It says in the
program "Summary of the Waldzell Meeting 2008." Clearly that is impossible. No
one can summarize a meeting like this - it is a task that cannot be done. But
for the past few years I have had the honour of acting as moderator, and adding
at the end a few thoughts of my own, reflecting on the gathering from my point
of view.
David Goldberg, who is a dear friend of mine, and who
I wouldn't know if Waldzell did not exist, started this year's gathering with
his reflections on the history of Waldzell and the journey that this conference
has gone through. Several people, over the last day or so, have asked me,
knowing that I have been here for all of the meetings, how they have changed,
and what is different this year. I thought David's comments did a very nice job
of explaining some of that migration. But I wanted to offer some thoughts of my
own that would be a bookend to David's. So if you remember where he began the
meeting, this is the other end of the bookshelf--my reflections on not only this
year's gathering but also something about what I think Waldzell really means.
A very simple idea occurred to me as I watched all of
us interact and listen to the talks and the dialogues. The simple idea is this:
if Waldzell did not exist, we would need to invent it. Why is that? I think
because, in ways large and small, inside us and outside us, immediate in the
moment and lasting over time, Waldzell gives us a chance to bring together the
disparate and often warring pieces of our own lives in the world.
In my experience, and probably in yours as well, the
world and everyday life want us to believe in compartments, in an either/or set
of choices. If you are a scientist, you are not a person with a spiritual
life--it's either/or. If you are a businessperson, you don't care about
people--it's either/or. If you are a thinker, you are not a doer. If you work
with the left side of your brain to be rational and practical, you don't work
with the right side of your brain to be empathetic and intuitive. That is what
the daily life of the world tries to create and enforce.
Waldzell is a place not for either/or but for
both/and. It is a place that attracts, encourages and nourishes what I call
radical pragmatists. A radical pragmatist is someone who believes that radical
change is possible and necessary, and is absolutely pragmatic in how they go
about achieving it. It sounds like an oxymoron that you can be a radical
pragmatist, and that is exactly the point. It is not an either/or choice--it is
a both/and experience.
Waldzell is an experience. It invites us, for at
least a couple of days in our busy lives, to be free from an either/or world
and find a space where both/and can exist in peaceful co-existence. For me,
this is what has happened every year at Waldzell, and this year is no
different.
For me, the argument between science and spirit is
not an argument at all--it is a delightful dance of brilliant minds at work. I
don't have to choose between them--I can enjoy them both and find delight in
their delight and in the work of brilliant thinkers.
For me, a reflective time in the old space of the
Melk church is a time to open up a new space inside my own heart. There is joy
at coming back to see old friends and a certain sadness at leaving again when
Waldzell ends. It is the way ideas and sentences, even just little parts of
sentences, linger in the air at the Waldzell gathering, like the scent of the
autumn air in the garden.
The little exercise we all did, to write down on a
piece of paper the ideas that struck us, the moments that gave us an
illumination that we hadn't seen before, those are the special moments of
Waldzell that I take with me. I remember them, I write them down, and I read
them from time to time over the course of the year.
The first night I was here, Father Martin greeted me
at dinner. I was so happy to see him and he was excited because he wanted to
tell me that there was a debate going on about this either/or choice between
thinking and doing. In his spiritual and religious practice, thinking and doing
were the same; and he was so excited, his eyes were bright with energy. That is
both/and.
It is the Architects of the Future telling us stories
of inspiration coupled with action, proving the point yet again that thinking
and doing are not an either/or choice--they are a necessary combination. It is
Bibi and Yousriya with their stories of urgency--telling us how they saw
something and in their hearts they knew they couldn't let it stay that way.
There is a moment of ignition and recognition; and then it takes 25 years to
make a difference, to translate urgency into sustenance, strength, and courage,
where business is joined to social purpose and is not opposed to it.
Waldzell a dialogue, it is a conversation, and yet in
our discussion about moments that mattered, time after time people said, "I
heard so much I am having an inner conversation in my own head--my mind is
filled with voices that I'm taking home with me.".
It is old friends and it is new friends. It is seeing
Brother David and it is meeting Swami G. It is John and Pat describing the
problems of old media and then giving us new ways to win back our own stories.
It is the strength of the feminine and the strength of the masculine and some
new version of the two joined together.
This is what happens every year at Waldzell. We come
as individuals and then we leave, having shared something creative and healing
together. Bill Liao said it best to me yesterday. He said, "Connectedness is
effectiveness." The story of Waldzell, and the future of Waldzell, is for us to
stay connected, because the way we are all more effective in the world we want
to create, and in making the changes we want to bring about, is for all of us
to come away from Waldzell staying connected.