My daughter, thirty something, recently got married. Beautiful ceremony.  Almost two hundred guests in our back yard.  Luckily, we actually like the husband.

My friend David has a thirty something daughter too.  She and her beau have been together for about as long as my own daughter and her husband have, and they too are in a committed relationship.  But they have decided not to get married.  No ceremony.  No guests.  Not even a ceremony at the town office with some unnamed justice of the peace.  A throwback to the sixties, it's something about the institution.

David has a lot in common with the young man.  Really enjoys him.  Yet, David said recently, in their not marrying, something has been lost.  But what?

In a world in which love is celebrated and sung about endlessly, why shouldn't we just love each other?  I grew up in the counter culture, where we could chant "down with the institution," or "make love not war" or that "love is enough." So ... just what does the ceremony contribute to a life?  How does the fact of marriage contribute to growth of the soul or the development of a relationship?

Here's my motto about relationships:  Every relationship is a spiritual opportunity.  I don't mean just marriages.  Every relationship.   A good relationship offers possibility and place to discover and stretch and explore in ways no one of us could know or could have articulated.  A good friendship, a good collegial relationship, a good coffee shop conversation in which you're discovering something about how you feel with a stranger -- all provide the possibility for discovery, each in its appropriate way.  I have learned from my students.  My students have learned from me.  I have learned from my auto mechanic, from bookstore owners, from long ago lovers.  And of course from my marriage.  A good relationship offers the possibility of growth, of newness, of  discovery further and further, sometimes (hopefully often) to the very edge of the great mysteries.

We can learn alone.  I have had many insights and breakthroughs on drives, on walks in the woods, in silent meditations.  Introspection is a great teacher, held aright.  But relationships with others who are growing, who surprise us, who themselves are expressions of the great mystery, offer a different kind of possibility than solitary contemplation.

The engagement with mystery and newness with another, however is not limitless.  It takes time to build enough trust and mutual reliance to get to the real issues that every life sits astride.  And both the setting and the covert agreements need to be in place strongly and clearly enough.  It would be absurd to try to engage the M-4 bus driver about my love relationships, and my biology teacher in thinking about my bus route (except in very rare circumstances).

Relationships offer space for discovery when the assumptions and, yes, the boundaries are reasonably clear.  They work best when those limits are held in common; here's where teachers get into trouble thinking a student is a lover, not a student, or where bosses get accused of harrassment.  Boundaries, assumptions, expectations are not nothing.

I learned a very great deal from my Hinduism professor, Joel Brereton.  He taught me how to think about Hinduism, about how to approach religions, about how systems of thought work.  It was in part because I was clear on what we were about, on the limits of our explorations or on the structure of our contact, that I could be so open to his thoughts and insights. I was not looking for anything else, and could happily explore within limits our common material.

If I had been looking for marital advice, if I had been looking for advice on how to fix my car, I think I would have both confused him and muddied the clarity of our relationship.  In some subtle way, I would have been looking to him for something other than what he expected.  If I had sought other kinds of contact, he would have been confused about where we were going, what I was expecting.  We would have had to clarify what our relationship was about, why I was looking for something new and different, and what were the boundaries of our contact now.  Instead of the ripples of discovery flowing outward, we would be negotiating the limits and boundaries and expectations between us.

We can change the rules of our relationships, of course.  Teachers can become friends, or occasionally lovers.  But then we have changed the rules, the expectations.

To the extent the expectations between people are fuzzy, to that extent the people involved have to negotiate their assumptions, clarify what they are doing here together or who gets to say what kind of relationship they are having, what are the limits, and so on.  When people are navigating such confusing waters, they are not expanding into the unknown but rather working out the boundaries and rules between them.

