Trust Emergence
- David Hasbury
- 3 days ago
- 10 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
In the early 1980s I learned about a Latin American concept of ‘friends’ as “compaňeros y compaňeras” --- friends and companions rooted in the struggle for justice. For over 40 years I have been blessed with a vibrant network of these friendships that spans continents. These friendships continue to provide such good company, compassion, love, laughter, joy, and opportunities to learn from and with each other.
Learning through someone
In the context of this network of friends, I have learned much through our friend, John O’Brien (read John O'Brien and Connie Lyle O'Brien's writings available at Inclusion Press). His recent passing calls me to reflect on some of what stays with me, to practice, explore, play with, create.
I have learned by observing John, listening to him, reading what he has written, reading what he has recommended, engaging in conversations, laughing, and collaborating with others on creating learning spaces and experiences. There probably is no other single person I have personally known that I can attribute so much of my learning coming through.
I say “learning through John” because there are so many layers to what this learning is about. John embodied multi-dimensional learning. In learning from, with, and through John, you didn’t just get John. You got all of the sources his pursuit of curiosity would uncover.
You got all of the writers, philosophers, poets he had read.
You got the knowing that came from his relationships with leaders, authors, and extraordinary thinkers.
You got the experiences that came from real life stories of circles of people that he gathered with, and listened to, around the world.
You got his contemplative practices.
Doing, and failing
You got his lifelong commitment to learning though doing, and the failing that occurred more often than not.
"I have probably found more ways to fail at influencing people, then anybody else, or anywhere else. I'm obsessed about this pretty consistent failure. People are sometimes complimentary about what I've got to say. But if you look at the actual impact of lots of it, it doesn't add up to very much. That doesn't bother me probably as much as it should, so much as it keeps me curious. And so I keep looking around to see who else is doing something that might help, that might reduce my next failure, or make my next failure more interesting.” John O’Brien
Personhood
You got John’s long held beliefs about, and his approach to, people, persons, and personhood.
“If I catch a glimpse of a person, that is an awesome mystery. They're sitting with us. And we have the privilege to appreciate what that uniqueness might mean”. John O’Brien
No matter how confused, troubled, or stuck you may have been feeling, with all of the self judgement that accompanies that, John held the capacity to see you as a person, as an ‘awesome mystery’.
Mystery and wonder piqued John’s curiosity. Many of us experienced being needed by John’s curiosity from time to time, and his genuine interest in learning more about what our ‘uniqueness might mean’, what it could teach him, others, and the world.
John was interested in what he could offer to your efforts to be and do in the world. This experience of being needed by John’s curiosity could make you feel a little more whole, a little more confident that you have a higher purpose, and offer a little more courage to step into doing something in new ways.
All about US
John was not interested in getting attention or praise. If it became about him, he became uneasy, it was clear that we were missing the point of anything he was trying to do. He did not want it to be about him, so much as it was about how he could share whatever he had discovered that was available to him, from, and through others, to help you do, or be, ‘you’ — all of you, or at least more of you, acting in the circumstances of your life. This would benefit more than just you. It would benefit a much bigger US.
‘Our’ great questions
In learning with and through John, you got his passion for finding great questions. You got his sense making harvest of discoveries from questions he pursued. John often pointed to the importance of questions being shared, as expressed by Judith Snow:
A great question refuses to be answered. So it keeps leading us into deeper connections with each other and into deeper thinking. Judith Snow
Great questions are never YOUR questions. They are OUR questions. Pursuing these questions with open curiosity, is serving a higher purpose, one that can benefit all.
Don’t forget laughter
Last but certainly not least, you got John’s humor, an essential human survival strategy, and practice that John mastered as he observed and experienced the absurd, and often tragic, choices we humans can make, personally, collectively, societally, globally, historically.
“If you don’t have a sense of humor, it’s just not funny.” Wavy Gravy
Think Monty Python, or Gary Larson’s ‘The Far Side’ cartoons, and you get a hint of the spirit of John’s take on the world we live in.
Learning through conversation
In 2019, before the COVID era began, a small group of long time friends (‘compaňeros y compaňeras’) decided that we wanted to “do something together”, create something, a learning experience. We had planned on meeting in Toronto with a group of co-learners in April 2020.
By March 2020s lock down, we were all confined to life inside of our homes. Patti Scott (my wife and partner), Lynda Kahn, Jack Pearpoint, Beth Mount, John O’Brien, and me, met on Zoom to figure out how we might still do something together, now that we would not be meeting in person in Toronto. Over the last 5 years we continued to meet, sometimes on a weekly basis, for luxurious 2 hour conversations. It was a learners dream to be in these conversations with these friends and teachers.
“Trust emergence”
Many times there would be something said in our small group that would stay with me. It would call me to sit with it, contemplate it, observe it in action, try it out, reflect on what happens, see where it leads.
During the last 6 months of these conversations there was a phrase that John shared that continues to pique my curiosity.
“trust emergence”
This grabs my attention. It resonates in me. And yet, I don’t really know what it means…I just want to know more. It feels like something worth pursuing.
