Michael Morrell

I took a stroll around Beaver Lake at dusk last night, her sylvan orbit still strewn with remnants of Hurricane Helene’s signature debris. It’s been barely six months since the storm’s path of torrential devastation cut through my mountain home. The beauty of a temperate Asheville spring twilight contrasted bitterly with the pollen like cement in my eyes, the tree limbs interrupting my steps; I felt this atmosphere in my chest as a kind of Gethsemane anxiety — a heavy grief at what still lay dying around us while new life attempts to break through. It begins again in the dark. A tomb. A tear. A trembling. A trap we’ve been in before. Each Holy Week — that inflection point where Jesus’ message of evolutionary, revolutionary Love clashes decisively with the totalizing forces of death-dealing colonization — the calendar invites us not into nostalgia, but initiation. This fast-turned-feast, observed in one form or fashion by a third of the planet’s population, is often misunderstood: It isn’t about rote reenactment, it’s about reentry into this archetypal story. To once again taste and see the Mystery that undoes history. We stand again on the brink of empire and wonder, of state-sponsored violence and strange quickening. Days like Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday echo our ache—political venom, ecological collapse, and spiritual drift, sounding a minor chord amid the reflexive-reenactment rush-to-Sunday alleluias. Holy Week isn’t soft; it’s a blade. The unlikely Messiah didn’t die for milquetoast moralism. His life — a blaze of love, justice, and defiance — ignited the monoculture’s fear, and they snuffed it out. Or thought they did. The first Pascha — observed in English and German languages as Easter — tremorred beneath the boot of Rome’s attempts at control; today’s alliances of power and profit are no less formidable. But in this intimate dusk, I cling to a strange, luminous trust: that even now, something new can be co-created with the animate forces that intend our good. From Appalachia to Golgotha, I’m reminded that we’re invited to mountains of mystery — to die before we die and thus awaken to a new life, even as the world seemingly falls apart. We’re invited to credible hope – hope with dirt under its nails, born from the compost of crisis but reaching toward resurrection. The Law of Three: A Hidden Trinity of Transformation The drama unfolds as it always has: A Teacher. A Table. A Towel. A betrayal, a beating, a burial. Georgij Ivanovičh Gurdjieff New arisings often come from threes. At least, that’s one of the central ideas of an inner work school that’s surfaced in the past century, which has been shaping my life for the past decade. The enigmatic mystic G.I. Gurdjieff’s life unfolded across the fault lines of empire and revolution—from his family’s flight from Ottoman persecution, to near-fatal gunshot wounds during geopolitical uprisings, to his escape from the Russian Civil War and survival of Nazi-occupied Paris. War was both outer ordeal and inner fire, shaping his mission to awaken humanity from the mass hypnosis that makes violence possible. Growing up with an Ashokh (storyteller) father at a geo-spiritual crossroads between Orthodox monastics, Sufi Shaykhs, and Yogic masters of bodily rigors, Gurdjieff’s Fourth Way seeks to harmonize mind, heart, and body into a coherent everyday vitality on a planet where conflict isn’t a bug — it’s a feature whose unwieldy energies belong in the grand scheme of things, and can be harnessed for the curation of evolutionary, revolutionary momentum for our common flourishing. Gurdjieff proposes that every creation, every new arising, results from The Law of Three (which he tongue-twistingly names Triamazikamno): the interplay of three forces: Holy-Affirming, Holy-Denying, and Holy-Reconciling​. I appreciate priest and Fourth Way student Cynthia Bourgeault’s summary: “In every new arising there are three forces involved: affirming, denying, and reconciling. The interweaving of the three produces a fourth in a new dimension. Affirming, denying, and reconciling are not fixed points or permanent essence attributes, but can and do shift and must be discerned situationally. Solutions to impasses or sticking points generally come by learning how to spot and mediate third force, which is present in every situation but generally hidden.” The poles and roles can change positions, depending on who initiates any given dance under consideration, and who responds. These aren’t “good vs. bad” forces, but a dynamic trinity. There is the affirming force – the yes, the creative impulse, the initiating energy. There is the denying force – the resistance, the no, the force of constraint or inertia. These forces moral directionality isn’t inherently indicated by the seeming positivity or negativity of the terms themselves. Affirming can be tragic (like our neighbors being disappeared from our streets); Denying can be noble (like spiritual communities choosing to be literal sanctuaries for the dispossessed, with diminishing assurance as to their own safety). But what makes this more than a deadlocked Hegalian dialectic is the presence of a neutralizing or reconciling force — the mysterious third element that bridges and harmonizes the other two into a genuinely new result. This Law of Three is a (if you’ll pardon the expression) Divine Dance at the heart of reality — and it resonates with the venerable (if strange) Christian intuition of God as Three-in-One, the Blessed Trinity. As Cynthia Bourgeault notes in The Holy Trinity and the Law of Three, if we mistake affirming for “positive good” and denying for “obstacle to be eliminated,” we lose the transformative leverage of the third force​. In truth, all three are holy. The triadic unfolding is not a standoff between Light and Dark with God as referee; it’s a collaboration. Even the denying force (the crises, the betrayals, the “No” we encounter) has a sacred role – it provides the tension and grounded reality that the affirming force