So too with my friend David and his daughter's beau.  It's not like the relationship of son and father in law is clearly defined.  Each pair has to navigate just how they will relate.  Yet there are some aspects of the connection that the mere character of that relationship guarantees:  Whether it is happy or sad, this relationship will be with us until death or divorce do us part.  We both know that even though we would probably not have occasions to meet or become friends, the seriousness of this connection challenges us to discovery and learning to live together.  We will have to learn to deal with each other in a long term way.  If we go for family Christmas presents, we will likely buy him Christmas and birthday presents.  If we have family vacations, we'll take him.  And with luck we'll learn to love and be loved.

This is not much, admittedly.  David is certainly confident about these factors, in large part.  But nor are these assumptions nothing.  My friend David does not know if their relationship is one of son and father in law, young and older guy, just friends, etc.   He cannot quite rest, ever, in the structure that society provides him.  And he will inevitably hold something back -- a slight bit of wariness perhaps, that this relationship is not quite clear, that he doesn't share expectations or the rules, such as they are.  He can count on the permanence here, but to a slightly lesser degree than I can, I think.  It is, simply put, easier for the young people to abandon each other than it is to get a divorce.  He likes the guy, really, and has learned to live with and love the young man.  What he cannot know, cannot count on is not a lot.  But, and this is the important part, nor is it nothing.  There is a structure missing, like the magnetic poles of their connection have not been fastened down quite solidly, and so cannot count on the constancy of the electricity that is a joint life.

Mircea Eliade pointed out that in order for us to function, we have to know where we are in space, how our world is founded, as he put it.  If we are not quite oriented, we are forever looking for that orientation to found a life.

It is a paradox, but freedom requires a steadiness at its core.  Else we will forever look to fasten down our world into the earth, get oriented, know who we are and where we stand.  True openness requires not only room to play but a place to begin as well, a place to stand.  You can go infinitely far away when you know where you start. Otherwise you go nowhere, looking forever for "Go."

Structure makes freedom possible. I am driven to learn how to play with my son in law because I know that he will be, likely forever, my son in law.  I will learn how to play with him, in the way that the two of us are developing, because I must.  It is out of the form that the formless can grow.

This blog is an effort to give life and voice to The Call to Global Spiritual Citizenship. If you haven't read and signed the call, please do.

The scene:  I'm in a line of 230 graduating Ph.D.’s and 17 others who, like me, are being given Doctor Honoris Causa, honorary doctorates from the University of Lund, Sweden. We're walking in a long snaking procession into into the enormous romanesque Lund Cathedral, where the graduation ceremonies are to be held.  Two by two we walk, behind men and women in brass buttoned ancient military outfits bearing banners and flags, and behind darkly robed priests.  Most of us wear tuxedos and tails, which is the customary if surprisingly formal graduation outfit of the University.  Some of us, like me, wear the flowing academic gowns and colorful hoods and insignia of our own institutions and programs.  Banners are fluttering, the orchestra is playing, and cannons, real brass cannons, announce the moment .

As we stream in, with music, flags and silent dignity, the audience of five thousand rises.  They stand  in honor of the husbands, wives, sons and daughters that are receiving their PhD's. I find myself strangely close to tears.  Real love, admiration and respect is in this space.  These young people have worked hard.  They have made a contribution to knowledge and have established themselves as professionals (even if unemployed professionals for now).  They are loved.

When my name is called to receive my Honorary Doctorate, as he does for every graduate, the department chairman calls my name and announces some of my accomplishments—all in Latin, like the rest of the ceremony.  As he places the doctor’s hat onto my head, that brass cannon resounds—Boom!  That cannon is an inheritance from the 17th century; as the internet of its day, it seems to announce the arrival of a newly minted scholar, or in my case, a newly minted Doctor Honoris Causa.

It is strange to be part of a ceremony that is conducted almost entirely in Latin.  The printed program is in Svenske, Swedish, but fortunately for me most of the dissertations are in English, the world's second language.  I entertain myself by reading dissertation titles:  "Fire Hazard Analysis of Hetero-organic Fuels,"  "Analysis of an Apartheid Related conflict between the Dutch Church and the World Alliance of Churches," and "The Role of Vegetation Climate Feedback in Earth System Dynamics."  What comes through is the diligence of these human efforts, and the determination these titles signify.

