Meet the Exmos

This post is addressed primarily to my Mormon friends. I want to tell you all about some really cool people that you may not know much about: the Exmormons, a.k.a. the Exmos.

(A photo of our Colorado Exmormon Superfriends family gathering in Denver in September,
pixelated to protect those Superfriends who aren't ready for their secret identity to be exposed.)

Some of you might recoil at the word "exmormon." So if that just gave you the heebie-jeebies, then this may not be the post for you. But then again, in that case I especially hope you'll read this, so please hang with me.

Because if "exmormon" carries for you a very negative connotation, maybe synonymous with "Anti-Mormon" or "Apostate" or "Anti-Christ", then my hope here is to show you there is a difference, as well as simply to give a shout out to my peeps, who don't get enough love and respect. Most of us don't consider ourselves anti-anything. We would prefer pro-equality, pro-truth, and pro-love. We don't care so much about "bringing the church down, and making all men miserable like unto ourselves!" as we do about empowering people, who may be trapped by culture, geography and religious dogma, to live their lives in harmony with truth, and to be their most authentic selves.

I don't want to persuade you to join us or believe that our way of being is the best way of being, so rest easy. But I do want to help you see us--this eclectic, vibrant, growing group to which many of your family and friends now belong, or will in the future--in a kinder light. We didn't leave for the cliches of sin, pride, or taking offense. This is not a group of morally bankrupt people, or people who have betrayed their birthright and sold their soul to the devil. In actuality, it's a totally amazing group. People of the highest intelligence and integrity. People I love hanging out with. People of incredible moral courage.

Seriously, imagine someone you love having to make the heart-wrenching decision to step away from their family and culture, with the threat of their eternal soul hanging in the balance, because they feel compelled to follow a higher truth they've reluctantly discovered. Imagine someone determined to "do what is right, let the consequence follow." Maybe you disagree with their decision, but hopefully you can at least see the courage and humanity in their choice. We celebrate fictional heroes like Truman Burbank and John Dunbar and Jake Sully who leave their culture at great cost to embrace a new way of being.  And real heroes like Jackie Robinson, Susan B Anthony, and even bodhisattvas like Jesus and the Buddha, for their courage and grace in crossing cultural boundaries, for their unwillingness to passively persist in a stagnant status quo. These are all examples of frontier explorers, people with soul power, with strong medicine.  Maybe you can find a way to consider the exmos in your life the way they consider themselves, at least a little bit, at least in our best moments: as humble followers of truth. Maybe even as, ahem, pioneers.

Exmormons don't aspire to perfection. It's safe to say we relish our imperfections. But as a group, we do tend to be principled, creative, witty, compassionate. Also, at times irreverent, damaged, erratic and angry. Regrettably, it sometimes happens that, once the constraints of religion are removed, some exmos flounder in the subsequent chaos and make poor life decisions, getting caught up in the excesses of things that were once taboo. (And can you blame them? They were told their whole life that drinking coffee was a sin grave enough to prevent their eternal salvation, only to find out that it's actually good for them, not to mention totally delicious. So what else have they been missing out on???) I feel nothing but compassion for these wounded friends. There but for the grace of Gaia go I. But this proverbial "going off the deep end" happens much less than most Mormons are led to reflexively believe. Without a doubt, most exmormons I know would say their lives are exponentially better out of the church than in, despite the enormous social and family costs. (Don't believe me? Ask one of them!) We honestly feel that leaving the church was both the hardest and best decision we ever made. We lost so much, but the price was worth the reward of finally feeling comfortable in our own skin in this preciously short life that is the only one we have to live. So it's a mixed bag. Exmos are both fully human and fully divine, just like Jesus, just like Mormons, just like anyone. In short, exmos rock.

More pixelated exmos at our November gathering.

Even among this group, "exmormon" is a controversial word. Some prefer "Post-Mormon," or "New Order Mormon" or "Non-Traditional Mormon" or "Mormon In Transition." Many prefer to lose the Mormon moniker altogether and adopt something new: "Christian" or "Buddhist," or often "Agnostic" or "Secular Humanist" or even the dreaded A-word, "Atheist." I'm personally a fan of ditching labels completely. Forget Mormon or Exmormon, Republican or Democrat, American or Foreigner, Doctor or Lawyer. How about just "Mark, Human Being And Fellow Traveler On The Highway Of Life." (All right, so that's not specific or confidence-inspiring enough if, say, someone comes to me for medical advice about their hemorrhoids. I guess there are pragmatic reasons to use labels.)

