CREATE CONNECTIONS:
NO DIFFERENCE IS
TOO GREAT
Soul space is our common origin – it is sacred because therein dwells the spirit of the Holy.
Soul space welcomes and includes all who seek to be held in the embrace of the Holy.
Soul space, while acknowledging the necessity of geopolitical boundaries, uses those proximities of difference to transform our understanding of human and religious co-existence. Boundaries once hardened by distrust and fear of annihilation become dedicated and conflict-free “zones” to explore shared meaning (e.g., of “Holy ground”) and grow grassroots practices that open our worldviews and prepare that ground for deep peace.
Possibilities are revealed
Soul space reveals possibilities, instills desire, broadens perspective, and allows us to stand back from competing narratives – to see what, in the midst of complexity and confusion, is trying to move through. We may see that we are already restoring ways of being with one another, of facing collectively what we fear or what causes us pain.
Soft power enacted
Soul space is soft power in action. We are moved beyond strategizing and arming for peace – cultural, racial, and religious sensitivities are authentic and touch each other. Soft power restores a sense that there are greater things such as trust and legitimate uses of power to defend.
The world will change
Soul space asks for something – releasing human attachments; befriending uncertainty and darkness; risking, even seeking, places of grey, knowing the way we see our selves, others, and the world will fundamentally change; holding accountable sovereign powers even when we too will encounter cost. It means upholding human and constitutional rights because they exist first as sacred rights.
Everyone has a right to exist
Soul space is universal – seeing each person, race, faith, religion, and nation as having aspirations and dreams, as part of our spiritual family, with their own right to exist and be free to live. It means being accountable to something more than our fears. What lives in us, lives in the other – what lives in the other, lives in us.
What draws us together?
Our spiritual nature is our first bond. It draws us together in those in-between spaces where fear threatens to choke off the good that tries to come through. Polarization, attitudes, and acts of racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and religious intolerance are disorders of this nature.
What keeps us in a state of fear?
Conflicted drives – to be right, to have power, to bend the will of the world to one’s view – escalate as social, political, and economic fears rise. Noise can take over the space so that we become numb, confused about what truth is. Allowing noise to mute what is true and erode sacred trusts keeps us in a state of fear.
How do we preserve sacred space?
To preserve this Holy space, especially in the midst of pain, violence, and division, we must approach one another in the spirit of curiosity, humility, cooperation, respect, and vulnerability. Rights to liberty, meaning, dignity, and the realization of potential are more than individual, human rights – they are shared, inalienable, inviolate, and sacred rights. We must leave outside those assumptions, perceptions, and expectations that prevent us from seeing, touching, and being touched by what is in those in-between spaces that can open our world.
Can we find resonance in our differences?
Cultural, racial, religious differences are not to be “solved.” By seeing differently, our differences bring us closer. By working alongside one another and listening deeply, we can experience, in real time, creative justice.