But there's something deeper here, much deeper than mere individual effort and wit.  These dissertations are markers that these are people who are determined to make the human community better. These are folks who seek to improve communication so as to decrease unnecessary conflict, who want to improve medicine so that people can live more comfortably and longer.  These are people who want to expand human possibility and raise consciousness and move human culture towards a more effective, world centered world.

Is it worth it, this journey?  Is it worth so many years of these peoples' time, the effort, forebearance and wealth of their families and of the society that has helped make these long, sometimes arduous journeys possible?  I think so.  Over the great sweep of history, the challenges of life have increased along with the complexity in which we dwell.  There is no doubt that well honed minds, no matter what the specifics of their study, have aided the general good more than poorly developed minds and spirits. Given the times we live in, its clear that there will be no lack of conflict, no lack of a fundamentalist undertow, no lack of resistance, no lack of challenges.  In the face of these deep and always new difficulties, it is my hope, the hope of these people and of their professors and their society, that these newly minted scholars can better help blaze the way to new solutions, new pathways, new responses.

After my name was called, the hat placed on my head and the diploma given, I stand and look out over the sea of faces that are, just for that moment, looking back at me.  Such seeing and being seen is, in its formal way, a great kindness of feedback.  I feel it as a kind of announcement.  Yes, you have done something good, Doctor Forman.  Yes, you have made a contribution.  Yes, you are a member of the human race, and have brought real value.  Yes, we see you.

It feels like an initiation, this moment, a crossing of a kind of threshold.  I have been seen as passing through the gateway of knowledge guarded by the two great dangers every original mind must face:  the demons that leads us into lazy, customary solutions so that we will not penetrate freshly into the core of our problems and the demons that distract us by offering up sensual and interpersonal pleasures.  I am being acknowledged as one who has made it into the land of deep and thoughtful contemplation.  With the conferral of this degree I am being reborn, given in effect a bigger megaphone for my voice. I appreciate the recognition.  And this moment makes me even more determined to rise to the challenge it represents.

Each person, no matter who they are or how long they have lived has faced fear, has faced the unknown, has faced the lower emotions.  It is the test of character as to what a person decides under pressure.  That a parent gives up a career possibility to be with a sick child.  That a wife (or husband) gives up their calling to support their spouse.  That a child grows up in emotion or psychic pain because they don't know any other way, and works to rebuild their life and psyche.  Being human is not a problem to be solved but a process to be experienced, a challenge to be risen to.  Those who've done it best have been memorialized as our heroes, from Odysseus to Moses, Christ, to Mohammed. All that is human for us was human for our ancestors and will be human for our descendants.  So what we can bring is an appreciation of the difficulty of each of our journeys, of breaking out of the particular fears and neurosis that are our lot, and the wisdom and energy it takes to produce works that contribute to humanity.

This ceremony was quietly beautiful.  It was for a few brief moments a being welcomed and valued, and a warming of my soul at the bonfire of humanity’s collective knowledge and wisdom.  It was an acknowledgement of not only who've I've been but who I can become. And in essence who each of us can become.

I look forward to seeing some of you at next year's bonfire.

Written with Tom Feldman, Wise soul

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This blog is an effort to give life and voice to The Call to Global Spiritual Citizenship.  If you haven't read and signed the call, please do.

Wednesday April 28 was a day that will go down in history.  Or not.  It was supposed to be (drum roll please) International Noise Awareness Day to promoste awareness of the dangers of long term exposure to noise.  Or didn't you hear?

We were supposed to preserve the peace and quiet in our lives by such adventures as:

• paying attention to the noises we make.
• Turning down the volume two notches on your radios, stereos and TV's.

Then there were the fleets of that one mobile unit parked behind New York's City Hall offering free hearing tests.

It was a good idea, once.  It began as a grassroots movement to help people become aware of the impact constant urban noises. Whatever noise it got, it seems to have faded into the din.