needs in order to produce something new. I think of this process as gritty nonduality — the transmoral exploration of precisely how everything belongs. Without resistance, no new muscle is grown; without the Cross, no Resurrection occurs. The lead-up to Pascha or Easter can itself be read as a drama of the Law of Three: On Good Friday, Divine love (Holy-Affirming) met human violence (Holy-Denying) — and for a moment it seemed like denial “won” as Jesus breathed his last. But in the tomb, unseen, a Third Force was at work. Call it Holy-Reconciling or as we named her in many a Pentecostal prayer meeting growing up, the Holy Ghost and Fire. On Easter, this reconciling force reveals itself as the emergence of something utterly new: Life reborn, a synthesis beyond mere resuscitation. The polarities of life and death are transcended in a Third Phenomenon: Resurrection. The reconciling plane offers itself not only as a playing field for Divine action, but as an essential ingredient in the process​. Today’s crises of planet and people can be seen through this same trinocular vision: Totalitarianism and ecological collapse may appear as negations (Second Force, or Denying) to everything we cherish — justice, peace; the biosphere herself. And it’s tempting to cast these negations as absolute evils to be vanquished. But what if we viewed them as the partner moving toward us, that we must push against to take the next dance step? Our First (or Affirming) Force could be our love for democracy, for the Earth, for one another — an active force for good. The turmoil and backlash are the Denying Force, provoking us at every turn with their outlandish dance-floor moves. If we stop with just these two, we remain locked in endless opposition, ping-ponging between hope and despair. But the Law of Three says: Look for the Third Force. Is there a reconciling energy emerging from this collision that will sweep even the most recalcitrant foes of love off their feet? Perhaps it is us – the awakening of a new level of consciousness, a creative response that wasn’t possible before. As Richard Rohr reminds us, “The whole of creation—not just Jesus—is the beloved community, the partner in the divine dance.” That means even these bleak moments of history are included in time’s repertoire; they can serve in the larger story being told. Our present moment’s Third Force might be a widespread realization of our interconnectivity, a grassroots movement of compassion, an inner transformation of just enough people on the planet – something surprising that transforms the energy of conflict into the reconciling energy of resurrection. As Richard and I wrote in The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation: “The greatest dis-ease facing humanity right now is our profound and painful sense of disconnection—disconnection from God, certainly, but also from ourselves (our bodies and True Selves), from each other, and from creation. We see this in political corruption, ecological devastation, war and violence, fearing and even hating each other because of our differences, whether race, religion, or sexual orientation. Our world needs to be reminded of our interdependence and our inherent union with what is. [We} believe the Trinity can teach us how to live in creative collaboration, valuing and honoring our differences while also serving each other with humility and compassion.” Easter can, if we’re receptive to its graces, prepare us for new arising – the fruit of love and sacrifice reconciled. Where we allow the full weight of Affirming and Denying forces to be felt in our bodies, making room for something finer. One way Gurdjieff articulates the Law of Three is that “The Higher blends with the Lower to actualize the Middle.” I have a hunch that the Third Force of Resurrection is already peeking through our soil, in seedling form. Let’s see if we can adjust our vision. Divine Communion, after Rublev The Law of Seven: The Winding Path of Process Palm Sunday’s Affirming — a public defiance, dignified with Divine desire. Maundy Thursday’s Denying — betrayal, breakdown, a Beloved who bows. Good Friday — the clash of forces. Execution. The State’s brutal “No.” Holy Saturday — silence. Descent. High strangeness. Waiting. If the Law of Three reveals the structure of transformation, Gurdjieff’s other key principle – the Law of Seven (which he gives the even more unwieldy name Heptaparaparshinokh) – reveals the rhythm through which transformation unfolds. Also known as the Law of Octaves, it says that processes develop not in straight lines, but in a musical sequence of intervals. Consider a do-re-mi scale: between mi and fa, and again between ti and do, there’s a natural pause or lowering of energy. Unless an extra shock or input enters to boost the momentum, a process might veer off course at those points. We’ve all experienced this: New Year’s resolutions fizzle mid-February, social and political movements lose steam. According to the Law of Seven, nothing real and new is achieved without passing through ups and downs, twists and turns. There are inflection points where things can stall or go off-course, plateaus or crises where progress stalls. Without conscious attention or a new impulse, things can drift, degrade, or loop back on themselves. But if met with consciousness and additional force, the process continues to completion. We can see this in Holy Week, too. The initial impulse of Jesus’s arrival (Palm Sunday’s enthusiastic welcome) hit a substantial interval by Thursday night: the Last Supper and Gethsemane. At that point, without a “shock,” the disciples’ courage faltered – they fell asleep, they fled, they denied. Gurdjieff would say the octave of transformation nearly went off-key there. But Jesus’ own conscious choice in Gethsemane – “Not my will, but Thy will be done” – was a shock of intentionality that kept the process on-track. He injected the force of surrender and love at the very point where inertia and fear threatened to derail the mission. The result was that he