Page 16 - C.A.L.L. #21 - Spring 2003

KALEIDOSCOPE
Yes, we do have a choice! Here come some additional
suggestions to achieve JOY step by step – and who’s from “Shalom Connections” No. 3
of Fall 2002, we take this heart-
in a hurry, anyway?

TOLERANCE BY DEGREES warming little story about building
up a warm family:
To what degree is each one of us ready and willing to learn TOLERANCE?
Living communally means HARMONY with other people – yet it is continually being PROVED Getting Acquainted
that there are LIMITS to each individual’s tolerance for/of each other’s personality traits &/or
preconditioned habits. Meet the Lockies
We can access/read Psychology Study Notebooks on this subject, until we are conversant with Tim Lockie
every word, AND THEN when faced with PRACTICAL situations, still either BLOW UP in anger
OR: RETREAT into depression. Living with people who have observable potential to expand our Church of the Sojourners
individual tolerance levels, seems like a good experience, until the stress/pressure limits build
up too much. Then it can become tough to STAY COOL. It can be released in many ways. We We are pretty boring folks, and apologize at the start of this for
HAVE a CHOICE. There ARE methods for both CONTROLLED TOLERANCE and STRESS being the blurb in the newsletter that you’ll feel guilty if you don’t
RELEASE. read, and bored if you do. It would be great if something wild and
crazy (or even interesting) had happened to us worth reading, but it
The ANSWER? didn’t. In fact Jenny and I tried to invent some so that we’d have
something interesting to write about, but we’re so boring that we
The ANSWER comes in three forms: couldn’t even think of interesting lies (“remember when we almost
saw a bear…” nothing interesting).
1. Avoidance – keep clear of stressful situations. Ask the question, “Am I in the right
community for me? Can I move/change to a different group?” We finally realized that we could just be boring, it’s worked so far,
2. External experience – finding user-friendly ways to compassionately assist those and it’s free. So here we are. I fell madly in love with Jenny in the
around us into changing habit patterns which are damaging to the Group’s mental summer of 1996 during the six-week internship program that
health.
3. Internal experience – changing the Self by seeking and experiencing Meditative and Sojourners has each summer. In short order she reciprocated, and
Personal Growth Workshops/Courses, which are tried and proved for effectiveness. we married two years later (seemed long at the time).

The resultant Feeling of Freedom from emotional negativity and stress release is enough in itself It wasn’t an easy time being married with George, Jenny’s five-
for incentive to experiment AND THEN, being aware that LIVING COMMUNALLY requires year-old bassett hound. Jenny had lived for three years with George
enhanced tolerance levels with deep compassion, is even more motivation. before I showed up and the role of Step-Pet/Owner was a new one
for both of us and took some getting used to. He was used to taking
The CHOICE is OURS for developing a deep-seated reliable JOY of Healthful Living with walks whenevcer he could talk Jenny into them (somewhere on the
compatible people. order of eleven per day) and sleeping on the bed with Jenny. The
first days of our mixed household were fraught with challenging
The DAMANHUR (Italy) newsletter provides a few conversations.
glimpses of what it means to be part of “The Spiritual
People”, going through a New Renaissance process, “Grrr,” George would say to me which, when translated means
searching for deeper “You’re not my real owner.”
“Grrr,” I would respond which
comprehension: meant, “Grrr.”

The Spiritual People Eventually we found our
equilibrium, which was some
In 1986, 10 years after its combination of George not sleeping
foundation, the citizens of on the bed while I was in it, and
Damanhur realized that they acting like he listened to me, while I
were no longer satisfied with started taking him on walks at his
simply living together and leisurely pace (leisurely like a
creating a new society. There glacier’s pace).
was something missing, something that would create a deeper union
more able to grow and become stronger through time, something that Jenny and I got along swimmingly; we never said anything cross to
would unite the plane of life to that of death and again to life. These
were intense moments, days and nights of searching for the correct each other and tried our hardest to out-serve each other, but the
formula, the correct logical leap, a deeper comprehension. And finally second week was harder. We lived in Montana, where I was born
they found a question that was able to unite the hearts and the and raised, for the first year of our marriage, before moving to
minds in a common rhythm: ‘What is my desire?’. Every individual Church of the Sojourners in 1999.
wanted to recognize themselves as an aware part of something
greater in order to create a reality that embraced everybody’s dreams The transition to San Francisco was not as bad as I had expected,
and emotions. An entity that would be a living reservoir of thought due to the support of the Sojourners, and I enrolled in school while
and energy. From that point on the People of Damanhur was born: a Jenny started teaching in a 1 grade Spanish-bilingual classroom. I
st
collective entity born out of human, spiritual, social and emotional meant to study counseling, but accidentally got a B.A. in Economics
union. To be part of the People means to share its ideals, culture and and a minor in Business Administration instead.
art; to create in the world an environment that is a true reflection of
your own vision.

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