please Be Patient—God Is Not Finished with Me Yet!
~Bill Gothard
A Presidential election is a singular event for the U.S.A., the world’s oldest continuing Republic. We were built upon a union of staunchly independent states in need of a compelling figure to pull together diverse and competing interests.
Historically, the President assumes the role of interpreting the American experience and projecting its vision. In a recent election, America went from a technologically friendly President with a global vision and a deep appreciation of diversity to a President who insists on America First at every turn and fixating upon the past, rather than the future.
How can we possibly make sense of such a sudden switch? Is America running in reverse gear, torn between warring factions with irreconcilable differences? Is the solution Fortress America? Can we eliminate escalating acts of terrorism by building a strong military and shutting everyone else out?
Could We All Be Right?
We are saturated by digital media obsessed with a systematic attack on the President to undermine his legitimacy, even though he won sufficient electoral votes to be elected. We see disenfranchised poor white people coming out of schools with little opportunity for professional jobs. The corporate ladder is over, and your first and last job may be working as a barista at Starbucks.
While the previous Administration was right about inclusion, it favored town over country, the educated over the marginal and the technosavvy over everyone else. The new Administration, in championing the needs of the working class, is right about an economic index that supports the countryside as much as the cities.
Does a paradigm exist that shows how both Democrats and Republicans, Socialists and Capitalists are right in different ways? When we look at religion, we see that each tradition is sufficient to transform some people, but no religion is sufficiently expansive to transform all people everywhere. Every religion is true, in one sense or another, but incomplete. So also, every party and political persuasion is true to some degree, but incomplete for the unprecedented challenges facing humanity.
Beyond Red and Blue
In the last couple of decades, America has been deeply divided between Red and Blue states. The Red states lie in the interior, including states with the largest territory, such as Texas and Alaska, although not the most densely populated, such as New York. The Blue States, such as Massachusetts and California, tend to lie in the coastal areas, facing the Atlantic or Pacific oceans.
Red states champion traditional and modern values over against pluralistic values; Blue states sport modern and pluralistic values over against traditional values. The Republican party favors the Red states, while the Democratic party favors the Blue states. Only the Republican party would offer as President an entrepreneur with no political experience, simply because he was good in business. Only the Democratic Party would run a female candidate for an office entailing the role of Commander and Chief of the Armed Forces.
Are the distinctions between left and right, Democratic or Republican, still valid? It is significant that both major parties had a severe fall-out in the last election. Bernie Sanders, a lifelong Independent and philosophical socialist, gave a credible run against Hillary Clinton, a former First Lady and White House occupant. Donald Trump, a hotel magnate popular in his role in the TV series, “The Apprentice,” had no special loyalty to the Republican Party before taking the nomination.
The Changing Face of America
The United States looks much different than it decade a generation ago. The Latino population is increasing to over 17%, while Afro-Americans have risen top 14%. Asians have come in to take up the slack with over 5 ½%. For example, one percent of us were born in India. That one percent just happens to be the most affluent block of Americans.
Religiously, we have moved from mainstream denominations toward fundamentalism on the one hand, and New Age practitioners on the other. Increasing numbers of Americans look to the East, and even indigenous people for inspiration. Millennials are increasingly “None’s,” identifying with no particular religion and shunning traditional institutions.
The Internet revolution has made computer literacy increasingly a survival issue for many Americans. The technological waves come every couple years. To keep up can make your head spin: From PC to Network to Internet to Mobile to Social to Big Data and Cloud to Artificial Intelligence. The digital divide can impact people of all ages.
Spiral Dynamics Reveals New Possibility
Dr. Don Beck devoted the majority of his life to popularizing Spiral Dynamics, a socio-cultural-psychological theory developed by Dr. Clare Graves over 50 years ago. It sees human organization and psycho-spiritual development in terms of an ever accelerating process of evolution.
Don has enjoyed spectacular success working with groups in hot spots around the world, such as Israel and South Africa. He gave them critical insights on how to relate effectively with people of very different backgrounds and orientations. This theory gives a window into why people think and act the way they do. It helps you actually get into their hearts and heads and understand why they value what they do.