went through the crucifixion ordeal with purpose, not as meaningless tragedy but as part of a willed alchemy. (This doesn’t let the powers-that-be off the hook for their unspeakable horrors, by the way; it only names Jesus’ own role in consciously choosing his role.) The pattern repeats: after the resurrection, the next interval came as his apprentices struggled to believe and embody this new life. Again, a shock was given – their encounters with the Risen Christ, the empowerment of the Spirit at Pentecost – to carry them into a new octave of faith. Evolution is full of these fits and starts. We take two steps forward, one step back. We hit walls and either slump into defeat or open to a breakthrough. Processes unfold in octaves with intervals (points of entropy) where energy falters unless a ‘shock’ – a new energy or intention – sustains progress. It’s true in personal growth (think of the midpoint crisis in a long therapy journey or the infamous sophomore slump in a project) and in history (revolutions that either fizzle or receive fresh momentum). What this means, practically, is that we must cultivate conscious presence and persistence, especially at critical junctures. Gurdjieff noted that humanity as a whole tends to live in a state of semi-conscious “waking sleep,” drifting along habitual grooves. This makes us vulnerable to getting stuck in loops – personally and collectively. To break through, we need intentional shocks – which can be something we create (like a deliberate change in habit, a courageous conversation, a communal ritual) or something life delivers (a crisis, an insight, even trauma can serve, if met consciously). Holy Week contains both kinds: Jesus chooses to ride into Jerusalem in a provocative way, and later absorbs the shock of betrayal and violence. Both play a part in the octave of redemption. It’s not a linear march; it’s an octave leap. Ancient Way-faring mystics spoke of Easter as the “Eighth Day” of Creation — a new octave beyond the seven-day week. Without the depths of Holy Saturday, we would not grasp the full light of Easter Sunday. This pattern reassures us that our current geopolitical moment, pure Leviathanical chaos monster that it is, might be part of a larger process — an evolutionary octave. As Swiss philosopher and linguist Jean Gebser and other visionaries of consciousness have noted, chaos often precedes a leap into a new structure of being. “Time of transition” is another way to say we are between mi and fa — things feel unstable because a new note is trying to sound. If we persevere with awareness, fully receiving these needed conscious shocks with courage, forgiveness, or innovation at critical junctures, the melody will carry on and the dance will continue. Gurdjieff’s student J.G. Bennett pointed out that every complete process has seven different qualities that must be expressed​, and we are living through each in turn. As my beloved doula friend Heather Grace might say, our aim as Resurrection People is to midwife the process, to stay awake, and to witness the miracle of new life. In practical terms: when progress seems to halt, we inject a dose of unexpected love: we act out of the box, we pray or protest (or pro-testify by creating the world we wish to inhabit, on whatever scale we’re capable) in new ways. These are the pivots that keep evolution’s revolution moving toward its fulfillment – toward that octave jump of a just, healing world. The Crucible of Now: Alchemy in Our Time We find ourselves today in a tumultuous time – some might say an apocalyptic time (in the true sense of “apocalypse” meaning unveiling). The dual crises of our age – the social/political upheavals and the ecological emergency – feel like a collective crucifixion. Old certainties are collapsing. In recent years, we’ve seen a sharp rise in authoritarian and nationalist movements, in the U.S. and abroad. We’ve also seen the once-theoretical climate crisis manifest in catastrophic wildfires, floods, and extinctions. It’s easy to see these as pure tragedy – and they are deeply tragic in their effects. But if we step back and view them through the lens of the Holy Week pattern, we might also see an alchemical process at work on a grand scale. Could it be that we are in the throes of a kind of global Good Friday and Holy Saturday, which, if met with the reconciling force of love-in-action, could produce an epochal Easter – a societal resurrection into a new way of being? Let’s not sugar-coat it: on the surface, what we have is suffering and chaos. Political polarization has families and friends feuding; disinformation and fear are rampant. The rise of overt racist ideologies and anti-democratic sentiment in America shows that old demons we thought defeated are merely resurfacing. Our social fabric feels like it’s tearing. Meanwhile, our planetary fabric is tearing: the very stability of Earth’s climate, oceans, and biodiversity is unraveling due to human greed and “progress.” We are nearing tipping points that could make our common home a very inhospitable place for the children of tomorrow. This is the reality of the cross staring us in the face – the consequences of collective sin (using this word in a systemic sense). We cannot deny any of this without retreating into dangerous delusion. And yet – precisely because things are so bad – something new wants to be born. There’s a principle I’ve noticed: the greater the pressure, the greater the potential for breakthrough. The alchemists spoke of the coniunctio oppositorum, the conjunction of opposites, as the source of the Philosopher’s Stone. Well, we have plenty of opposites clashing now! Take the body politic: on one side, a vision of society (however flawed) that aspires to inclusivity, equity, and global cooperation – let’s call this an affirming force of our age. On the other side, a reactionary vision fueled by anger, fear, and nostalgia for an imagined past purity – a denying force. Both are powerful. Neither is going away easily. They lock horns in what seems an irreconcilable