Shifting from Identity to Solidarity

In order to transform we must be willing to give up our culture of identity and move toward a culture of solidarity. There is a tendency to belong to groups based on how closely those groups mirror our own beliefs and backgrounds. As a result, those groups have little potential for transforming themselves, the individuals who belong to them or the larger world.

Mere “believing and belonging” in religion (or in any sphere of human activity) tend to lead us toward like-minded people and groups that look and think much as we do. A commitment to real transformation, on the other hand, tends to lead us toward diverse groups of people who most likely look, think and believe differently than we do. The transformation that takes place in and through such groups enables us to see those who seem radically different from ourselves to be like-hearted and united with us and all the world in an essential way.

When people first discover a religious community that feels like home to them, they might believe that their religious journey is done. But such a religious community is at best a starting place or home base from which the transformational journey might begin. This journey leads us toward a culture of solidarity—a culture of “acting with” rather than “believing in” or “belonging to.”

Transformation and Loss

Transformation requires loss. Transformative change simply cannot occur unless something is left behind, whether it’s an old way of relating to the world or beloved friends or a hometown or a cherished home. But leaving the old things behind does not mean closing our hearts to them—such a thing isn’t really possible, even though it might seem more desirable than experiencing loss.

What’s required is not only a turning away from something and a turning toward something else but also a willingness to feel both in their entirety and to be truly changed by the experience. We grieve not so much to “get over” something but rather to let ourselves be softened by the experience. For it is through our softness that we are transformed.

Writing about the experience of the death of a loved one, Anne Lamott said: “It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.”

So it is with any big loss: Either we learn to dance with the limp or we stop dancing altogether. And it is only through this kind of dancing that we are transformed.