The best part of our Integral Coming Home community is that we are composed of a countless variety of Christians (the vast array is kind of dizzying);  non-Christians looking for a fuller way of understanding the Christian experience and then we have the people who will not call themselves anything at all because it just creates too much misunderstanding (the projections on religious labels are epic).  

Anyway, they recommend articles, music, poetry and this is one of them…one of our participants, Kelly Isola, posted this story about her cousin…a story which reveals one of the reasons why people in non-developing countries are exiting the Catholic Church in droves and why many young people see it as a dysfunctional institution in which they want no part.  

Ever the optimist, I see a creative emergence being birthed out of the dysfunction:  

People are shifting their location of authority from outside of themselves to inside of themselves which results in creative expression.  Why is this?  

They are no longer bound by the limited perspective of an all male, celibate hierarchy which wastes enormous amounts of creative energy by hyperfocusing on their own shadow attitudes around the “pelvic issues” (homosexuality, women’s ordination/role of women, birth control, abortion, weirdness about the body) than in nurturing healthy spirituality.  

So, when they shift their authority, what happens?  Creative, life giving and compelling changes which include:

• Formation of small post-traditional communities which may include small contemplative prayer groups, spiritual direction groups, study sessions, book groups,  etc.
• Design and implementation of creative liturgies (I attended a beautiful Catholic Womanpriest liturgy).
• Exploration of the richness of other wisdom traditions and religions which might include Buddhism and Hinduism (again, generic terms for highly diverse religions), Sufism, nature, Celtic spirituality, goddess traditions, yoga.
• Practices of contemplative prayer, conscious love which almost always ends up redefining notions of “God” and “Spirit.”
• Exposing children to the wide variety of ways in which one can be “spiritual.” Some stay within the tradition, others leave. 
• Expanding notions of service which are more global, inclusive and less oriented towards charity models of service and more oriented towards a recognition of our radical interconnectedness.
• Seeing God/Spirit in nature and exposing oneself and children to the natural world (When I was teaching religious education to confirmation students, I told them to get a camera and take photos of “Where I Find God.”  The top themes were: nature, sports, the arts and their families).
• Integration of changing views on what a friend calls the “pelvic issues” in order to untangle Christianity’s notoriously neurotic attitudes of human sexuality.  (Thank God for small things)

Amazing how a little less sexual repression combined with both men and women in power opens a window and lets the air flow.  I can feel the breeze.