For simplicity's sake, I typically use the term "exmormon." Because it's crystal clear. It instantly delineates our status in regards to the institution that, for the vast majority of our lives, enveloped us like our own skin, that taught us to believe from the earliest age that, in matters of self-identification, "I'm a Mormon, true blue, through and through!" came before all else. So "exmormon" is in part a one-word declaration of independence from the church that we feel interposed itself between us and God, that claimed to be our "only pathway to salvation", and that demanded our adherence to its proscribed lifestyle as the unquestionable "manner of happiness." We've found that there are, in fact, other ways.

Like it or not, the cumulative burden of our lifetime of intimate interactions with the Church, in doctrine, organization, and culture--even underwear!--in both positive and negative ways, was and perhaps always will be a pivotal--perhaps the most pivotal--influence in our lives. Removing ourselves from it now, or twenty years ago, doesn't make that ubiquitous influence disappear. I've told my children, when they've asked why I can't just forget about it or move on, that it took me thirty five years to be so entirely wrapped up in it, body and soul, so immersed that I couldn't see heads or tails anymore, couldn't even tell who I was without it, or fathom a life separated from it, that I'm expecting at least another thirty five years to unwrap it all. (That'll put me at seventy, and then I look forward to a final fifteen blissful years in a truly post-Mormon world. Or dementia, which at that point may be indistinguishable.) But at least for my children, they won't have to spend a lifetime untying that knot. The point is that many of us find that the church continues to define us, at least for the time being, in absentia, although we look forward to the day when hopefully it won't.

Here's a pro-tip: one sure way of making any exmo mad is for a believing Mormon to reply to a critique we may offer towards the church with the tired, brain-freezing axiom: "You can leave the church, but you can't leave the church alone, eh, buddy?" Well, that doesn't cut it. Try engaging the issue next time. And consider that, in a way, our continued interest in church affairs is indicative of our prior level of involvement, and a reflection of how deeply we believed. Our roots are intertwined. Imagine ripping off your own siamese twin. That's gonna hurt, and you might want to talk it about for a while, although you might have to stop the bleeding first.

This continued interest in the church is also indicative of our ingrained missionary zeal to share truth once we've found it. (Now where would we get that idea from?) While we (most of us) freely acknowledge that many people will remain happiest within the church, we're aware that there are many, like ourselves, for whom the constraints are too suffocating, even life-threatening. I concede that many of us exmos could benefit from better tools in dialogue (see Jacob's and my Third Space project). Unlike our proselytizing mission experiences and efforts to convert our neighbors, it would be good for us, now that we're exmos, to stop trying to change others' earnestly held religious beliefs. Yet I don't blame any of us for trying. We didn't create the dichotomous thinking, the dire stakes, the us vs. them mentality, that permeates Mormon doctrine and culture. "Each of us has to face the matter--either the church is true, or it is a fraud. There is no middle ground. It is the church and the kingdom of God, or it is nothing." (Gordon B Hinckley, LDS Prophet, in a 2003 general conference address.) All right, so I just found out it's not true. So taking you at your word, President Hinckley, where does that leave me? Shouldn't I at least tell the people I care about . . . ?

So in a way, that continued interest and occasional antagonism is a way of honoring the depth of commitment and love we once held for the church, and of our family and friends still in it. Speaking personally, the church gave me a lifetime of good memories. It brought me a happy childhood full of warm family moments, it gave me structure, values, identity and purpose as a young man in a morally chaotic world, a blueprint for clean living and an aversion to (fear of) drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and premarital sex. It gave me my incredible experiences in Brazil, a second language, many of my very best friends, and even my beautiful wife, and by extension my kids. I'll always be grateful for that foundation. In a real way, I don't regret being raised in the church. I owe a lot to it. And yet I'm still so glad that I found my way out. It's complicated.

(Here's an unpixelated, genuine exmo family, wearing the jerseys of the One True Team.)

