Diagrama de clases

This module relates to the core value of Global Spirituality, which provides a spiritual vision and a sense of transcendence. It enables one to see the wholeness and interconnectedness of all that exists.

The module also concerns the related value of Reverence for the Sacred, which provides a deep sense of awe and respect for the goodness in all that exists and the recognition of something beyond.

Objectives

• To recall the experience of “awe” in one’s life

• To link “awe” to the value of reverence for the sacred

• To reflect on one’s present work in the light of “awe” and reverence for the sacred • To apply insights gained into their life and work

Content

• Accounts of awesome experiences

• Definitions of awe and reverence for the sacred • Bringing awe to work

Procedure/Learning Activities

Conceptual Level: Understanding

1. Facilitator invites the participants to recall an awe-inspiring experience in their lives. This may be done either by reliving it with their eyes closed or by writing or drawing the experience.

2. Participants share their experience with a partner.

3. Facilitator leads participants to a group discussion: What made your experiences awe- inspiring?

4. Facilitator deepens the discussion with the following questions: a. What is awe?

b. How do you recognize it?

c. What are the bodily, mental and emotional aspects of awe? d. What are the long-term influences of awe in your own life? e. How do we seek awe?

f. What are the sources of awesome experiences? g. What factors erode a sense of awe in life?

h. What important function does awe serve in human life?

i. What happens to humans when they no longer experience awe? j. Is awe critical to the well-being of humanity?

Cognitive Level: Knowing

5. From the discussion, facilitator introduces two accounts of awesome experiences:

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a. Astronaut Edgar Mitchell, on viewing Earth from the Moon:

“It began with the breathtaking experience of seeing planet Earth floating in the immensity of space—the incredible beauty of a splendid blue-and-white jewel floating in the vast, black sky. I underwent a religious-like peak experience, in which the presence of divinity became almost palpable, and I knew that life in the universe was not just an accident based on random processes.”

b. Kevin W. Kelley, co-producer with the Association of Space Explorers, of the book, The Home Planet:

“I wanted to create …a more highly defined image of the Earth, and I wanted to raise this as a context in people’s consciousness. I thought the world needed this… desperately!”

“I was a thirty-eight year old handyman with no credentials… I’d been a boat builder, a general contractor, a wild rice farmer, a fisherman, and every time I got to the end of a project, I’d say to myself, ‘This isn’t what I want to do with the rest of my life.’ I felt like I’d wasted my entire life…”

“Through the process of writing the book, I was concerned that I wasn’t the ideal person to do the book. I felt like I was too brash, too harsh, too impetuous. At one point, one of the astronauts wanted to take the book away from me… When it was all over, our lawyer said, ‘Kevin, a normal editor wouldn’t have done this book.’” “But I wouldn’t give up. Everybody that got in the way of getting the book done, and having done beautifully, just got worn out because I wouldn’t give up.” “Tell people not to give up. If I can do it, anyone can.”

6. Facilitator gathers participants reactions to the two accounts, exploring with them the author’s emotions, their sense of awe that led them to think of creation, their place in creation and the future of the world and humanity.

7. Facilitator explains how these two people experienced the value of Reverence for the Sacred. Their accounts demonstrated how the sense of awe led to:

a. a spiritual revelation, or “recognition of something beyond” in Edgar Mitchell’s account of seeing planet Earth from space,

b. a dedicated call or vocation to bring this sense of awe for the beauty of Planet Earth to all humanity, conveyed in Kevin Kelley’s book of inspiring images photographed by the astronauts. This “deep sense of awe and respect for the goodness in all that exists and the recognition of something beyond” can lead to a new vision of life and work and generate the energy to fulfil that vision.

8. Facilitator connects these to other related values:

a. Perhaps the ultimate value to be generated from such awe is Ecority, defined by Hall as “the capacity, skills, and personal, organizational, or conceptual influence to enable persons to take authority for the created order of the world and to enhance its beauty and balance through creative technology in ways that have a worldwide influence.”

b. One could view one’s life work as pathways of values that become, in their accumulated quality, a legacy of goodness to humanity. Among such pathways there is the path of the artisan, defined in Colins and Chippendale’s value,

Workmanship/Art/Craft, as “to create products or works of art to enhance the world and our life in it.”