We all start from helplessness as infants and grow to self-determining adults, following the pattern of life on earth, emerging from simple forms to infinitely more elaborate species. From single cell amoeba to complex mammals, such as dolphins, elephants and apes, and finally, human beings. We all go through evolutionary cycles, even the Creationists among us!
States and Stages
Ken Wilber, in his Integral Theory, adopted Spiral Dynamics at the core of his Integral Map, while adding many other distinctions. Two of the most important are States and Stages. Just as we all experience waking, dreaming and sleeping, so we may all experience flashes of a Witness state, or even a Transcendent state.
How we interpret our experience depends entirely upon the structure of our consciousness. Someone at a Traditional level will see a vision as a living encounter with Krishna, Buddha or Christ. Someone at an Integral level will see the vision as the Play of Consciousness that has aspects of traditional, modern and pluralistic.
Changes in state can happen to anyone at any time under any conditions. Literally anyone can experience Cosmic Consciousness without any religious qualifications. However, to maintain that state, or have your entire life informed by it, is quite another matter. This is the difference between Waking Up and Growing Up.
From First to Second to Third Tier
Ken Wilber draws attention to the Integral Structure of Consciousness as the very first state that is capable of seeing ALL the other stages as being right in their own way, even though their perspectives may allow relatively less freedom. Integral is comfortable with a growth hierarchy. It belongs to a separate tier.
First Tier characterizes Traditional, Modern and Pluralistic. Each of these orientations can’t stand the others. Traditionalists are convinced they alone are going to heaven. All the rest are headed straight for hell. Modernists see through mythology and refuse to be fooled again. Scientific reason and investigation can solve all of our problems. Traditionalists are naïve, and Pluralists are empty-headed fools. Pluralists see everyone else, Modernist or Traditionalist, as racist, classist and sexist. Only pluralism is truly cool.
Third Tier is where people adopt a transpersonal, universal outlook. Everyone and everything is a living expression of Whom and What we call “God.” Since God is love, the only appropriate thing to do with our lives is honor, cherish and serve God in everyone else. You qualify for a role as an Avatar, Bodhisattva or Messiah. You are what Eckhart Tolle refers to as cherished blossoms in an exquisite flower garden.
We Are All Doing the Best We Can
What does Integral Theory and Spiral Dynamics possibly have to do with politics in the United States? When we look at such recent figures as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, each of the candidates was doing the best he or she could do under the circumstances.
If you had the very same mindset as Obama, Clinton, Sanders or Trump, you would think, do or say the very same things. Each would be “right” for his or her particular stage of development. Some candidates might enjoy more inner freedom than the others. However, each candidate got as far as he or she did because they spoke deeply to a certain segment of the American population.
People on the opposite sides of the aisle are not stupid. They just have different concerns and priorities based on their own predicaments. If you grew up in a farm, you would think a whole lot different than if you grew up in an urban high-rise. Both life stories are valid, even though some orientations may be more expansive than others.
Putting Uncle Sam Back Together Again
Arianna Huffington, a media mogul who sold her blog for hundreds of millions of dollars, urges recent audiences to shut off their computers and digital devices from time to time. Her particular revelation came from overwork as an entrepreneur where she fell down on the office floor and injured herself. Getting a life became a matter of sanity.
You have the power within you to stop letting the media, whether on a Smart TV, an iMac, iPad or iPhone, tell you how to think. You can give up entertaining hateful thoughts towards anyone, including President Trump. You have the power within you to support people with drastically different perspectives than your own to do the right thing.
Love is the most powerful force in all the Universe. It is the best possible marker of true enlightenment. A truly enlightened person knows and expresses absolute, unconditional love. Jesus Christ, Himself, admonished his disciples to shine like the sun on the good and the evil, the just and the unjust. The sun shines on everyone alike. So let your love, the love locked up deep inside you, in the very nucleus of your being, shine upon a world that includes everyone—with no one and nothing left out!
If the people lead, the leaders will follow.
~ Peace and Environmental Activist Slogan
Integral Politics: A Fresh Vision for America appeared first on http://consciousowl.com.
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