OVERVIEW
Identifying problems is an important thing to do, however, when identifying problems turns into loving problems, our lives become frozen. Possibility thinking requires a willingness and the practice of moving from problems and blaming to possibilities and creating. This week we’ll explore the power of pivoting day after day from problems to possibility!
TRANSCRIPTION
Good morning everyone. Rev Darrell here. How’s everyone in the room, people online? Hope you’re doing fine. We are here to talk about a couple of things as it relates to inclusion, radical inclusion as it relates to living in inclusive life. Um, but before we get there, I wanna start off with just a moment of reflection in practice. If you wanna close your eyes, take a deep breath in, feel free to do so. Mostly I want you to turn inward and just allow things to come forward into your awareness and your consciousness. As I invite you to think about some areas of your life, what comes to mind when you think about your finances?
What comes to mind when you think about your family? What comes to mind when you think about your friends? How about your physical health? How about healthcare? How about politics? What comes to mind when you think about your personal work, your vocation, your job or the industry that you work in? What about social or civic concerns? The global community, our immediate community, and the nice deep breath in. And as you exhale at your attention, come back out of the center of your heart and mind to the room. How many of you were thinking about problems in those areas of your life?
Was anyone thinking about possibilities? Okay, sweet. All right. The talk title today is lifted out of the idea and the focus in this third section on the third pivot in Sean Jen Wright’s book, the Four Pivots. And the title is Loving Problems More Than the Solutions. And so I thought it would be interesting for us to just start off by reflecting on some of the areas of our lives and did we tend to lean towards the problems that are there or were we celebrating what’s good? Or maybe we were getting excited about what could possibly be. Most of the time we go towards what’s not working, right, finances. Dang, I wish I had more money, family. Dang. I wish they’d would be the way I’d want them to be. I love ’em. But they could change my friends. Yeah, they’re kind of cool, but I wish they would be this way too.
My health. Yeah, I wish it would be better. The healthcare system. Yeah, it’s screwed up. Politics. They don’t know what they’re doing. We default to these problems and there’s nothing wrong with it, right? We need to identify problems so that we can do something with them. But there’s this interesting idea that Sean Jen Wright, uh, presents around problem loving. And the idea is that identifying problems is important. It’s, it’s a thing that we must do. Some of our jobs are rooted in the very thing of identifying problems in the world, identifying problems in systems, identifying problems on spreadsheets, in terms of balances, identifying problems mentally. If we work in the, uh, psychological world, uh, there’s so many things that we are constantly identifying problems in. And that is a good thing cuz it gives us awareness. However, when identifying the problems turns into what Sean Jen Wright calls problem loving. We become frozen.
Frozen. It’s almost like our feet are in concrete and we can’t move. All we can do is kind of sway in the muck in the Meyer. And so he invites what’s called possibility thinking. Possibility thinking is a willingness to practice moving out of the problem, identifying the problem, loving into a space of possibility or creativity, thinking pretty straight, straight ahead. Yeah. So the reading again says, the problem with problem loving is that we become satisfied with discussing the problem and uncomfortable with imagining solutions. I love this. We become sat satisfied with discussing the problem. If you’ve ever sat in an organization, whether it is a for-profit or nonprofit, and you’re trying to work on a solution, oftentimes what happens in a room, at least I’ll speak from my experience, especially in the nonprofit world, is there’s a lot of satisfaction around talking around what’s wrong.
Those people, they don’t know what they’re doing. If only they would do this, things would be better. If the funders would just realize this about us, then we could have, right? There’s all sorts of things that we focus on. And again, it’s okay. But if that’s the only place that we camp out and live, then there’s not a whole lot of movement towards freedom, towards reimagining, towards creativity, towards, uh, the things that we actually want and desire. My intention today is that by the end of our time together, you will have a newfound sense of inspiration and hope towards championing possibility thinking in your life. I’m not telling you to end and stop the default tendency of the human mind to look for problems. That’s where we spend 80% of our mental energy. It’s been proven, it’s been quantified, uh, in research laboratories. That’s the default tendency of the human mind.
