Continuing with the post-conference sorting and sifting of shapes and ideas, powerful possibilities and immediate next steps. Found this in the notes from the LivingInTruth session. Cliff Adams linked to this letter to a young activist, penned by Thomas Merton in February, 1966…
Do not depend on the hope of results. When you are doing the sort of work you have taken on, essentially an apostolic work, you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. And there too a great deal has to be gone through, as gradually you struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. The range tends to narrow down, but it gets much more real. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationships that saves everything.
This is just the place I want to be working from as we move forward with BetterworldProjectStoriesOnlineGivingAuctionMarket and other things coming out of the conference.
Michael,
“do not depend on the hope of results” and the link to Merton’s letter is a wonderful message – thank you for your insights and wisdom in referring me to it.
AS we move from open mind to open heart to open will (Otto Sharmer’s U theory), we let our future come celebrating our wholeness.
sounds like open thinking open caring open doing… and of course the future would have to show up! thanks for this, robyn.