To be effective in my relationships with others—and especially if there’s something I wish to stand for–it is important that I know what I’m standing on.  The root of ‘humility’ is ‘humus,’ or earth.  My ability to stand is fundamentally generated on the support I have available.  Standing in mud is slippery.  Standing on one leg gives more reach, but less stability.  Standing on one leg in mud and trying to reach for much of anything is likely to fail.  My support gives basis to my authority; the power I have to generate an effect.  It pays to be honest with myself about the ground on which I stand if I want to have any effect on the communal field.  

Each of us has a part to play in the communal field of consciousness.  I never have anything ‘right’ on my own—no matter how enlightened I may feel.  How could I when so many of us believe we’re the enlightened ones, and yet we don’t all have the same answer?  So if I zoom out a bit and look at consciousness communally, I sometimes catch a glimpse of the integrative process within which each of our perspectives contribute to something more whole.  Any, and possibly each of us, may choose to stand for something.  Standing for something can be an act of service when it is done with humility.  I believe it is a kind of channeling:  That what I stand for comes through me as the amalgamation of my life experience.  It includes that which I have learned, felt, witnessed, and in some way integrated.

Standing for something contributes to the more diverse communal field.  For context I imagine this process inside the microcosm of my own body:  If I eat a big meal and my stomach is full then it will send a message to other parts of my body saying “I think we should stop eating—that was awesome and now I’m full.”  Yet other parts of me may feel differently.  Perhaps there’s still food on my plate and I don’t want to offend my host.  My body as a whole may behave differently from how my stomach would prefer, but my stomach’s voice still matters.

If my stomach is full and I try to eat too much extra to honor the person who served me, I might become sick and embarrass everyone more than if I had just stopped eating.  To honor the communal consciousness is both to stand for what is mine to express, and to honor that I can’t know everything.  If I ignore or belittle the person I disagree with I’m no longer honoring the integrated process of holding different views.  To have genuine authority requires this humility; without it I’m not standing on true ground.  Without humility I may mistake that which I stand for as the ground on which I stand.  My identification with my own viewpoint may lead me to believe I’m objectively right rather than channeling a particular possibility.

I’m curious about what it means to ‘Take a Stand’.  It strikes me as easily arrogant.  With ‘taking’ comes the implication of ownership, and the forceful transfer of it.  Perhaps this is the manifestation of identifying that which I stand for as the very base I stand on.  I see the tendency to take a stand in myself all the time—it’s comforting to think I know ‘the’ truth.  And certainly in our culture of ownership, where ideas and information now command some of the highest prices, we are encouraged to take a stand.  

There is a lot of competition these days to take stands that appear to be freely given.  Each political party would like for me to take theirs, and I have even been shamed for failing to take a stand by and with people I care about.  If you’re not with us you’re against us, they say, directly or indirectly.  Yet don’t we all stand on shared ground?  Might our arguments actually be musings about what we think we’re standing on?  And so here I am writing to you, standing for idealogic diversity.  I will continue to practice respecting our disagreements.