So we’re not gonna stop it, but what we need to do is bring forward a conscious practice of switching gears a little bit more frequently. And that is what Sean Jen Wright, uh, brings into this conversation in his book. So I’m gonna say Happy Father’s Day once again. Uh, happy Father’s Day To those who stood up. I wanna say Happy Father’s Day to the Father archetype. If anyone’s into the idea of archetypes, it’s not about what you look like on the outside. It’s not about whether or not you’ve got biological offspring that you are furthering your DNA with. There is a archetype of fathering. There is an energy that is specific to that, and it’s a beautiful thing. I don’t have any biological children. Last weekend, uh, I was with 150 teens and young adults and it was a leadership conference where I was able to speak and it was a way for me to tap into that father archetype.
I was standing before these young men, women, and diversified beings, and challenging them to stretch themselves. That’s one of the things that my father always did to me. He challenged me to think a little bit beyond my comfort zone. And so it’s, uh, an honor to be speaking on Father’s Day. It’s a way I feel like I get to honor my father and his, uh, tradition and lineage as a minister and as a community activist. And this book by Sean Jen Wright, to me, would be something that my father would be reading right along with us. He loved being a community activist. And one of the things in this book, he, that’s his audience that he’s writing to Sean Jen Wright. But the thing, and I’m so grateful, every time you select books, Reverend Amy, it’s just on point. The book is not only for community activists, it’s a book based in principle.
And that’s the thing that we follow here at cityside, right? Spiritual principles. Spiritual principles are unwavering. They exist over there. They exist over here. They exist whether you’re two 20 or 95, the principles just work. And so that is one of the things that I was really excited about. I’m on my like second or third read of, uh, the four, the four pivots, the principles and the way that the author invites us to do these constant pivots and turns is so critical not only to community based work, but I believe to the individual we need to be pivoting all the time to live the life that we desire. So the four pivots are, the first one is from lens to mirror. So oftentimes when there’s problems and challenges in our life, where do we look out there? Those people, they’re doing it wrong. If only they, and there might be some truth to that, but the only thing that we can actually empower is the one in the mirror.
So we need to look at ourselves, and that’s the first pivot that Sean Jen Wright and invites us to, uh, look at, especially again through that idea of radical inclusion in community-based work. We look outside of ourselves for what’s not working, but sometimes we need to look at ourselves. How are we contributing to the community? How are we contributing to what’s not working? How are we keeping a status quo that we actually don’t want in action? Then the second pivot is this idea of moving from transactional relationships to transformative. And I feel like today with our, um, digital technology where so much of our work is remote and automated, most of our relationships are very transactional, especially in the professional space and even sometimes with our friends and family. I’ll give you this if you give me that. And it’s this kind of give to get sort of experience.
And Sean Jen Wright invites us in the second pivot to transition out of that give to get space to being transformational. How can this relationship, this conversation that we’re having right now, this interaction, even if it’s a difficult one, how can it be transformational for our relationship and as a result be transformational for the world? And then today we’re gonna focus on problem to pro possibility. And then last, next week, I gotta listen cuz it’s, I think it’s the message that I need most is pivoting from hustle to flow. God knows I’ve been hustling my whole life trying to make, trying to, you know, who, who is it? Someone’s trying to make a a dollar out of 15 cents. You know, you’re scraping together this, to do that, to shift out of that hustle mode into being in the flow of the divine is huge. But that, I’ll leave for Reverend Linda. Today we’re gonna spoke focus on this idea of pivoting from problem to possibility. And what I, I feel the pivot is asking us on some level is, are you walking around looking for a reason to be offended in your living? Or are you walking around looking to be wowed by life? Think about that for a minute.