When Elizabeth and I left the church five years ago, we did so in total isolation. We had nobody to cling to but each other. It remained that way for well over two years. Then, through some harmonic convergence, I reconnected with my friend Karl, who lives locally and has walked many similar spiritual paths. This connection provided an outlet and sounding board for me to be able to process my experiences. Then I slowly began to engage in some internet forums, and was amazed to find that there were people like me out there. Thousands of them. Good people who saw the world the way I did. That saw their leaving not as a defeat, but as a bold, necessary step into a brave new world to keep their sanity and integrity. Through more harmonic convergence, we finally encountered a family just like ours, the Whitakers, who lived just a few miles away. Our two families kept our heads up, and soon began to meet more and more folks from Colorado. We planned a few get-togethers. College students, retired couples, recently divorced, newlyweds. Men and women, doctors and lawyers, and PhDs by the boatload. And lots of families with kids. Such a diverse group, yet so many similarities in our journeys, chief among them the fact that all of us had made at some point a soul-piercing, life-altering, socially-ostracizing decision, and were now seeking to rebuild a community out of that rubble

Eventually we formed a facebook group, which, after merging with some other existing groups, has grown to 168 members in under ten months, getting bigger every day, and representing well over 300 total people all over the state, because kids. Lots of kids. (Duh, we were all Mormon.) We get together at least once a month, and usually more. We commiserate, we console, we laugh, we share. It's incredibly accepting, supportive, funny, incisive and smart. Honestly, participating in the development of this group has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. I have no idea where it goes from here, but we've got a good foundation and a lot of positive energy.

So if you're Mormon, now you know that we exist, and at least a little about who we are, and how we view ourselves. And if you live in Colorado and you're exmormon, or in some manner questioning your relationship with the church, and want to join us, give me a shout. I'll hook you up. And no matter where you are, I have great news. There is a now a website called Mormon Spectrum that contains information about similar groups all over the globe. Seriously, no matter where you live, there's probably a group somewhere close. These are in-person groups, like ours here in Colorado. Not only has the internet revolutionized the access to information, but as the global exmormon community has matured, it has now distilled back down out of cyberspace and into your local geography like the dews of heaven, giving you a chance to meet someone--a real live human who will accept you for who you are!--for coffee, or a hike, or a play date. Which doesn't replace that close-knit, all-inclusive community the church once offered, but it's a start, and you can be a part of it.

In summary, I repeat: exmos rock. I'm proud of you, and proud to be counted among you. It's good company to be in. And for believing Mormons who are still reading this, don't be afraid. In the end, labels aside, we're just people like you, trying our best to make sense of this short life while we scratch out a living. So if we can't agree on or even talk about religion, let's find a comfortable place, a Third Space, perhaps, where we can see each other not as enemies, but as people. Just people, trying to do our best and learning to get along. Fellow travelers on the highway of life. Or something like that.

(And lastly, here is a picture of a happy exmo man with his gorgeous exmo wife who has some sort of Age of Adeline thing going on, because he's getting older and she's not.
Sadly, this guy left the church and got cancer.  :(
But then his cancer was miraculously (or at least robotically) cured,
which isn't sad at all, so there's that.)

The Third Space

Going to change direction for a little while with this blog. I'm going to start a "cross-blog dialogue" with my friend and sometimes-collaborator Jacob Hess, discussing primarily how Mormons (like Jacob) and former Mormons (like me) can have productive conversations and fulfilling friendships in spite of religious divisions. Jacob and I both have experienced--acutely and painfully--this divide in our own lives, and we've both made big mistakes in trying to bridge it. Fortunately, we think we may have learned a thing or two in the process. Through this project, we're hopeful we might sneak up on a practical framework that others could utilize as they try to navigate these choppy waters in their own lives. We envision a "big tent" where family and friends can put aside religious differences and focus on the people and relationships beneath them, experiencing deep connection, understanding, and unconditional acceptance. We're calling this tent "The Third Space." 

We don't see Third Space like a Venn diagram, where we have "my world view" over here, and "your world view" over there, and their overlap is where we meet to discuss, leaving the outlying parts alone. While that's a framework that has some practical merit, discussing areas of overlapping interests is not exactly what we're describing. 

We envision Third Space more like a family cabin. Not my home. Not your home. It's a separate but complete living space where we each have a stake in joint ownership. We have to pack our own bags, but only with what's most essential. We have to vacate the comforts of our own home, where everything is just the way we like it, and travel some rocky roads. And then we have to sit together on that tattered old couch, look into the face of a person we once thought we knew so well, and figure out if and how we're going to respect, understand, and love each other in this new space. 