Its not that our noise problem has gone away.  It's not that noise doesn't have its effect.  Studies continue to detail how noise raises heart rates, blood pressure and stress levels.  Noise is still noisy.

But "Noise awareness day" has become about as important and forgotten as tupperware parties or dancing hula dashboard dolls.  In part the failure of Noise Awarness Day was that it was focused on something that was both nearly impossible to fix (street noise will not go away anytime soon, bunky, no matter how aware we become of it), and something that was focusing on just one more thing to fret about.

George Prochnik, in his new book, "In Pursuit of Silence," suggests that rather than ranting about noise, we need to create a passion for silence.  The value of silent meditation, and of quiet reflection among students, is well documented and undeniable.  The value of silence is recognized among folks with money:  silent spas, silence in vacation on the beach.  Silence is especially needed among the noise, boom boxes and rumbling cars in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Rather than a noise awareness day, Prochnik suggests militating for an international silence awareness month, or even a Silence Appreciation Day.

I agree and believe this is something that the Forge Institute and that Global Spiritual Citizens would be proud to help bring into existence.

The Forge Institute and the Call to Global Spiritual Citizenship exist to foster deep contact among the various worlds religious and spiritual traditions.  Nearly every tradition recognizes the value of silence.  Indeed many suggest that it is silence--whether it is called Brahman, Buddha Mind, The Dao, Ayin, Judaism's Divine root or the Holy Spirit of  Christ.  If there is a theological ground to reality, says this religious majority report, it is known most clearly in silence.

Mystical experiences in nearly every tradition touch into silence.  Some are silence and nothing else -- where the person drops all thoughts, feelings and perceptions, and one is left alone, in silence.  Some bring a layer of silence into more ordinary experiences, where one sees the world or speaks with a friend at the same time as "witnessing" that conversation from a vantage of uninvolved witness.  In very advanced mystical stages, one knows the world to be connected in some supernal way with the silence at one's own depths, and knows them all as some form of deep unity.

The Forge Institute was founded to connect religions by looking for the common ground that lies underneath them, and rather than creating conflict, creates a dialogue that brings us together in unity. It has brought people with long term spiritual practices or experiences together for many years.  What we have learned is that even though we hail from virtually every major tradition, when we invite people to share from the depths of their lives, we drop into a place of deep silence.  It is as if we dive together into a common river, and from that silent space, can share in our authenticity.

Silence, then, may be the source and goal of our religious traditions. And the depth of our lives, be we religious, spiritual or secular.

Silence Awareness Day, in other words, would be a way to celebrate the value of this unremarkable human capacity.  A way to celebrate the variety of religions and scientific paths in a non-sectarian way, stressing the value of silence in our lives, and of reminding us all to drop into the depths of who we are.

If other organizations were to get behind this with us--Institute of Noetic Science, Integral Institute, Tricycle, the spiritually oriented salons and others-- we might just be able to make this happen.

I propose that we make the last Saturday in the spring month of renewal and growth, the last Saturday in April, Silence  Awareness Day.  We only need a person or group who is willing to take the lead on making this happen.  Interested?

I have a very dear friend who is politically fairly conservative.  I have learned a very great deal from his emphasis on taking personal responsibility, on taking a moral stance, and in keeping our country safe. Professionally, he is a communications consultant, who helps families, groups, corporations and government task forces work through problems and function more smoothly.  I have seen him turn vitriol ito cooperation, and groups that were about to fall apart into smoothly running institutions.

One of the most powerful tools to flip a group that was in trouble into one that works well is taking personal responsibility, as he puts it.  If someone has been aggressive, he or she must acknowledge it, recognize the effect it has had, and change. But responsibility doesn't stop there.  Everyone involved has to acknowledge their role, how they've contributed to the tone of tension, how and why they (often secretly and subconsciously)  allowed the tension to build, and so on.  In a group struggle, he's taught me, everyone is involved, and for healing to happen, everyone has to acknowledge their role.

But now, here, in this very historic week, what i want to ask him is where are the Republicans who are willing to own up?