Now, I’m sure there’s a part of you that’s already saying, but Darrell, you know, there’s so much there. There’s so many bad people in the world. I mean, I know some of them. I know a lot of them. But to wake up, no one would choose to wake up and go, I would like to be offended today. I’m looking to be pissed off. Bring it on. Although some of us kind of do. I know there’s some days I get outta bed and I’m, you know, like I gotta check myself before I wreck myself. That’s why I do my spiritual practice. That’s why I pray, that’s why I meditate. That’s why I read because there’s this human default tendency to go into that negation space, right? I can’t remember who, if it was, if it was uh, Michael Beckwith, but it was one of my mentors offered that way of thinking. This are you walking around looking to be offended? That’s kind of a strong stance to take in life. And I think most of us would say we’re not doing that. But take a look at how you walk into a room. Take a look at how you read something. Take a look at how you listened. Cuz we all listen with filters. How you listen to people. Are you listening to defend? Are you listening to, to, to blame? Are you listening to fix people? Are you listening to have that transformational relationship?
Imagine for a moment what it would be like if every single person just for one day a week, one day out of seven woke up and said, today is a day that we all walk into our life looking to be wowed the by the possibilities that I couldn’t even think of
Often. We think fixing the pro, we think we fix the problem by understanding what the problem is. Have you ever had that experience where someone says, so what is it that you want? And you’re like, I don’t know. I’ll tell you what I don’t want though. I don’t want that to happen. And that’s okay. That’s the beginning of understanding. But a lot of times that’s connected into that space of problem loving. We only know what we don’t like, what we don’t want, what we don’t want to experience. And so when someone asks us or re re reflect in our own lives, what is it that I want? What is it that I hope? What is it that I dream for my relationship going forward? What is it I hope and dream for my family? What is it I hope and dream for our community? We have a hard time kind of being articulate with it because we spend so much default time and energy on the problem.
Now, you may have experienced this as well, so you know, in, in the, uh, I always like to joke, I think it was something that we, we did in ministerial school, uh, calling upon some of the Christian scripture. Wherever two or more are gathered, there is love, right? Anyone know that general idea? Well, there’s also this idea that wherever two or more are gathered, there’s a problem, <laugh>, right? Have you ever had this experience where you walk into the room, say, did you see the news this morning? No. What? There’s a big problem in the world. Really. I thought I heard that too. You know what? They told me that there’s a big problem too. Really? There’s it, it’s, it’s that bad. No, it’s even worse. Let me tell you how bad it is. And we don’t even question the fact that there is a problem.
We just go, oh my gosh, yes, there is. And when we say, oh my gosh, yes, there is, it’s almost like this snowball effect. We’re adding a rubber band. Anyone watch PeeWee’s Playhouse? I’m dating myself here. Pee. He had the, he had the, um, sorry, I’m a little a d d today. The, uh, the rubber bands. He, and he would find a new rubber band. He’d put another rubber band around it and he’d have a rubber band ball and he’s like, ha ha, I got a new rubber. Anyway, so we’re adding to the rubber band ball. We’re adding to the snowball effect. The more and more we add to this idea of like, yes, there’s a problem. Yes, there’s a problem, yes, there’s a problem. And all of a sudden this little thing that maybe was just a stone in our shoe that was slightly irritating is now grown and festered into some sort of growth that we have a hard time actually healing from.
One of the, the things that I, I found, you know, I’m a I’m a word person, oftentimes, I like to define the ideas, the words, the concepts that we’re exploring. And one of the practices that Sean Jen Wright, uh, he, so he’s a professor. He does a lot of, uh, or did, I don’t know what his, his role is now, but he did a lot of teaching in African-American studies and working in communities and community activists. And he would challenge some of these leaders to write just a single one page paper of what the mission of their work was, what their purpose was, what they were there to do, an impact in the world. And he said, nine times outta 10, the first time I would ask them to write that paper is they were there to fight injustice. They were there to destroy homophobia in the school system.
They were there to stand up against the prosecutors of X and all of the language that they were using were words of fighting in war. They were words of persecution is what he would say. So words like overcome, confront, struggle, dismantle resist, stop, demand, neutralize. And he said, these are the words of the oppressed because the oppressed have been convinced that the only possibility is to fight. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve been in many, many situations. I’ve lived a life where there’s a lot of things weighing down, or I could even say oppressing me. And you have this need that you’ve gotta push against that flow. I’m not saying don’t do that work, but if we’re only pushing against what is, are we actually envisioning something beyond that fight? That’s where you ask that question. What is it that you really want? And you go, I don’t know. All I know how to do is push this rock. You feeling me?
