Greetings from Berkeley

If there is one lesson that I have learned these past four months as a seminary student it’s that things are rarely as simple as they seem on the surface. I learned this time and again, as I would form a quick assessment of something, only to find that opinion changed by information that I would learn the following week.

I continually reminded myself that what I did not understand was much larger than what I did.

While that was helpful to reel in my spinning mind, the most profound learning occurred when a visiting professor instructed my class to “acknowledge complexities.”

I felt immediately that that was my key to stop myself from seeking simplistic answers. I also realized in that moment that acknowledging complexities got me past dualistic thinking that set one reality against another.

Take holidays as an example.

Holidays are a great time to gather with friends and family. Holidays are stressful times that consume much time and energy. Holidays are times that we celebrate what is sacred in our lives. Holidays are secular occasions that have become too commercialized.

When we have to choose just one of these realities, we find ourselves in conflict with ourselves, and others, because we know that several of these concepts are true.

One key to navigating our way through our conflicting feelings is to allow those realities to exist in congruence with each other. By embodying the complexity, we move ourselves beyond trying to figure out which one is correct, and open ourselves up to thinking about whether we want to change our relationship to our situation. Rather than announcing that we simply “hate the holidays,” because we are so conflicted about them, we might be able to consider ways to enhance our time with family by developing new holiday traditions. We might take a look at how we can make sure that we take care of ourselves and avoid holiday burn out. We might consider a special spiritual practice or ritual to make our holiday more sacred, and we might figure out how to cut back on our monetary expenditures and give more from the heart.

Getting beyond dualistic thinking offers us the possibility to make decisions and set priorities. It also offers us the opportunity to understand that other people around us make different decisions based on their own priorities.

When we change our perspective from either/or to and/both thinking, we are presented with many more choices and possibilities. Ironically, we find that things get a whole lot simpler.

When we think about exploring the differences we find in the many interpretations of events in our world and acknowledge complexity, we find creative ways to explore the serious problems--environmental degradation, shrinking natural resources, institutionalized racism, classism and the crisis of our national identity, economy and moral values--which face our world.

We find a means to come together and communicate.

Through acknowledging complexity, we find connection, hope, possibility and perhaps even joy in successfully maneuvering through our troubled times.

Peace, shalom, salaame, right on, nameste, happy holidays and greetings from Berkeley.