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Awakening

Exploring Spirituality, Emergent Creativity, and Reconciliation

Edited by Vern Neufeld Redekop and Gloria Neufeld Redekop - Contributions by Vern Neufeld Redekop; Gloria Neufeld Redekop; Megan Price; Nadia Delicata; Kelly Kilrea; Jamie Price; Matthew A. MacDonald; Patrice Brodeur; Brigitte Gagnon; Neil Theise; Neil Sargent; Stuart Kauffman; Katherine Peil Kauffman; Barbod Salimi; Borislava Manojlovic; Andrea Bartoli and Sandor Goodhart

Even if all of the elements we know to be significant in the process of reconciliation were present, reconciliation would not necessarily take place. Reconciliation is a nonlinear, nonalgorithmic process that involves “matters of the heart.” From emergent creativity and its links to mysticism, to the evolution of emotions as drivers of thought, Awakening weaves cutting-edge discoveries in complexity theory with philosophical reflections on consciousness and language, drawing on Lonergan and Wittgenstein. Awakening as a phenomenon takes on a vibrant vitality as an aspect of transpersonal psychology and it manifests as imperatives to take responsibility for our relationships, to address complex challenges of justice, and to adopt a heart-based approach to peacebuilding.

Lexington Books

Pages: 372 • Trim: 6¼ x 9⅛

978-1-4985-9309-0 • Hardback • November 2019 • $142.00 • (£109.00)

978-1-4985-9311-3 • Paperback • March 2022 • $45.99 • (£35.00)

978-1-4985-9310-6 • eBook • November 2019 • $43.50 • (£35.00)

Subjects: Religion / Spirituality, Psychology / Movements / Transpersonal

Awakening

Exploring Spirituality, Emergent Creativity, and Reconciliation

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

Even if all of the elements we know to be significant in the process of reconciliation were present, reconciliation would not necessarily take place. Reconciliation is a nonlinear, nonalgorithmic process that involves “matters of the heart.” From emergent creativity and its links to mysticism, to the evolution of emotions as drivers of thought, Awakening weaves cutting-edge discoveries in complexity theory with philosophical reflections on consciousness and language, drawing on Lonergan and Wittgenstein. Awakening as a phenomenon takes on a vibrant vitality as an aspect of transpersonal psychology and it manifests as imperatives to take responsibility for our relationships, to address complex challenges of justice, and to adopt a heart-based approach to peacebuilding.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 372 • Trim: 6¼ x 9⅛

978-1-4985-9309-0 • Hardback • November 2019 • $142.00 • (£109.00)

978-1-4985-9311-3 • Paperback • March 2022 • $45.99 • (£35.00)

978-1-4985-9310-6 • eBook • November 2019 • $43.50 • (£35.00)

Subjects: Religion / Spirituality, Psychology / Movements / Transpersonal

Author

Vern Neufeld Redekop is professor of conflict studies at Saint Paul University.

Gloria Neufeld Redekop is author and researcher in spirituality and religious social history.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

1 The SECR Story: The Narrative and Key Concepts behind the Spirituality, Emergent

Creativity, and Reconciliation Research Initiative

Vern Neufeld Redekop

I. SCIENCE, EMOTIONS, AND RE-ENCHANTMENT

2 The Re-Enchantment of Humanity: The Implications of “No Entailing Laws”

Stuart Alan Kauffman

3 Microscopes and Mystics: A Response to Stuart Kauffman’s Call to “Re-Enchantment”

Neil Theise

4 Natural Spirituality and the Biology of Emotion

Katherine Peil Kauffman

5 Scientific Investigation and Spiritual Awareness: Stuart Kauffman, Bernard Lonergan, and

Spiritual Re-Enchantment

Jamie Price

II. THE EMERGENCE OF THE ETHICAL

6 Prophetic Reading and Emergent Creativity in Genesis 1

Sandor Goodhart

7 Reinventing Natural Law as a School of Virtue: Towards a Global Ethic in the Context of Emergent Creativity

Nadia Delicata

8 The Emergence of both Torah and Jesus: Sources of Hope in the Face of Desperation

Vern Neufeld Redekop

III. RELIGION, EMERGENCE, AND WELLBEING

9 Spiritual Awakenings and Subsequent Rigidity in Evangelical History

Gloria Neufeld Redekop

10 Revelation Through Diversity in Creation: A Muslim Alternative to the Modern Liberal

Paradigm of Diversity

Matthew A. MacDonald

11 What Linguistic Philosophy and Abrahamic Faith Can Teach Us About Embodied

Peacemaking and the Authentic Use of Peace Language

Barbod Salimi

IV. CONSCIOUSNESS, RELATIONSHIPS, JUSTICE, AND PEACE

12 Profound Transformation in Relationship and Creativity in Spiritual (and Secular)

Awakening: Implications for Reconciliation

Kelly A. Kilrea

13 Intentional Peace: The Role of Human Consciousness in the Emergence of Peace and Conflict

Megan Price

14 Practices of Reconciliation and Relational Responsibility

Borislava Manojlovic and Andrea Bartoli

15 Justice Displaced or Justice Restored?: The emergent properties of apology as a means of

addressing past wrongs

Neil Sargent

16 The Relational Ecosystem for Peace: An Integrated Heart-Based Approach to Peacebuilding

Brigitte Gagnon and Patrice Brodeur

Index

About the Contributors

Reviews

Vern Neufeld Redekop and Gloria Neufeld Redekop’s edited book Awakening: Exploring Spirituality, Emergent Creativity, and Reconciliation illustrates that spirituality is relational, diachronic, and part of tacit knowledge that empowers a person to develop the inner resources of creativity, empathy, forgiveness, and reconciliation in order to transform the most difficult situations in deep rooted conflicts. The book is a must read for those interested in the role of spirituality in peacebuilding, and in transforming conflicts constructively.
— Sean Byrne, Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Manitoba

Awakening offers a wide range of inquiries and conversations pursuant into reconciliation in an ever more polarized and fragmented world. Stuart Kauffman's framing chapter focused toward the potential and pillars of re-enchantment coupled with extraordinary reflections and responses across disciplines, provide ever more compelling evidence that imagination with inner-outer awareness, heart-based, and relationship-centric understandings of transforming conflict are not peripheral but form the very DNA of peacebuilding practice. An extraordinary book that evokes reflection and offers courage to take up the emergent learning beyond the far too-often narrow and mechanistic views of peace practices.
— John Paul Lederach, Professor Emeritus University of Notre Dame

Vern and Gloria Neufeld Redekop, in Awakenings, offer to the mimetic theory conversation started by René Girard a companion that will serve to spark conversation about the work of reconciliation... Whereas Girard’s work focuses on violence bought on through mimesis—and only quelled by the identification and killing of a scapegoat—this volume looks at peaceful reconciliation. Drawing heavily on the work of American biologist/medical doctor Stuart Kauffman on complex systems, this book helps readers understand how reconciliation often emerges from chaotic systems, and even in unexpected ways... Much like Girard’s work, this book leaves the reader with a healthy bit of ambiguity that leads to more questions, and infinite possibilities to move forward in the reconciliation process. A companion book edited by the couple, entitled, Transforming, follows this one. If it is as insightful as this volume, there is much to which one might look forward.

— Bulletin of the Colloquium on Violence & Religion

Awakening

Exploring Spirituality, Emergent Creativity, and Reconciliation

Awakening

Exploring Spirituality, Emergent Creativity, and Reconciliation

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