Part Four: Your Awakened Abilities Can Create the Future

“Deep in our bones lies an intuition that we arrive here carrying a bundle of gifts to offer to the community. Over time, these gifts are meant to be seen, developed, and called into the village at times of need. To feel valued for (our gifts) affirms our worth and dignity. In a sense, it is a form of spiritual employment - simply being who we are confirms our place in the village. Gifts are a consequence of authenticity; when we are being true to our natures, the gifts can emerge.”
― Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief

Here are the remaining fifteen gifts not already covered on my list of twenty-six.

Part Three: Your Awakened Abilities Can Create the Future

“Each of us was born to bring forth something that has never existed: a way of being, a family, an idea, art, a community - something brand-new. We are here to fully introduce ourselves, to impose ourselves and ideas and thoughts and dreams onto the world, leaving it changed forever by who we are and what we bring forth from our depths. So we cannot contort ourselves to fit into the visible order. We must unleash ourselves and watch the world reorder itself in front of our eyes.”
Glennon Doyle, author and activist

At Integral Christian Network, we offer a progressive, evolving understanding of Christianity, a dedicated community, and mystical practices that contribute to this reordering of the world. In addition, among other practices, we create this future through our awakened spiritual gifts. This series focuses on twenty-six gifts that may be currently recognized. There are certainly others, as well as new ones that are emerging among us.

PART ONE: You and Your Spiritual Gifts for Healing of the World

"The future is up for grabs. It belongs to any and all who will take the risk and accept the responsibility of consciously creating the future they want.

Robert Anton Wilson, author, futurist, psychologist, and mystic

"In order to move our culture forward, revolutionaries have had to speak and plan from the unseen order inside them.”

Glennon Doyle, author and activist

One result of authentic spiritual awakening is that we can find and use our awakened spiritual abilities to change the world for the good of all. At Integral Christian Network, we take Margaret Mead, American cultural anthropologist, seriously when she said, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." 

And these words from Buckminster Fuller, architect, systems theorist, writer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist: "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." At ICN we are building a new model of the community that Jesus started and that we have struggled with for centuries, especially the existing unhealthy model of today. 

How to Keep Relationships Healthy

The Drama Triangle

Sometimes we shy away from relationships because they can get messy at times. Who hasn’t experienced a friendship devolving into something painful? We’d like to believe that people devoted to love and prayer don’t have this problem, but that isn’t always the case.

This messiness often comes from a drama with three different roles that we tend to play. I wrote about this four years ago near the beginning of Integral Christian Network because it is an such a helpful understanding about relationships. Called the Drama Triangle, this model reveals dysfunctional interaction originally described by Stephen Karpman. I learned this from him in a workshop forty years ago. It has served me to explain the cycles and patterns of behavior I saw unfold in so many relationships and conversations. It also indicated what we can do to get off the Drama Triangle. There are more nuanced approaches for the professional counselor, but I will give the basics here.