Coming into WeCreating from WeSpace

Part Two: WeCreating the Future of Christianity and the World

In order to WeCreate, we have to do it together. We will not be able to create the necessary future unless it is coming from more than collections of efforts from singular individuals.

This is an extensive barrier we face, especially in modern society where so many of the systems we live and operate in exist to divide and isolate us. These systems feed the rampant egotism and narcissism that are the result of consumerism and materialism.

Social theorists refer to this as “atomization,” which is the breaking down of larger groupings into smaller component parts. Our sense of being becomes less and less rooted in community, in place, in family, in shared values and common work. And all we are left with is ourselves, alone—and lonely.

Even many spiritual offerings and communities can easily slip into this default patterning, subtly reinforcing the individualism that has so pervaded our sense of self and experience of life in these times.

You might see this in forms of spiritual practice that particularly focus on the ego. Whether seeking to transcend, negate, or overcome, the prime energetic attention is given to the separate self—which very often only reinforces its prominence, even in defiance. As they say, what you resist persists. While there are certainly healthy practices to release the grip of our ego identity, unless they are integrated with communal engagement, loving service, and authentic relationality, they will only get us so far.

Or you can often notice it in the form and structure of a gathering itself. Are we being treated as individualized receptors of a singular perspective or message? Are we audience members siloed into our singular experiences of processing and receiving each in our own separate way? Are we silently meditating perhaps in a shared physical (or digital) space but remaining isolated in our various internal experiences?

We are so permeated in the way of atomization that we often don’t even realize how separated we are, how much we have been fragmented, how much we are totalized in systems and approaches that are rooted in an assumption of inherent alienation.

Except when we feel it intuitively. That it’s not meant to be this way. That the loneliness and isolation isn’t the fundamental nature of things. And that I am more than who I am by myself alone.

*“Cosmic Invitation”* – image by Dalmo Mendonça

A Communal Spirituality with You

This shift from I to We is a primary evolutionary calling in this time that we whole-heartedly embrace in ICN.

It is why we encourage joining WeSpace as the main way of coming into this community. It can be something of an initiation process—not only to this spiritual community, but to a different way of being beyond our own individualism.

Most of us need help in really learning how to be a “We” and not just an “I.” And we need regular practice and ongoing engagement in this way of being to support our continued deepening and integrating. This is the spiritual work of becoming who we truly are. In mystical Christian terms, this is becoming the body of Christ, playing in ten thousand places (and faces).

“Vibrant Sharing” – image by Dalmo Mendonça

Crucially though, we are not disavowing our own personhood, our individual uniqueness. We are not meshing and amalgamating into group think or a faceless crowd. We do not forfeit our agency nor do we negate our distinctiveness. We do release the centrality of our separate self-referentialism, but we don’t just replace that with a larger collective self. We hold in integration our identity as an I, as a network of We’s, and as an interconnected part of the All.

As we learn to abide in WeSpace, we shift the default pattern and neural wiring of consumer spirituality—of the directionality of experience being all about inflow into our singular self. It’s not just about what I’m learning, how I’m growing, what I’m receiving.

Of course, that is important. But then with the inflow we welcome as well the interflow. Including not only what I offer, but also what our We is giving and teaching us. This is a vital part of the deepening work and practice of WeSpace over time.

Crucially, we don’t self-enclose around our “we” either, but rather we attend to the outflow. We do this in our personal lives—in the integration and application of our new ways of being in our local settings. How we live is transformed and it in turn transforms and affects others.

The invitation to WeCreating is to sit before the blank canvas of our creative expression—the outflow arising from our communal interflow. To attune to the arisings of the possible spiritual work that may be beckoning. To listen for our communal calling. To open up to the emergence of spirit in our midst, waiting to express and pour forth into the world as an enaction of loving evolution.

And this requires you. Your uniqueness and special expressions of creativity are some of the vital colors that make up the palette.

Of course, we can all find and create our own personal forms of expression. This is beautiful and necessary. And we can do so much more, bringing a greater energy and impact from the bigger “We” not only because of the larger scale but also because that is more in tune with the reality of who we truly are.

In our mystic’s guild, we come together to both support and inspire our personal “creative” offerings (which is a spiritual act of worship—more on this in the next article). And we come into the collaborations and collective creative expressions which are waiting to be born from our communal being, from the body of Christ creating in the world today.

Who will do this work if not us?

“Mystic’s Guild of WeSpace” – image by Luke Healy

We Will Generate It Together

To escape the trap of our individualism, our spiritual practice must orient us in new ways toward a fundamental value of deep relationality and an enlivenment of our true identity and being—which is not our separate and small self.

Rather than isolating and sectioning off, we come together in this more authentic way of being. This not only soothes our loneliness and comforts our lost parts, but it also calls us into a strength of being which comes from our deeper communion.

We cultivate great capacity through our awakening to our communal being, and then from the loving force of this relational space (the WeSpace), we come into our power to enact through and as the mystical body of Christ (WeCreating).

This shift in consciousness isn’t just a change of perspective, it is an embodied transformation of our sense of identity, our understanding of self, and crucially our life generating capacity. Our source of spiritual energy and vitality is exponentially enhanced.

Yes, our mind (personal and collective) expands and we grow in wisdom, but this alone will lack the capacity necessary to impact the world without the greater heart of love that is more than our individual heart. And we will lack the force of creative potency without the deeper womb of divine vitality, which conceives, bears, and brings forth the new life of the world only in we-oneness, from our unified Source.

This is our divine transfiguration into our Christ being—our mystical becoming beyond individuality.

It calls forth new ways of living and enacting in the world, creating and co-generating the future together in loving evolution.

When we speak of the necessity of an evolution of consciousness in order to survive and thrive in the future, this is the way we come into it holistically.

How Do We Actually Do This?

This all can be a lot to take in. It may not make total sense—especially to our individuated mental recognition. If we don’t have much experience with this sort of collective consciousness, especially in embodied ways, we may not have a great felt sense of what I’m describing here. Or, you may be tracking with a deep resonance or longing for what is being portrayed.

Wherever you find yourself, having read this far, I want to tell you that this is more than a visionary aspiration.

More and more people are reaching and expressing forms of WeCreating, from new ways of working in evolutionary organizations in business to a wide range of expressions in different ways of living like eco-villages, intentional communities, and co-op housing. The world is looking for ways out of our silos and into greater interconnection and communality in work and housing.

In spirituality, many different forms and expressions of we-space have arisen, in addition to shifts and changes in how we are gathering to find meaning and connection beyond traditional church.

A good deal of these forms and expressions are focusing on learning how to be together in this collective way. And many are leaning into the creative work and emergence as a vital aspect of the evolutionary work.

In Christianity, for the most part, we have a long way to go to see this way of being expressed and enacted—which is why we are doing this work in ICN. In the mystical roots and forms of our heritage, we actually have many powerful gifts, living symbols, and communal rituals that can suffuse our integral, evolving process. We’ll explore more of these throughout this series.

In the ICN community, we have enacted several group processes of growing in our aptitudes and capacity to WeCreate. These experiments and prototypes have yielded experience and growth in the ways of being together described here—and more to come. We have a long way to go as a community in our growth in this area. WeCreating is a high aspiration.

It doesn’t happen overnight. It isn’t gained through insight and mental understanding alone. It will take intention and dedication to become and bring forth in this way.

Why would we do this? Why orient our spiritual becoming so much in this direction?

Because it is the new way of worship that is being called forth from us, which we will explore next in part three.