Third Space isn't going to work for everybody. In fact, it's probably not possible or even desirable for many people or circumstances. Sometimes, relationships are frayed enough, histories so complex, vulnerabilities so pronounced, that everybody is better off staying at home for a while, or even forever. That's okay. But for those of us who want something more, who want to feel that closeness and acceptance we once felt from our family and friends, we think a weekend in the Third Space cabin might do us a world of good.

Jacob and I have been talking about this stuff for several years now, but our acquaintance precedes that by a decade. We first met at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah many years ago. I was teacher there: a BYU student and former LDS missionary recently returned from Brazil. I taught Portuguese, gospel doctrine, and missionary skills to Jacob's class of new Mormon Elders headed to Brazil. We fell out of contact after that, then reconnected by chance at a conference in North Carolina on alternative mental health care over a decade later. A lot had changed in that timeframe. I was now a practicing family physician; Jacob had attained a PhD in community psychology. Due to the nature of the conference, we found areas of instant rapport. In the years since, we've worked on several projects and papers together in the mental health arena.

But perhaps the biggest thing that had changed was that I was no longer Mormon. When this came up in our first conversation, I was struck that Jacob, unlike virtually every other Mormon I had known up to that point, wanted to dive deeper. This came instinctively to him. He wanted to understand my reasons. He expressed empathy and support, without compromising his own convictions. This was highly unusual--and welcome--stuff.

This had led since to numerous discussions via email and phone on the subject of faith and family across the Mormon/post-Mormon divide, often very intense and occasionally bordering on confrontational. But even when the ride has gotten rough, we've "stayed in the saddle." We seem to have developed a level of trust that allows us to know that the other person is genuine in their motives and intent, and keeps the other's best interest in mind, even when that conflicts directly with what seems like crucial parts of our own worldview. In other words, Jacob can think I'm totally wrong about really important stuff, and yet I'm confident he still respects me. And vice versa.

Due to this friendship and shared experience, as well our individual training and natural interest in exploring boundaries and seeking harmony, we've happened upon some things that might be useful to others. We learned how emotions, logic and language can both connect and divide. We know personally many--dozens, hundreds, way TOO many--people who are currently suffering from fractured relationships across this divide. There is a need for better tools, a better framework, in how to handle it, because it's not going away, and life is short. That we can all agree on.  

So we're going to give Third Space a try. And rather than just tell you about it, we're going to try to demonstrate, by engaging in substantive, earnest, challenging dialogue about this highly polarized subject.

It's an experiment. So, Jacob, let it begin, my friend.

(Here's a link to Jacob's blog. Please read it, too!) 

Why Some People Reject Their Belief System

The Power of the Scientific Method

Feelings are great. I love feelings. But I propose that they're unreliable as a means of discerning things that are true. I have a favorite flavor of ice cream. I love it. I feel happy and hungry just thinking about it. But that doesn't mean Cookies & Cream is true.

So what's our best method for telling if something is true? When a truth claim is made, such as "the sun revolves around the earth" or "the human race is only 6,000 years old," we test it. We scrutinize it. We try to disprove it. We revise our ideas when our results don't match our prior hypothesis. And in the end, the things that are left standing we can say with confidence are true, at least within our current reference frame, and within our limits to discern and understand them. And this is always open-ended, ready to be revised if new evidence arises. 

So my friends, don't doubt your doubts. Embrace them. Take them on as a challenge. Put them to the test. Every great advance in human history has been made because someone had the intelligence, courage and integrity to challenge the status quo, to question what everyone else accepted unquestioningly as true. 

Science is not "true." It's a way of thinking about the world. The scientific method is a tool, and the best one we have for discovering what is true.