So the full title of the book, the Four Pivots, reimagining Justice, reimagining Ourselves, I love it because I feel like Sean Jen Wright is applying the very practice that he challenged his students to do in the writing of his book and the title of the book. So what he asked all of those community activists that were in that workshop with him to do is he said, okay, thank you for submitting your one page paper. I want you to rewrite it, but here’s a whole list of words that you can’t use, you can’t use, fight, overcome, destroy, dismantle, disrupt. The only thing that you can use are words like reimagine, vision, hope, expand, build, grow. And his whole, his whole point is, is that within our language, the way that we define our work sometimes limits the very possibility of the work that we do.
So his book title, the Four Pivots, reimagining Justice, reimagining Ourselves. I was like, okay, well let’s, let’s like reverse engineer this. What could have been the title that would’ve been kind of like ego, rabble, rousing? You know, we’re gonna fight against the oppressors, the four pivots, standing for justice, fighting for Ourselves, which sounds noble, but think about the content of these two books. I’m gonna read one title and then the other title, the Four Pivots, standing for Justice, fighting for Ourselves, the four Pivots, reimagining Justice, reimagining Ourselves, it’s the same heart of the work, but what’s gonna be talked about is gonna be very, very different just within those titles. So one of the ways that he invites us to think about this possibility thinking is to really look at the language that we use as we talk about our lives, as we do have problems. I’m not saying there aren’t problems there, but what is the language that we are using to get into relationship with those problems? Are we only fighting the problems? Are we only trying to destroy them? Or are we only trying to overcome them? Are we only trying to suppress them? Are we only trying to destroy whatever is the cause? Or are we trying to reimagine ourselves and relationship to these cha challenges in our lives? Are we trying to build and dream something greater than the very problems that are there? Yes,
I was drawn to, uh, some scripture that oftentimes gets quoted in just one, uh, one little segment. And it’s Proverbs 29 verse 18 where there is no vision, the people perish, where there is no vision, the people perish. And, and, and to like metaphysically, look at that statement. To me, it’s what we’re talking about here in the third pivot. If we are down here, if I’m literally crouching and I can only see the ground, the problem is that the ground is whatever the ground is, and I don’t lift my head up to see the ground that is out there in the future, that I’m gonna perish in this very moment. Not so much die, but I’m going to only be stuck in what is here. The problem that I see, oh, it’s just, it’s too dry here. I can’t, I can’t plant anything. It’s really dry.
What am I gonna do when right over there if I just lift my head up, there’s like a big old pond and all I gotta do is a little bit of irrigation and some water can come in and I can grow something. But over here, oh my gosh, I can’t grow anything. What are we gonna do? I mean, there’s a pond over there, but it’s so far away and it’s on someone else’s property. They probably wouldn’t let me take any water off their property and bring it to my land, you know, because then they’d want to charge me money, so I’m just screwed.
It sounds silly, right? But that’s what we do. So where there is no vision, the people perish. So the charge here is like, where can we tap into the vision for our lives? Again, we’re in the middle of the year. A lot of times we do some visioning at the, the beginning of the year, right? We start out January, the end of December, we’re like, all right, this year’s gonna be different, everybody. I’m gonna do some different stuff. I’m gonna be a new me. Bye-bye. 2022. Hello, 2023. It’s a new me and the place to be shaking stuff up. And then February comes and we stop going to the gym. We fall back into our default habits and here we are in the middle of the year. So this is an opportunity to not say we’re perishing, but to maybe go, Hmm, can I retap into that vision? Can I lift my head up? And can we step back into the possibility thinking? Cuz I guarantee there’s some problems that are swirling around you. We’re not denying it, but there’s something about that possibility thinking it requires creativity. And most importantly, possibility thinking requires responsibility. If you’ve ever studied the kingdoms of consciousness, the first one is in that victim space. The way to get out of that is to do what? Take responsibility. If you want to be in possibility in your life, you have to take responsibility.
