Process theology and fog

There is a layer of fog that lays over the river as I return from an all day meeting in Pennsylvania on Saturday. Crossing the Roebling Bridge and turning north along the river, the roads are damp, and the orange-red-yellow landscape glistens. I surmise that the river is cooler than the air.

I always like that fog happens, and see it as a magical manifestation that occurs when one reality meets another. Cold meets warm or warm meets cold and something physical is manifested. That same concept was introduced in my reading this week about process theology.

In Henry Nelson Weiman’s article called “The Human Predicament,” he writes that “Jesus engaged in intercommunication with a little group of disciples with such depth and potency that the organization of their several personalities was broken down and they were remade. They became new men, and the thought and feeling of each got across to the other.

“It was not merely the thought and feeling of Jesus that got across. That was not the most important thing. The important thing was that the thought and feeling of the least and lowliest got across to the other and the other to him.

“Not something handed down to them from Jesus but something rising out up out of their midst in creative power was the important thing. It was not something Jesus did. It was something that happened when he was present like a catalytic agent. Something about this man Jesus broke the atomic exclusiveness of those individuals so that they were deeply and freely receptive and responsive each to the other. He split the atom of human egoism, not by psychological tricks, not by intelligent understanding, but simply by being the kind of person he was, combined with the social, psychological, and historical situation of the time and the heritage of Hebrew prophecy.

“But this was not all; something else followed from it. The thought and feelings, let us say, the meanings, thus derived by each from the other, were integrated with what each had previously acquired. Thus each was transformed, lifted to a higher level of human fulfillment. Each became more of a mind and a person, with more capacity to understand, to appreciate, to act with power and insight, for this is the way human personality is generated and magnified and life rendered more nobly human.”

Oh, if we could only remember that when we are arguing with another, insisting, re-articulating our own position, over and over again. Even when we are being semi-respectful, “I understand that what you are saying is …. We generally follow it up with, "But, what I’m saying is…”

Couldn’t we just be like the fog and allow our warm air to meet another’s cold air and have a mist occur because we’re listening? Couldn’t our cold air meet another’s warm air and actually develop more capacity to understand, to appreciate, to act with power and insight?

I think of this deep emphatic listening, this ability to hold another's point of view, as I think about gas drilling.

I attended a panel discussion and reception last Friday afternoon at Grey Towers, and I repeated over and over again to anyone and everyone who would listen that something magical, something creative, and something transformational could occur if we could actually hold the other's position.

The gas company representatives and others said they liked the idea. "Let's draw a line on a piece of paper," one Hess representative said. "I'll list my concerns on one side, you list yours on the other." He was speaking to DRBC Executive Director Carol Collier. She thought the process would be a good one.

I suggested there would be more lines on the piece of paper; I volunteered to be the scribe.

Now there are some who would tell you that someone with an agenda will tell you anything to have their agenda come to fruition.

But I ask you, if having things go better means holding another's truth close to you, so close that you become transformed, would you be willing?

It's amazing how scary that feels. Especially when the stakes are so high.

Especially when the stakes are so high, how can we not try?