One session in Camden last week that really grabbed my interest was hosted by my dear friend and colleague Father Brian Bainbridge from Australia. \u00a0 Brian is another remarkable man, generous, dry in his humour and open hearted. \u00a0 He has been working on a little book for a while about brining Open Space to parish life, which documents his stories of working with the parishoners of St. Scholastica’s in Melbourne. \u00a0 In a little over two years, Brian has been exploring the transformation that comes about from shifting from the managerial worldview to the open space worldview. \u00a0 What he has found is a renewal in the life of the parish, and in the spiritual life of the parishioners. \u00a0 What interests me about this transformation is how it relates to the spiritual teachings that lie at the heart of the parish. \u00a0 In other words, is an Open Space worldview compatible with Christian teachings?<\/p>\n
Brian was good enough to host a session on this topic which was attended by folks from many faith traditions. \u00a0 For me, it became very clear that Open Space invites us as individuals to connect with the deeper sources of creation in our world. \u00a0 Almost all major religions teach both a path for individual spiritual practice and a path for collective spiritual community building. \u00a0 Whether you are a Christian, a Buddhist, Baha’i, Jew, Taoist, Muslim, Hindu or you practice a traditional spirituality, there are precepts for the life of spiritual communities that, I think, invite us to notice the source of creative energy as it flows between us. \u00a0 Living in community is a spiritual practice. \u00a0 Open Space, it seems to me, offers us a chance to connect with one another in a deeper way by connecting with the source of creativity in the universe. \u00a0 We call this by many names. \u00a0 Religious people migt call it Spirit, secular folks will see it as self-organization, Taoists call it the Tao. \u00a0 Whatever it is named, it is possible to experience it, and Open Space seems to create the conditions for that experience. \u00a0 This explains to me why many people report a much deeper experience in Open Space than in many other process I work with.<\/p>\n
This theme surfaced at the Art of Hosting workshop I took part in later in the week in Indiana, where there was a large contingent of participants who were exploring the roots of their leadership practice and discovering that at a certain point they converged with their spiritual paths as well. \u00a0 This continues to be interesting for me, and I wonder what your experience of leadership, Open Space in particular and spirituality is?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One session in Camden last week that really grabbed my interest was hosted by my dear friend and colleague Father Brian Bainbridge from Australia. \u00a0 Brian is another remarkable man, generous, dry in his humour and open hearted. \u00a0 He has been working on a little book for a while about brining Open Space to parish life, which documents his stories of working with the parishoners of St. Scholastica’s in Melbourne. \u00a0 In a little over two years, Brian has been exploring the transformation that comes about from shifting from the managerial worldview to the open space worldview. \u00a0 What …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[10,6,16,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2","category-facilitation","category-leadership","category-practice"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piBp1-k7","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1247\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chriscorrigan.com\/parkinglot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}