The thing that’s cool though, though, so the so where there’s no vision, the people perish. The second half of that little verse is, but he, but we’ll say they, but they that keepeth the law happy Are they, they that keepeth the law. We talk about this law here, right? That there’s this creative life force that we are a part of and we are constantly adding to it. So those that keep conscious, the fact that we are creative beings, that we are the ones where possibility dwells and manifests itself. Those that keep that in sight, those are the happy ones. Those of us that take responsibility. And remember, oh yeah, I’m the captain.
Um, you gave me, uh, Reverend Amy, I think you gave me our class, our graduating class, a little penant penant, um, with a quote from the Invictus, uh, poem. I’m the master of my fate. I’m the captain of my soul, if anyone’s familiar with that quote. So this is what I’m talking about here to remember that we are the captain of our soul’s journey and no one else. And in order to stay in this seat, in the role behind the helm of your life, you have to take responsibility and you gotta be in the space of possibility. So this, uh, August I, I turned 50 and, uh, hiphop turned 50. So we were born at the same time. So I’ve just been like trying to use hiphop as a part of my life. So anyone who is in my age range will know the name.
Big Daddy Kane, maybe a couple. All right. So he said, I don’t want a piece of the pie, I want the recipe. When we are in problem loving, all we want is a piece of the pie because we’re not getting enough or there isn’t enough pie, or they’re getting in more pie. Forget about the piece of the pie, y’all, there’s something called a recipe for living. A soulful, a expanded, spiritual, loving life. And if you’ve got that recipe, you can bake as many pies as you want and give them away. Big Daddy Kane, he didn’t want a little piece of the pie. He wanted to live a full whole life where he was autonomous, where he was sovereign, what he chose, I’ll come back. That was maybe 40 years ago. Let’s get a little bit more into the anyone know Jay Cole past 10 years, he once said, take a chance. Cause you never know how perfect something can turn out, take a chance, cuz you never, that’s possibility thinking people take a chance because you never know how good it can turn out. Most of us go, but it could possibly turn out that way. Listen to j Cole, listen to hip hop. Take in that, uh, that, that, that deep wisdom that lives and dwells within our music and creative community. There’s some deep, deep wisdom that comes out of there.
So to bring it back into the spiritual space, as we move into trying to wrap this up here, cuz there’s about 10 other things I want to talk about, but I know people want to eat no cupcakes. So one of, one of one of my contemporary, um, mentors, I’ve never met him before, but I listen and read a lot of his stuff, is this guy named Sod Guru anyone. And he offered this idea that there is an intelligence of ignorance, an intelligence of ignorance. Basically the idea if, of honoring the fact that you don’t know everything and you won’t know everything.
If you wanna be radically inclusive in your life, you need to embrace the intelligence of ignorance. If you think you know everything about everyone and what they’re doing and why they’re doing it, you’re not gonna be very inclusive. Another way of saying this is a quote from the Zen Buddhist Masters. In the mind of the expert, there are very few possibilities, but in the mind of the beginner, there are many. If you’re an expert, you know everything. You’ve got blinders up. You’re not willing to look outside. If you wanna be radically inclusive, be a beginner every single day. If you want to go into possibility thinking, let go of trying to be right and knowing everything, embrace the intelligence of ignorance not being stupid, not sticking your head into the ground and denying that anything is happening. Not even denying that there’s problems, but that there’s a possibility beyond your understanding right now, there is something calling you to be due, act, behave and choose in your life beyond what you really understand.
But it requires us to listen. It requires us to be present. It requires us to let go of the problem and ask some questions like what could be possible here? What could be possible here? Because oftentimes we go, the only thing possible is this or that. What could be possible here? What if you let that question come into your regular conscious inner dialogue? What could be possible if I, what could be possible if we, what could be possible if I am four piece love and healing as opposed to against those stupid people over there that think and do that thing that I can’t stand?