battle. Many of us feel caught in between, exhausted by the fight. But what if this very conflict is the labor pains of a new birth? What if a Third Force is quietly entering the fray – an unexpected creative response that is neither naive idealism nor cynical backlash, but something brand-new, rooted in deep solidarity with people and planet? I believe we see hints of this already. For instance, amidst tired polarizations, there are local communities finding innovative ways to heal divisions – through dialogue circles, restorative justice, and cooperative projects that bring unlikely allies together. When a far-right and a far-left group sit down and both help, say, clean up after a flood (as I experienced in my city firsthand last fall), sometimes they experience a crack in the wall between them, a recognition of shared humanity. That is third force in action: reconciling people beyond ideology through common love for their neighbors and land. It doesn’t fit into existing political frameworks – it’s a new thing. We see it in movements of young people who refuse the old categories altogether and insist on pragmatic solutions rooted in economics and earth. We see it in spiritual circles where consciousness and action meet, bringing inner transformation to fuel outer change. The ecological crisis, too, is evoking a reconciling force. On one side, you have industrial/exploitative momentum (the always-dubious biblical translation “subue the earth” taken to its extreme) – this is the denying force, denying limits. On the other, you have the affirming force of nature’s inherent drive toward life – ecosystems trying to heal, the earth responding with signals (fever, disturbance) to awaken us. When firestorms and hurricanes ravage communities, it is as if the earth and poor alike are crying, “Enough!” The clash is fierce. The potential third force here might be an emergent ecological consciousness in humanity – an awakening of profound kinship with all life. Many people report that after experiencing a climate disaster, they undergo a personal conversion: they realize viscerally that we are part of nature, not apart from it, and they devote themselves to regenerative action. I’ve seen communities rebuilding in greener ways, citizens demanding bold climate policies, and also a spiritual renewal – a return to indigenous wisdom and Earth-based spirituality among people who previously never gave it a thought. In these responses, one can sense the seeds of a “fourth” new arising, birthed from the resurrection of Third Force: a culture that could be born from the reconciliation of human innovation with natural harmony, techno-industrial savvy guided by deep ecological reverence. The fancy term for this is regenerative cultures, but in spiritual language we might call it living in the Resurrection – participating in the life-giving pattern of God in all things. Gurdjieff taught that humanity’s usual state of consciousness is insufficient to meet our challenges; we need to wake up. Crises can either make us numb out in despair or double down on ego – or they can shock us into a higher awareness. Every catastrophe carries within it the possibility of conversion. It’s not automatic – it depends on whether we bring presence to it. This is why I see our era as a great Holy Saturday moment, stumbling in the dusk around the lake. The “old normal” lies dead or dying; the “new” has yet to fully emerge. We risk falling into the abyss of hopelessness (a real danger – so many people are giving up on truth, on compassion, even on life itself). But Holy Saturday teaches us not to abandon the tomb. Wait. Watch. Something is incubating. Participate in the incubation. How? By refusing to flee or fight in the old ways, and instead searching out the third force in every situation. “Solutions to impasses generally come by learning how to spot and mediate third force, which is present in every situation but generally hidden,” Bourgeault writes​. In practical terms, that might mean in a political argument, you become the one who listens for the underlying needs and speaks to those, rather than just rebutting points. Or in activism, you look for unlikely partnerships (e.g. climate activists partnering with evangelical churches to install solar panels – shared values emerging). Or in an internal struggle, you pray not just for your desired outcome, but for the grace to see a perspective you haven’t seen – to reconcile some part of you that is at war with another part. We can also apply the Law of Seven to our current moment: clearly, the process of global change is at a stuck interval. Perhaps the initial burst of globalization and technological progress (do-re-mi) has hit its mi-fa gap in the form of environmental and social backlash. To continue the “melody” toward a humane future, a shock of consciousness is needed – a Pentecost of sorts, a collective awakening. This might sound grandiose, but many sense it intuitively: either we have a leap in awareness or we perish. And here’s the paradox: that leap won’t come to a smug, comfortable world – it tends to come precisely when the world is on its knees. The cross precedes the resurrection. The pressure in the crucible is what catalyzes the chemistry. I don’t celebrate the pain of this era; it breaks my heart daily. But I refuse to believe it’s pointless. I see signs that it’s purgatorial – cleansing, purposeful – and that gives me hope. Barbara Johnson once wrote, “We are Easter people living in a Good Friday world.” That doesn’t mean we deny the Friday reality, but it means we carry Sunday’s promise in our bones as we engage with it. It means we strive to be, as Quaker, mystic, and Civil Rights sage Howard Thurman put it, “prisoners of hope” – unable to stop hoping, not because of wishful thinking but because we have seen something. The early disciples had seen the empty tomb; we have seen, perhaps, glimpses of beloved community, flashes of the possible human, experiences of oneness that we can’t forget. Those become our anchor.