Ten Congressmen and women have been threatened since the health care vote.  Rocks have been thrown into one rep's windows, a picture of a noose has been faxed to another, a third received a warning about sniper kills.  THEIR PHYSICAL SAFETY!

This is only the most recent (and dangerous) step.  At a Tea Party Rally in Columbus, Ohio, activists taunted a man with Parkinson's Disease:  "If you're looking for a handout, you're in the wrong end of town," someone said to the hoots of his pals, and threw a few coins at him by way of charity.  In Washington, health care opponents shouted racial epithets at John Lewis of Georgia, a civil rights leader, and at Andre Carson of Indiana. Representative Emanual Cleaver of Missouri was called an epithet and then was spit on.  Others shouted a homophobic slur at Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts.  On the night of the great vote, Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Tex.) shouted "baby killer" at Representative Bart Stupak.

Some, and by that I mean some very few, of my Republican friends and Republican leaders have "condemned" the activities of this radical fringe.  All well and good.

But where are the Republicans who are willing to say, "I or we are in part responsible for the tone that leads to these threats, to this dangerous behavior?"  Where are the Republicans who own up and publically say, "In the way we have villanized the Democrats, in the way we have encouraged us/them thinking, in some piece of how we have been, we have fostered this garbage?"

Where are the Republicans who are willing to stand up and say, in how we have demonized our opponents, we have contributed to this hateful tone.  In the way we have spread half truths or outright falsehoods about this bill and about our opponents, I or we have helped make this happen?  In the way we have celebrated or at least capitalized on Glenn Beck's calling Obama a racist and thus encouraging the worst in people, we have contributed.  In the way we hide behind the words of Mike Huckabee, a former Republican candidate:  "Lenin and Stalin would love this stuff," despite the fact that the bill is at worst, moderate.

Where are the Republicans who declare, in not calling Sarah Palin to account for spreading outright lies about "death panels" (referring to the very "end of life couseling" idea that Republicans themselves put forward a few years ago), I or we have encouraged a culture of fear?  Where are the Republicans who, in appealing to peoples' resentments and hatreds and lesser instincts, have helped create the very tone we see all too clearly?

Where are the Republicans who are willing to take responsibility for the promotion of outright ignorance that the Texas School Board recently codified into statewide curriculum?  Who is willing to connect that with Republican denial of science ("Global warming does not exist;" "Evolution is a crock") when it disagrees with their politics?

Where are the Republicans who connect these dots with the us/them attitudes we see in spitting on or threatening a congressman with whom you disagree?

"Calling people by racial epithets is not as dangerous as bombing a nightclub or flying airplanes into buildings," I can hear my Republican friends saying.  "These are only threats, not bombs." And they'd certainly be correct.  But it is clearly in the same direction.  The murder of an abortion doctor is a nearly logical next step after venomously shouting at him.

The barely concealed encouragement of vitriol has an obvious purpose:  if enough people are "mad as hell," the Republicans hope, they'll vote the Republicans back into power.  Make people angry enough, keep the pot boiling long enough, and they'll work for you come November and reach deep into their pockets for contributions and vote for you in droves.  But is the return to power really worth it, I want to ask my conservative friends?  Is this really the world you wish to help create, the country you wish to live in, where you stir the vitriol until some relatively imbalanced soul does something truly egregious?

Republicans rightly stress individual responsibility and moral uprightness.  These are noble and important virtues.

So where the hell are the moral, grown up, self-responsible Republicans who are willing to take responsibility?

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This blog is an effort to give life and voice to The Call to Global Spiritual Citizenship. If you haven't read and signed the call, please do.

Link: http://www.RobertKCForman.com

It took a jury in Sedgwick County, Kansas, only 37 minutes to convict Scott Roeder of first-degree murder for shooting abortion Doctor George Tiller last May.

Roeder had strong feelings about abortion.  We've read that.  He wanted to save the unborn.  We heard that too.  He hung around others who believed abortion was wrong.  He became nearly obsessed with the question of abortion and this abortion doctor.  All this we've heard.