It’s a very, very different way of being in relationship. This is the, the teaching. If you’re, if you’re familiar with the, the quoting of, um, of Mother Teresa, right? The story of people coming to her saying, Hey, do you want to come over here for this, uh, this this anti-war rally? She’s like, no, I have, I have no desire to do that at all. And they’re like, wait, what? She’s like, I don’t wanna go to an anti-war rally. I will go to a rally four piece. That’s possibility thinking. How many of you’re committed to possibility thinking in a way that you’ve never been before?
Awesome. It’s not easy. Don’t set yourself up for disappointment thinking that you’re gonna make this intellectual choice right now and you’re gonna walk out of here and all of a sudden you’re just gonna be skipping along and like, everything’s gonna be cool, everything will be cool. It’s a lovely day as we sung in the song, but it’s gonna take work and it’s work that we must do every single day. This is why I believe the practices of whatever our personal and collective spirituality is so important to do because it moves us into a frequency, into a vibration, into a consciousness where we take responsibility for our experience in the moment. Letting that be enough sufficient and abundant and then step out into the world from it. Yes. So if we sit in meditation and we do something like loving kindness, may all beings be filled with loving kindness.
May we all be well, may we be peaceful and at ease and may we be happy to start our day like that. To return to some practice like that over and over and over again is a very different way of stepping into things as opposed to the way that most of our media invites us to step into things where we pin ourselves against one another, we judge, they’re not doing enough. They’re the ones that are screwing up the planet. They’re the ones that are screwing up our country. They’re the ones that are destroying our community. They’re the ones and they’re the problem. And let’s just keep talking about the problem that they’re doing. But we are freezing ourselves. Our feet aren’t moving. When we do that, all we’re doing is standing here, spinning around and pointing our fingers. So let’s get into this practice of embracing possibility, thinking, being creative, being open, being available, re-imagining, dreaming, visioning. Take a deep breath in and smile.
That is a visceral experience of possibility thinking. If you’re like, I don’t even know what to do right now, just smile, stop whatever you’re doing and take a smile and feel that smile for a minute. See what it does to fire some different neuro pathways and a feeling in your heart. And then step into whatever problem you’re trying to, uh, overcome, fight, destroy, connect to possibility within yourself. Connect to a smile. And last but not least, we’re gonna close with a prayer today, one of my favorite practices to get us into a space of possibility thinking this idea of a spiritual mind treatment. We are treating our mind into a state of affirmation as opposed to negation. That’s it. That’s, that’s, that’s the work of this way of praying, that there is this power and presence known as God, known as Holy Spirit, known as mother, known as father, whatever you may identify it as.
It doesn’t matter just to recognize that there is this potential power that is amazing and it’s not out there, it is out there. It’s in the beauty of what we see out the window. It’s in the smiling faces and the beautiful bodies that are in this room and that are online, but it’s also in me. It’s also in you. We are one deep breath in turn within. And so from that place of oneness, what I affirm for all of us, whether we are listening to this word live or in a recording later, is that right here, right now is the most powerful moment of this day. This is the most powerful moment of our attention. And so what we choose to do with it is everything. And we collectively have said yes to choose possibility right now. We smile and feel that visceral experience of the divine saying, yes, my dear. Step forward boldly and see what’s possible. We listen to Jay Cole who says, take a chance cuz you never know how perfect something might turn out here. Now, I bless us all as we move forward in this day, in this practice, in this exploration of how amazing life can be by simply asking ourselves what is possible? What is possible today, what is possible in this situation that feels so heavy. There is a possibility beyond my understanding. And I am open.
I am open, I am open. I am open.
I am willing to receive that perfect guidance, direction and support. And so we let go. We let go of needing to control and make things look a certain way. And we let the creative life. We let the law, those who are the respecters of the law, the ones that are happy, we let ourselves be happy knowing that the law is working for us through us in the very words that we think in our mind and the words that we speak to one another, to let us be mindful as we step forward from this day pivoting whenever we need from the problem to the possibility over and over and over and over again. I’m so grateful for our willingness to pivot individually because when we do it for ourselves, we do it for our community. We embrace inclusion in a way beyond we could ever understand. And so we let the vision of that possibility fuel us for the rest of this moment, moment. And so it is. Amen. Peace and blessings to you all.