So Far From Home Lost and Found in our Brave New World by Margaret J. Wheatley Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2012

Here's a review of that book written by Joyce Marshall.  It appears in the latest issue of the Realistic Living Journal, November 2012.

I have not read anything with which I resonate more strongly than this book.  Drawing on her work with systems, Wheatley lays out the elements of the world we now live in – robber barons, millions oppressed, ideological dumbing down, manufactured selves, consumerism, distraction, etc. – and how these elements interact, resulting in humanity being Lost.  The first step toward being Found is to recognize how profoundly we are Lost.  To motivate ourselves by the outcomes we hope to achieve is not appropriate. That kind of hope is the flip side of fear.  But there is a different kind of hope – that we will BE hope, be warriors of the spirit.  This requires looking directly into the darkness of our times and being brave and decent human beings who face deeply challenging circumstances.  As Wendell Berry put it: “No matter how bad things get, a person of good will and some ability can always do something to make it a little better.”  Maybe our work won’t be different from what we are now doing, but the context shifts.  Expectations and attitudes shift. One aspect of that spirit is avoiding getting caught up in outrage and righteous anger.  The truer feeling is being overwhelmed with grief. Allowing ourselves to experience our grief will leave us with greater clarity about how to respond.  Wheatley, articulating what I have been sensing for some years now, clarifies a context that I have fuzzily tried to talk about.  Her mentors are Chogyam Trungpa and Pema Chodron, and though they are Buddhist, I am happy to follow her call to arms and become a Christian spirit warrior.  I would like for all my friends and colleagues who are vocated to serving the world to read this book – yesterday.

Joyce Marshall

On 2013-02-18, at 7:53 PM, Shelley Hahn wrote:

Hi Mom & All,

I did a quick search and came across this which may have been the reference that spurred you to buy the book (?):

Suggest the reading of Meg Wheatley's latest book So Far From Home. Great statement of the hope beyond hope, in the sense in which Kaz spoke of hope as the greatest temptation. 

Randy

Don't know if that helps.

Shelley

On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 11:21 AM, Doris Hahn <dshahn31@gmail.com> wrote:

After I read the little dialogue in which Randy and Jack suggested that Meg Wheatley's book would address the issue, I did a really uncharacteristic thing (at about 9:30 p.m.). I immediately went to Amazon and ordered the book. Now that I have read (and appreciate) it, I want to remember what the issue was to which the book was the answer. Can you refresh my memory--only on this one issue--I won't ask you to do a sweeping job on my memory<330.gif>.

I do think Meg Wheatley does a good job, and I certainly believe her answers may be helpful, though I think the spirit work we did is far more sweeping and with more depth. What she has that we didn't is today's world with current issues. Actually, I never did like the "warrior" image, because it is so masculine. However, it now carries a lot of other baggage for me, including the personal (hate, anger, etc) along with the outward destructiveness of war. Maybe this is good archive work if we haven't already done it. In any case, it is a current conversation worth having. Of course, we used war images all the time, but surely there are other current ones that could be motivating.

What would we drag out of our corporate memory or current innovation that could lead the way in today's world?

Doris Hahn

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