"How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also If I am to be whole.” — C.G. Jung What we hide, deny, and repress within ourselves will come to dominate us from the sidelines, until we greet these elements squarely and bring them to a candid and accepting awareness. So often we seek to 'cast out' our demons before we even get to know them. What a contrast this is to those ancient Christian wisdom teachers, Origen of Alexandria and Gregory of Nyssa, who were convinced that even Satan and God would find themselves breaking bread together again, the power of Incarnation "healing even the originator of evil himself." (Gregory of Nyssa) This cannot happen if we keep our shadow-selves at arm's length. As Gregory of Nazianzus puts it, "What is not assumed [taken on] is not healed.” There is a time to 'resist the devil,' of course. But all too often, we end up dividing our power, pretending to be all sweetness and light while shadow-boxing what could serve us greatly if only we'd greet this part of ourselves unflinchingly. "Agree with your adversary quickly," Jesus of Nazareth encourages us, "while you are with him in the way." And “if you are meditating and a devil appears," G.I. Gurdjieff said, "make the devil meditate.” This reconciliation of opposites cannot happen until, like Jesus, we welcome the kisses of the Alabaster myrrh-bearing woman and Judas alike.

In Konya I approached the shrine of Shams — a short walk from Rumi’s tomb, yet a world away. Rumi rests under the turquoise Green Dome, now Turkey’s most-visited museum, drawing more than three million visitors annually. Shams lies (it is said) in a squat stone tomb about twenty-three feet square, beside a modest mosque in a city park. We wouldn’t have even been able to get in if it weren’t for Omid, who (as my adoptive Italian/New York family would say) knows a guy. Nobody knows who built Shams’ humble resting place, and nobody can say for certain he’s even buried there; Tabriz and Multan claim him too. Yet the old Mevlevi custom was to visit Shams first, then pause at a spot between the two shrines they called ‘the meeting of the two seas,’ as if the friendship itself deserved a station of its own. And so I knelt there, considering every holy friendship I’d been given. And how the cleanest-burning bonds carry a signature neither friend placed there. Do you know the kinds I mean? The ones where what’s alive between you is so clearly not contrived by either of you, and the only honest acknowledgment is that a Third was present. I considered these dear friends with deepening joy. I don’t think this was mere sentiment; it became data for me: The sacred strangeness of a Cappadocian claim turning up in a Muslim shrine. The realest thing about us is the living relation that holds us both — two friends at home in one another, and something holy at home in them. You can read my full reflection here: genuinemichael.substack.com/…

Today is Election Day in the United States, and our nation is 250 years old. Where do we forage the nourishment our threadbare national imagination is starving for? We don’t need a new Declaration of Independence. 'Independence' has run its course. It’s the lie of separation that has bred division, the delusion that’s brought us (if you’ll indulge some old-fashioned religious language for a moment) to sin-sick shores. Instead, we need a Declaration of Interdependence: A recognition that we belong to one another. Your child is my child. The stranger at the border is Christ in disguise. The coat in my closet never belongs to me alone. Inner evolution and outer revolution are one evolutionary revolution, grounded in an unflappable opti-mystic ethos that actually works. We are, as Thomas Merton observed, already one. The work of a faithful life is to stop pretending we aren’t. Light your candle. Don’t glance away from the wound. Right here, wherever you’re standing — let’s begin again. Together. Evolutionary. Revolutionary. Why not both, right now? Read the full summons here: genuinemichael.substack.com/…

The veil is thin, my friends. Can you feel it?

Got a creative project you've been putting off for years? Feeling suddenly impulsive to DO something about it? It's not too late to join Rainier Wylde and me for Create Yourself Alive this Monday and Tuesday, November 2-3 in beautiful Charleston, South Carolina. What is it? Two days set aside to find out what happens when you clear your calendar and dedicate yourself to the creative life NOW, struggling against what Gurdjieff called the disease of tomorrow. It’s an immersion made for people who want to take the leap and take their creativity seriously. Each day will contain unhurried hours filled with conversation, hands-on breakouts, a few of us holding space, and practical exercises. There will be time to work alone and time to share what you’re making with others. We’ll eat together, play, and most of all — create. Maybe you’ve had a book you wanted to write in your head for years. Maybe you’re halfway through something and you can’t seem to finish. Maybe you’ve been so busy helping other people, meeting their needs, that you’ve lost touch with what you wanted to make. You don’t have to be a professional artist or writer to be a part of this. Nah. You just have to bring your willingness to participate. Our aim is for you to leave with something finished and the tools to keep going when you get home. Come spend Monday and Tuesday with us. Give the creation you keep dreaming about some air to breathe in your actual life. Reserve your spot here: stirring-unicorn-7f4931.netl…

I was born. And I continue to exist: savoring the draught of this life, bitter and sweet alike. On this birthday I’m feeling grateful: to the woman who birthed me (pictured here, in what’s become our birthday lunch tradition), those who raised me, and family of all flavors — given, chosen, and becoming. I offer gratitude and blessing to my children, my friends, my loves. My communities, my readers. Those once near whom time and circumstance have thinned. I even bless my enemies, strange allies in my unfolding. Every one of you are gifts to me, each in your own way.

In May 2015 I spent eleven days traveling through Turkey with someone who became my friend: Dr. Omid Safi (@ostadjaan), one of the world’s leading scholars of Islam and Sufism. Omid gently guides small groups in illuminated tours through sacred inner and outer journeys around the world. I knew I was walking through my newly discovered hereditary homeland, though I didn’t yet know how close I’d come to ancestral ground beneath my feet. I thought I was a pilgrim; I was also, it turns out, a descendant. Cappadocia is one of those places that makes more conventional landscapes feel seriously under-imagined. Across the Anatolian valleys rise these improbable spires of pale volcanic rock known as tufa, sculpted by wind and weather into a landscape that looks like the Hebrew prophets’ stomping grounds by way of Dr. Seuss. Generations of monks, hermits, and other Way-farers burrowed their homes and prayers into into this peculiar terrain. We stayed in a cave hotel in Ürgüp (like you do), by day wandering into chambers where people had given decades of their lives to seeking God. Imagine: someone spending decades in a space not much larger than a walk-in closet, offering their attention to the Sacred. And here I was, sixteen centuries after these great communitarian philosopher-mystics, enjoying the benefits of indoor plumbing while trying to feel my way into their world. Running my fingers over one of those chapel walls, I found myself thinking about the message these Cappadocians sought to transmit, their own way of effing the ineffable. What the earliest apprentices of Jesus called kerygma and didache, and what later generations called 'doctrine'—not a word that generally inspires warmth in my post-evangelical heart. But what if life-giving teaching is more like tufa? Something we receive from our ancestors, yes, but also something we’re invited to work with, even inhabit: malleable enough to make space for a life, enduring enough that others might find shelter there centuries after we’re gone. How different from the dogmatic fortresses many of us grew up learning to defend. I wonder if the Cappadocians, in their own way, were inviting us to become spiritual artisans rather than theological border guards. My journey through Cappadocia would draw me deeper into the status-emptying mysticism of becoming a lover-in-formation (via the great Cappadocian Mother, St. Macrina the Younger), as well as awkwardly attempting ancient devotional Mevlevi turning practice in a Caravanserai courtyard with Aline. You don't want to miss this one: genuinemichael.substack.com/…

Thanks, y’all. I’m humbled that you keep reading. 🙏🏼 genuinemichael.substack.com

I'm proud of the work Fr. @RichardRohrOFM and I did on 'The Divine Dance' a decade ago. We open the book boldly: “Whatever is going on in God is a flow, a radical relatedness, a perfect communion between Three — a circle dance of love. And God is not just a dancer; God is the dance itself.” And we give an incisive diagnosis of the human condition: “The greatest dis-ease facing humanity right now is our profound and painful sense of disconnection—disconnection from God, certainly, but also from ourselves (our bodies and True Selves), from each other, and from creation. We see this in political corruption, ecological devastation, war and violence, fearing and even hating each other because of our differences, whether race, religion, or sexual orientation. Our world needs to be reminded of our interdependence and our inherent union with what is. [We] believe the Trinity can teach us how to live in creative collaboration, valuing and honoring our differences while also serving each other with humility and compassion. The Divine Dance is a meditation on how we can begin to live into a new reality based on connection instead of alienation, objective relationship instead of private autonomy. ‘In the beginning is Relationship,’ Trinity proclaims.” But the world has changed since 2016, and so have I. Reflecting on my lived experience and some honest push-back I've heard from some friendly (and not-so-friendly) critics, there are a couple elements of our book I'd gently amend today. I get into it in today's reflection, a continued celebration of 'The Divine Dance' at Ten, and where this wild journey with Trinity has taken me. Read on if you want to know: genuinemichael.substack.com/…

CN: Sexual assault, violence Dear Brothers: Nine years ago this week, I wrote you a letter. I’d recently moved to the mountains of Asheville, #MeToo was cresting across our every feed, and I suggested we were entering a sea-change: for generations, our unconscious actions and ways of being toward women had gone unnoticed, been accepted by default, or even celebrated. But the tide was finally turning. You shared that letter more than 20,000 times in its first month. Some of you wrote back. A few of you found your way into transformative men’s work because of it, which I’m so grateful for. I’d been thinking of those words when I spoke on the phone with someone dear to me recently; she could barely speak on the other end. She was a bundle of rage, grief, incredulity, and weariness. One of her rapists was just appointed to a position of authority, where he’d have access to young women. And the #Cornell7 was cresting across her every feed, as it had mine. “I haven’t even looked into what this Cornell frat stuff is all about,” she told me between sobs and angry silences. “I just see all these people going on and on about it on social media, wringing their hands. Talking about it’s not going to do a damn thing to make women safer; it never does. It isn’t safe for us to exist, and it isn’t fair that we’re left holding the bag, expected to ‘heal’ and go on like nothing happened, as though we haven’t been traumatized for life. I feel like my best years have been stolen from me.” She gave me permission to share this here. And so it’s for her – and countless other friends, lovers, and partners like her – that I write to you again. Because in 2017 the tide did turn, brothers. And when it went out, it exposed what had been lying on the seabed all along. Back then, the headlines belonged to men with obvious power: moguls, anchors, a film producer, and politicians from both sides of the aisle. It was easy to file the problem under them – rich, famous men with assistants and NDAs. The stories of the last two years won’t let us off that easy. They’re about husbands and neighbors, strangers in chatrooms, influencers with millions of teenage followers, and college guys on a group text. They’re about ordinary men, and about the other ordinary men who knew what was happening and said nothing. So let’s talk again, among ourselves. This isn’t going to be easy, but we can’t flinch away and pretend this isn’t our problem. It is. Men, I invite you to read my full reflection. And let's have a conversation about it: genuinemichael.substack.com/…

Walkin' with you down through Echo Park The ghosts fillin' the trees The fire never understands the spark The way it is with you and me — @josepharthur (words & art)

Truer words… Chicago-bound! Soularize here I come!

You like me; you really like me 🥹 Truly: thank you for the love, y'all. I'm glad you're digging the new Substack; if you keep reading, I promise to keep writing: practices, parables, and provocations for us in these bone-weary times. Get in, champ: We're re-sprouting faith from the compost up! 🌱 genuinemichael.substack.com

Keep reading to find out if I'm the secret love child of Philip K. Dick... genuinemichael.substack.com/…

I was supposed to speak most of this out loud. Last month I was driving on-site to the pitched tents of the @WildGooseFest, in a bucolic setting named VanHoy Farms in Harmony, North Carolina. I was set to give festival-goers a keynote marking the decade since Fr. Richard Rohr and I birthed The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation into the world. ‘The Goose,’ as this annual gathering is affectionately known, is a happening I helped sow fifteen years ago in a field full of justice-seekers and contemplatives and a frankly heroic number of folding chairs. While I haven’t been on staff in years, I contribute something each season she comes ‘round, either up-front or behind-the-scenes. More than anywhere else in this flesh-and-blood world, the Goose feels like a homecoming of God’s peculiar family tree. I’d spent the better part of a year crafting my Divine Dance retrospective, reflecting on my life while reading everything from fourth-century funeral orations to a peer-reviewed article gently scolding people like me for misusing a Greek word. Driving to Harmony for day three of the festival, I had a singing bowl riding shotgun and a Rublev icon wrapped in a keffiyeh on the back seat. I started seeing texts in the group chat warning of a storm brewing — and it wasn’t Starchild’s Turkish hummus being too spicy at the Wildlings Camp potluck. It was a literal cloud-darkening, foreboding weather front. And somewhere on that last stretch of road I saw it: the sky opened up, monsoon-grade rain, wind like a freight train. It felt uncomfortably similar to Hurricane Helene, the deluge that ravaged my home city of Asheville nearly two years before. By the time I arrived, my tabernacle venue (along with a good many others) was twisted and lying flat in the mud. My session was cancelled, as was virtually everyone’s. Word was that an even more severe storm was on its way; we were all being herded to ‘the coliseum,’ the large permanent structure at the center of the campground, which dug into the earth, descending bleachers mostly below-ground. I checked on my Wildlings: Rainier and Kristi? Fran and Carl ‘Skye’ McColman? KJ Song? Jo’el? Bec? Fr. Castello? Aline? Sarah and family? Jon Carl, Joe Michael, Rex, Starchild? All present, accounted for, and schmoozing amid the tamped-down mud between megaphone announcements: No further storm on the horizon. And nobody was seriously hurt, thank God. Beyond my initial wave of relief, my next thought was not especially sanctified: a year of effort, poof! Gone with the wind. My next thought recovered a little: Well, that’s on-theme. The talk was about a God Whose very being is One-yet-Three at home in one another, a God who once pitched a tent among us and keeps on dancing even when your tent looks like a squashed bug.