Along these lines, we hear what people who are pro or con on the question of abortion think about Roe vs Wade.  We know some of their religious background.  We know their place on the left / right continuum.

But what really is driving this? What might be the real motivating factor behind Scott Roeder's obsession or the aggressive militancy of other anti-abortionists?  What is really going on that makes people so aggressive about their pro-abortion stance.  What is really happening here?

If I was in any context other than politics and we heard about someone who had become obsessed with something, I for one would ask myself, "geez, what's going on with that person?"  What psychological button had gotten pushed, I'd wonder, what piece of his or her psyche had gone over the edge.  As someone who has done far too much reading about psychology, I'd probably wonder what un-resolved element of his or her childhood might be in play here, or what might he or she be trying to express in some way.  If they washed their hands, say, I'd ask if their obsession was really about dirt, or about a sense of something being wrong with them?  Maybe it woud be a repudiation of some "dirty" thoughts?  Or maybe they would be trying to express something about their marriage or their lives.

Most of the time, we think about obsessions as mental disorders.  Such repetitive thoughts or behaviors are generally aimed at reducing anxiety.  We think of them as some sort of quirky  attempt to respond to some deep and unresolved issues from childhood or recent life. Mostly we think about obsessions as emotional matters, and debilitating ones at that.  And if we want to help these folks heal, we'd try to to address their underlying causes and change the repetitive behaviors.  And it all begins with naming them as obsessions.

It would be downright foolish to take the subject of an obsessional behavior at face value.  Nobody thinks that the troubled person washes 30 times a day because he thinks he's actually dirty. Nor do we believe that if someone obsesses on a particular issue over and over and over again has only to do with that issue.  We obsess generally because of some anxieties, and they generally have to do with something deeper and more intimate to who we are.

In Intimate Partners psychologist Maggie Scarf points out that someone's concern about her young daughter's sexual promiscuity or an abortion is likely to be, in large part, a "displacement of anxiety" about a current sexual problem in her own life or marriage.  That is, a concern about promiscuity or about abortion may be a way to feel and express something about one's own life or emotions, yet to deal with such a matter without bringing it to full consciousness.  It is easier and less dangerous to say "promiscuity is bad"  or "my daughter is promiscuous" than to say to oneself, "I have a desire to sleep around, and I'm bad because of it."

It is a truism in psychology that what we say aloud, the issues we focus on, though real, is but the tail of the tiger of our own internal forces, conflicts and fears.

But when it comes to our political conversations, we seem to abort this natural and productive line of thought.  Our pundits, reporters and politicians act as if such issues exist in a vacuum.  The press only mentions that Scott Roeder was opposed to abortion, not that he was obsessed, not that he may have been expressing something deeper about himself or his internal conflicts.  No one asks about what's really going on in that poor man's soul.

But this is foolish.  He was no doubt concerned with abortion and the sexuality that it implies for reasons that are  far deeper and more personal than the political issue.  This is a screwed up man!

We've aborted the real conversation about this man, and about abortion.

I wonder what our political life would be like if we--our pundits, our commentators, our political leaders and even we ourselves--were to explore the deeper and more personal issues that underlay our politics.  I wonder what would happen if we started to include in our political conversations caveats like "I am afraid of my own sexuality" before we spoke against laws allowing abortion, or "I was a victim of my aggressive father" before we spoke up for an injustice to  some disadvantaged group.  The issue would not become irrelevant, but rather would be given a more natural, human and humble context.

We have aborted our conversations about abortion, about gay rights, about national defense, about virtually every social issue.  We've expressed deep human longings in terms of political platitudes, and are the worse for it.  Hidden behind our political diatribes are real and vulnerable souls, trying to express deep needs and hurts and longings.  Lets name the real truth here, about who we are and what we need and want.

The truth will set us free.

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This blog is an effort to give life and voice to The Call to Global Spiritual Citizenship.  If you haven't read and signed the call, please do.