Nothing Elitist About It

More and more thinkers, activists and scientists alike are recognising the link between the personal and the global. The movement of evolutionary consciousness calls for deepened personal responsibility for moving beyond the places of impasse in our shared life on the planet. In a nutshell, this describes the spirituality that makes sense in our lives. This spirituality moves us to know that our inner experience and our outer experience are all of one piece.

What are the spiritual practices that accompany this understanding of spirituality? For starters:

  • Steep yourself in silence as a way to “detox” from our usual ways of thinking. See if there is anything there below the usual voices that might be akin to communion or solidarity.

  • Find ways to make contact with people whose world view differs from your own. We heard a good example of this in the CBC show Canada Reads in which Wab Kinew and Stephen Lewis engaged in enthusiastic disagreement about the book The Orenda. Each came from a particular world view. For the listener, we could not help but be stretched beyond our usual ways of thinking.

  • Nurture confidence in your capacity to contribute to a more inclusive neighbourhood, workplace, community movements.

Evolutionary consciousness is not an elitist movement in our culture. Actually, nothing could be more grass roots. Nothing could be more inclusive. Nothing could be more practical.

Margo Ritchie, CSJ