The Inner Development goals are much needed. We have all seen groups and organizations not actualize their potential due to personality & group conflict/dynamics. Collaboration & consensus requires more awareness of our inner self & our “baggage” (or shadow sides), whether from upbringing, our self talk, previous emotional traumas or wounds, and ways of interacting with others which are not the most beneficial. Race, ethnicity, gender, religious perspectives, personality types and last but not least, class also come into play, particularly in the form of micro-aggressions or an unconscious sense of privilege & superiority (or inferiority). This is just touching the surface and our methods, and methods developed by others,  help cut across unhelpful dynamics, yet it is not always enough. 

I am, and always will be, still working on myself, and how I interact with others. Partnerships, whether in our relationships, our families or within and between groups, take continual work & awareness. 

Thank you for sharing the Inner Development goals Jim, and thank you David for shining a light on the dynamics and reverberations of Order culture & missional focus which was most acutely, but certainly not exclusively felt by Order youth. Marriages were affected, as were individual needs, by subsuming to the mission to urgently change the world. Lofty goals. Now the urgency with climate change, the ever growing number of us becoming refugees from conflict & unsustainablity, the shift toward facism & totalitarianism,  all accelerated the need to change the world, yet we require an overall shift in individual and collective consciousness. We need continual ways to sustain spiritual growth. We need time and space for our inner being and our extended relationships,  (whether chosen or otherwise). How we and the world’s younger generations will be able to navigate a radically different and compromised world is a huge question.

 The book, Choosing Earth, outlines some stark realities. We will need emotional and spiritual maturity and a higher level of consciousness to navigate the future. It will not be easy. My son Michael, age 29, is becoming more aware and recently stated “billions will die, not including all forms of life. How will we rebuild?”.

Debra

Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone

On Saturday, June 21, 2025, 11:27 AM, James Wiegel via OE <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:

David said : “ creating a Family Order was an audacious “Grand Experiment” with lofty intentions, that so many Order Adults, including himself, were ill equipped emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually (jw:  Might also add economically culturally and …) to pull it off, especially with regard to caring for the children, and exacerbated by the drive to scale the global presence and scope of the mission so quickly without sufficiently trained human capacity. “

Currently there is an initiative to work on inner development goals (https://innerdevelopmentgoals.org/framework/#explore) to complement the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.  I wonder if these give some indication of what, looking back, we were lacking….  

2 of my grandkids gave me a book on Nicaragua, Blood of Brothers, and as soon as I finish that, I’m sending for your book!!

Deep thanks for all the  conversation
Jim Wiegel

“…the long work
of turning their lives
into a celebration
is not easy. Come and let us talk“. 

The Sunflowers. Mary Oliver


On Jun 19, 2025, at 11:32 AM, David Marshall via OE <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:

creating a Family Order was an audacious “Grand Experiment” with lofty intentions, that so many Order Adults, including himself, were ill equipped emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually to pull it off, especially with regard to caring for the children, and exacerbated by the drive to scale the global presence and scope of the mission so quickly without sufficiently trained human capacity.
_______________________________________________
OE mailing list
OE@lists.wedgeblade.net
http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net