- by Mark McAlister
It’s
been said that Alcoholics Anonymous makes it a principle to venerate
newcomers. Their questions are sharp and
immediate, and they prevent the organization from becoming complacent and
irrelevant. Is there a lesson here for
the Anthroposophical Society? What would
happen if we paid more attention to the questions and concerns of newcomers?
With
this in mind, I decided to participate in the Cambridge Music Conference in
Vancouver last November. Elizabeth
Carmack (an anthroposophist) was the driving force behind the conference, but
the vast majority of the presenters and participants had no direct connection with
Anthroposophy. What brought them together was a deep concern for the plight and
trauma of people in the justice system (including both perpetrators and
survivors of violent crime), and a quest for real and sustainable healing. Nigel Osbourne (a composer from UK) was a
particularly inspiring example. Working
with children in war zones, he has shown how the elements of music can reach to
the deepest levels of the human being and bring hope where otherwise there
would only be despair. I did not feel
that he was lacking anthroposophy; he was revealing it to me.
One can
have similar experiences in meetings of the biodynamic movement. I have met a number of young farmers in
recent years who have a deep connection to Rudolf Steiner and spiritual science
and find the anthroposophists to be a little superficial. Could it be that their relationship to
anthroposophy is more direct and active than mine, even though I have been
studying for several decades? I have
helped to arrange several small conferences with these folks, and I must say
they are teaching me a lot!
I can
also share something of my experience at a recent Camphill seminar for 20+
social therapists. The presenter was Beth
Barol, a colleague of Julia Wolfson.
Beth has been serving people with developmental disabilities all her
life, and has achieved distinction at all levels in her work in the State of
Pennsylvania. In the seminar, she
introduced the biographical timeline tool, and showed us how in even the most
difficult cases, they are usually able to compensate for decades of trauma and
abuse, and guide the person back to some semblance of a meaningful life. How
exciting that a person of this caliber has found her way into the
anthroposophical community! Beth, too,
has helped me to see anthroposophy emerging in quite new ways.
Without
a doubt, many readers of this article are having similar experiences, and I
encourage you to share some of them in this Newsletter. It seems to me that we will become much
stronger as a movement if we pay more attention to what is coming to meet us.
Finally,
I should mention that the events described in this article have one thing in
common: two or three First Class members were involved in the planning
process. Now that’s productivity!
2 comments:
It's refreshing to hear about your real-life experiences, Mark, where the rubber meets the road, so to speak.
The fact that you are also a long-time student of anthroposophy is ultimately a personal spiritual quest, I venture to say.
Anthroposophy informs me how to approach life but I haved always struggled to experience it as an end in itself. There is so much to do in the material plane!!
Thank you for writing this article. You have articulated a thought that has been rambling around in my head for some time.
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