Thirty years ago at a Toronto Summer Institute, John introduced me to etymology -“ the study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings have changed throughout history.” So now when words resonate, or grab my attention I turn to the etymology dictionary.
emergence: 1640s, "unforeseen occurrence," from French émergence, from emerger, from Latin emergere "rise up" (see emerge). Meaning "an emerging, process of coming forth"
emerge: "to rise from or out of anything that surrounds, covers, or conceals; come forth; appear, as from concealment," 1560s, from French émerger and directly from Latin emergere "bring forth, bring to light,"
One observation of John’s lifework could be “trusting emergence”, working to create the conditions for something new to “rise from or out of” the social circumstances we find ourselves in.
In the time I have known John, I have viewed him as a man of faith. I don’t know anything about the private faith that guided him. I just know the public faith he expressed, demonstrated, wrote about, and invited people to explore.
At least some of that faith is rooted in a belief in our relational capacity:
to create together:
to be present to each other, just as we are;
to notice the ‘awesome wonder’ of the ‘mystery’ that is each of us;
to attend to the real circumstances we find ourselves in; including pain and suffering, joy, gifts, and capacities
to recognize, acknowledge, and even honor the history that brought us to this point;
to imagine a future possibility of a “beloved community”;
to act on building it;
to learn through our actions, in a never ending cycle of creative movement towards “what more is possible”.
Practice
“There are fruitful places where we don't know, fruitful questions that we don't know the answer to, and the only way to find the answer is in action. That's kind of the definition of complexity from one point of view. It's an uncertainty that matters.” John O’Brien
As I sit with what “trust emergence” might lead me to, I am learning that it will require a multi-faceted array of practices.
It requires learning how we might:
be still, sitting with our uncertainty,
be open to not knowing.
listen to words spoken, and the silences around the words.
resist the temptation to act prematurely in service of fixing.
develop a quality of relationship with the people we are with, a belief in each other, and knowledge that we need each other
dare to act
live with the experience of failure
not run away when pain and sorrow arrive
keep going
In these two words, “trust emergence’, there is a lifetime of learning available.
And each step of the way there is memory of experiences with John. There is his writing, and in almost all of his writing there are clues to learn more embedded in quotes from other writers, thinkers, artists, activists, and historical figures. Simply reading the sources of the quotes he shared could lead to a lifetime of reading, that would lead to more reading. There is John's curious company for the journey.
Faithful
John’s curious mind was truly expansive. He could have tackled any number of life subjects or tracks, and been extraordinarily successful. When I decided to explore creating a podcast (Re-Creating US on Apple or Spotify), John was the first person open to being interviewed.
I have always been humbled by John's lifelong focus and commitment to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and the people who love them. I wondered about that commitment:
I came into this work in 1968, when the situation of people with significant impairments in institutional settings were in the direction of the worst that we could do. I had a chance to be part of supporting some people to get out of those circumstances and into something that was immeasurably better and immeasurably short of the best that we have done. I remain concerned about how easy it is to forget about those people, to pretend that the institution no longer exists when in fact, we have lots of lots of people, including children finding their way into institutional settings. We have all manner of services that are immeasurably better than the old fashioned institution, but collectively far away from what is really possible and achievable. John O'Brien
John said that 'something cracked' in him when he experienced the institutional incarcerated lives he met, as poet Denise Levertov expresses:
It’s when we face for a moment the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know the taint in our own selves, that awe cracks the mind’s shell and enters the heart Denise Levertov, "On the Mystery of the Incarnation"
It was this initial "crack" that grabbed John's attention, but it is not what sustained his lifelong commitment:
It's witnessing what happens when people even have a minimum of human connectedness, and the minimum of environmental conditions that allow a person to act like a human being... in an odd way, it's how easy it is....and so it's that flash, it's that moment when things shift for a person that hooked me, not just the awfulness of it. I think if it had been just the awfulness I don't think I could have lasted. John O'Brien
John devoted almost 60 years of his life in a faithful exploration of what more is possible in developing our capacities to build community’s that can embrace the diversity of gifts and experience of people with significant intellectual impairments.
What remains alive in us?
Earlier this year I was reading Thich Nhat Hahn’s book, “The Art of Living”. It guided me in thinking about my life. I am at the stage of life where, as the saying goes, “there is more of life behind me, than ahead of me”. Living consciously feels more important than ever.
Buddha’s Five Remembrances I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old. I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health. I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death. All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them. My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. They are the ground upon which I stand.
The book explores the core of Thich Nhat Hahn’s teaching and practice he spoke of as “interbeing”, the insight that all things exist in relationship to each other.
This led me to reflect on all of the people that live within me. I can turn to things that I have done, learned, explored, thought, and know that the person that this learning came through, is with me, always. I just need to re-member
John nourished a broad and deep network of friendships around the world, many who have traveled curious roads with him for decades. Each one of them carries pieces of who they are that flourished through learning that John brought into their lives.
Upping our game
As we let John’s passing sink in, there is a deep sense of loss. One of Lynda Kahn’s responses was , “We all have to up our game!” No one of us would be able to replace John’s contributions, we would all have to step up, bring our 'A' game, make our contributions, and keep going.
Most of John’s network of friends, live all over the world. We did not have a daily life with John. Our lives had moments with John, personally, or through his writing. Many of these moments were vital in making sense of our experience, and our desire to do more, and be creative.
We all have things we have learned and received from, and through John that hold our attention. There is no one summary of John's contributions that can be available to us. There are unique pieces we each take away with us.
May we embrace our pieces.
May we be curious and follow where they lead.
May we be open to what emerges.
May we share what we learn
May we do this in the company of friends.
May we have the faith and courage to keep going.
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