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c. Other over-arching value is Equality/Liberation, “experiencing oneself as having the same value and rights as all other human beings in such a way that one is set free to be that self and to free others to be themselves. This is the critical

consciousness of the value of being human.” (Hall)

d. Detachment/Transcendence, “exercising spiritual discipline and detachment so that one experiences a global and visionary perspective through a feeling of being in touch with some ultimate source of wisdom.” (Colins & Chippendale)

e. Research/Originality/Knowledge, “the systematic investigation and contemplation of the nature of truths and principles that lie behind our experience of reality. The aim is to create new insights and awareness—to see things as no one has before.” (Colins & Chippendale)

9. Facilitator wraps the discussion by presenting the following ideas of Brian Hall: Brian Hall, in his book Values Shift, writes that every choice and decision made by humans take them either towards fear, mistrust and protection of an existing way of being, i.e., the status quo, or trust, risk, and development. Our choices are based on our world-view, i.e., whether we believe the world is a place of goodness and wonder, or an unsafe place that inflicts hurt and is untrustworthy. Humans perceive the world through these opposing “window frames.”

It is easy to see how a pessimistic world-view can develop when there is so much global hatred, greed and violence reported by the media every day.

Perhaps there is a choice to be made, as did Admiral Byrd, trapped by winter in his hut at the Antarctic base camp, who chose to think in an optimistic way by

remembering “green, growing things.” We can will to live with commitment, seeking out experiences that refresh, delight and inspire us, in our work, in nature, in the arts. We can follow the lives of our heroes, who encourage risk-taking, braving the unknown alone to bring wonder, wider perspective and new possibilities to

humanity.

Conceptual Level: Understanding

10. This step is optional. Facilitator may wish to reiterate the previous learning by encouraging participants to make a collage on one of the following themes: • the goodness and wonder of creation

• self as creator

• my commitment to the future • vocation as co-creation

Affective Level: Valuing

11. Facilitator invites participants to ponder over their present work and write out reflections about it using three of the following guide questions:

• Is my work awe-inspiring? • Is my work beautiful?

• Did I have a sense of being called to my work and is my work still calling me? • Is there goodness in what my work produces?

• Does my work promote goodwill?

• Does my work further the work of creation?

• What legacy will I leave through the work I am doing?

• How could my work become more joyful and my life more simple?

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• What would it take for me to experience work as bliss? • How could my work become more creative?

12. Facilitator draws some insights and realisations from participants as a result of this process.

Active Level: Acting

13. Facilitator requests participants to write a summary of what they valued in this module, in terms of what they found inspiring, what new insights were gained.

14. Facilitator asks participants to articulate how they might apply all these experiences and insights to their own life and work at present.

Materials Needed

• Drawing paper • Coloured pencils • Large poster papers • Old magazines • Scissors

• Paints and crayons • Glue

• Writing paper • Pen

Suggested Readings

Byrd, Richard. (1986). Alone. Los Angeles. Jeremy P. Tarcher.

Chippendale, Paul J. & Colins, C.J. (1996). New Wisdom II. Brisbane: Acorn Publications. Hall, Brian. P. (1995). Values Shift. Understanding Personal and Organizational Transformation. Rockport, MA: Twin Lights Publication.

Ferrucci, Piero. (1990). Inevitable Grace. Los Angeles: Jeremy P. Tarcher. Fox, Matthew. (1995). The Re-invention of Work. New York: Harper Collins.

Mitchell, Edgar. (1975). “Outer Space to Inner Space.” Saturday Review, 22 February, p.20. Ray, Paul H. and Anderson, Sherry Ruth. (2000). The Cultural Creatives. New York: Three Rivers.

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Module 35: