Transformation

The Mastery Foundation, which I've been a part of for 25 or so years, is all about 'transformation'.

Transformation is different than 'change'. Change is arduous and difficult and almost never works. Change is about re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The chairs are in different places but the ship is still going down. That's what 'change' is like. The more things change, the more they stay the same--like that.

Transformation is effortless and without the exertion of energy. Transformation is about moving over a bit and seeing things from a different angle. That's all. Just that. And all is altered--the very 'occurring' of life is altered. Transformation is about 'being', not 'doing'.

At the Convention of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut last weekend, there was a transforming event.

A gay priest from Hong Kong, who lives with some nuns on a farm in upstate New York, led us in an exercise. It went like this: we sat side-by-side with another, in a way that we couldn't make eye contact but could speak softly into each others ears. And we asked and answered three questions.

*What breaks your heart?

*Who do you admire?

*(And I can't find anyone who remembers the third question, but it was something like: 'what makes you whole?')

I did it with a young female priest who had her three month old baby, Andrew, with her. She's an assistant at Christ Church, Greenwich. I'd never met her before and don't know her at all. But, asking and answering those three questions, without looking at each other, tied me to her in a transforming way. It was a powerful and enlightening experience.

How close we can be with another by admitting what breaks our hearts, who we admire and what makes us whole.

The Asian priest asked us to imagine what would happen if we talked with each other like that at coffee hour after Sunday Eucharist. What a thought! What a wonder that all was. Maybe we should share like that at coffee hour instead of discussing surface things.....

Transformation is wondrous, but frightening....