On Jeju Island (Korea), partaking alongside locals in a non-violent civil disobedience protest of a military base. Photo: Amy Echeverria
We live in a turbulent world. The way we live in that world does not need to be turbulent. I was reminded of this recently in an online workshop entitled Awakened Activism, led by a friend and colleague, Patricia Pearce. She wanted to create space for people to explore the intense feelings of fear, anxiety, sadness anger, and confusion that is surfacing in the U.S. and indeed around the world in response to what appears to be a rise in authoritarianism. Many of us are asking ourselves, What should I do? What can I do? What needs to be done? I was grateful to explore these questions and feelings in community.
Patricia made the distinction between two kinds of activism: egoic and awakened. She described characteristics of egoic activism to include us/them dualism, externally focused on conditions and circumstances, operates within the paradigm of separateness, and uses the ego to bring about change. In contrast, Patricia named awakened activism as unitive in that it assumes all things are interconnected, that Love is the Ultimate Reality, and that the outer world reflects the inner world.
Another important distinction Patricia made was between change and transformation. Change is focused on conditions and circumstances while transformation alters the consciousness from which conditions arise. In other words, change is to ‘give a person a fish’ as transformation is to ‘teach a person to fish’.
Jeju Island (Korea), peacefully protesting with locals and Columban Father Pat Cunningham. Photo: Amy Echeverria
With this new vocabulary, I can redefine my questions from “doing” to “being” questions. What can I do becomes what can I be? What needs to be done becomes what needs to be? By orienting my inquiry to the starting point of being, I shift how I approach any possible action I may take.
If this all sounds too intellectualised, let me give an example. One aspect of the mission for Columbans is to dialogue with governments and the United Nations about policies like biodiversity and migration that we believe would restore justice, healing, and peace to the lives of people and the planet. From an egoic perspective, this advocacy might look like trying to change language in a piece of legislation or a legislator to vote a specific way on a policy. From an awakened perspective, this advocacy might look like holding a listening session between the policymakers and the people who are affected by those potential policies. Awakened advocacy looks more like an encounter between people than a transaction of ideas and outcomes.
It is not easy to stay in an awakened state. Vigilance can be tiring especially when it goes on for hours, days, weeks, months even years at a time. Remember the disciples who fell asleep despite Jesus asking them to stay vigilant while he prayed in the garden at Gethsemane?
So the next time I watch the news or read a story that leaves me heartbroken, which most likely will be the next time I turn on the TV or open the newspaper, I will ask myself, how can I be in a relationship with what is happening in front of me?
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Related links
- Read more from the current Columban eBulletin