The Search For Meaning Requires Tension and Suffering

"Not every conflict is necessarily neurotic; some amount of conflict is normal and healthy. In a similar sense suffering is not always a pathological phenomenon . . . suffering may well be a human achievement, especially if the suffering grows out of existential frustration. Existential frustration is in itself neither pathological nor pathogenic. A man's concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease. It may well be that interpreting the first in terms of the latter motivates a doctor to bury his patient's existential despair under a heap of tranquilizing drugs. It (should be) his task, rather, to pilot the patient through his existential crises . . . To be sure, man's search for meaning may arouse inner tension rather than inner equilibrium. However, precisely such tension is an indispensable prerequisite of mental health. There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one's life. In the Nazi concentration camps . . . those who knew that there was a task waiting for them to fulfill were most apt to survive. I consider it a dangerous misconception of mental hygiene to assume that what man needs in the first place is equilibrium or, as it is called in biology, 'homeostasis,' i.e., a tensionless state. What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him."

--from "Man's Search For Meaning" by Viktor Frankl

Beauty and Uncertainty

"I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here, and what the question might mean. I might think about it a little bit and if I can't figure it out, then I go on to something else, but I don't have to know an answer, I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is so far as I can tell. It doesn't frighten me." -- Richard Feynman, "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out." (Full text of the interview)

You Are Already That Which You Seek

Today I turn forty one, which was supposed to mark the end of this year-long spiritual quest. It's been a good run, folks. A crazy year. Beginning with stability. Ending in turmoil. One marathon down. One new job on the horizon. One less appendix. Twelve fewer months on the ticking clock. I've learned a ton, had some great experiences, enjoyed precious time with my wife and children, developed some new connections, written some new songs, dreamed some new dreams.

But I've got to be honest with you. In terms of ultimate answers, I've got nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

To anyone with a shred of self-awareness and wisdom, this should come as no surprise, like it was to me. I'm actually okay with it now. More than okay. The lack of answers gives me tremendous relief, a heightened awareness of the preciousness of my own life. One might even call it a sense of enlightenment.

This isn't for lack of trying. In fact, all the striving for meaning seems to have had the opposite effect. Digging a deeper hole and consistently coming up empty, the disappointment always increasing with the depth. I searched, pondered and prayed. I meditated and yoga-ed, attended churches and Buddhist temples. I read like a man on fire, starting with Lao Tzu, ending with Shakespeare. I tried to build structural dams--programs, schedules, goals--to contain and harness the free-flowing river of my life. But they didn't hold.

And now I'm staring at another twelve months, another forty-four years (if I'm lucky), with less hope for answers than I had a year ago. But also one less question.

In a great and wholly predictable irony, I have found that in the quest for meaning and purpose after Mormonism, there is none to be found, not in any ultimate sense. So time to stop asking the question. It's sort of like asking what happened before the Big Bang. To ask the question is to fundamentally misunderstand the material.

This doesn't mean that life is meaningless. Au contraire. I feel that my life is profoundly meaningful, in an entirely subjective way. But in the ultimate sense, it is not. Or if there is ultimate purpose, it is ultimately unknowable, and therefore irrelevant. Anyone who tells you different is selling something.

More succinctly put: "The meaning of life is to give life meaning." Maybe the most important part of that lovely turn of phrase is the period at the end. No caveats. No afterlife to make sense of it all. No man in the sky (or on Kolob, as the case may be) to correct your error, speak truth as with the voice of thunder, or judge the quality of your life.

Give your life a meaning, and that shall be the meaning of your life. Thus saith the Lord, whoever you conceive that to be.

This actually gives me more empathy towards Mormonism and other religions. They are systems of values and meaning. They work for a lot of people, bringing them happiness, stability and community. They may be completely incongruent with reality, but what is reality? We all see it through the glass darkly. And if the dark glass you're looking through is religion, and if it's working for you, then great. Don't rock that boat. I remember the old dream of "dying with your testimony intact and your eternal salvation assured." Seemed like a good idea at the time. That sense of certainty is a tough thing to let go of. It's a long hard fall from there.

(The rub is when you discover that your system of values is incongruent with reality AND causes harm to other people. In a truthful and just society, that should prompt a recalibration. But that's a discussion for another day . . .)

I do believe that most everyone is doing the best they can to see accurately through the glass they've been given. But for many, that glass will one day break, the walls will collapse, and you will be forced to confront a new paradigm of reality. You will be cast out of the garden of Eden and must enter the lone and dreary world. Now, with enhanced metaphorical power, you will be separated from what you believed to be God, and must find your way back through mists of darkness towards the Tree of Life. But upon arrival, you may find that tree, even the wilderness you are traversing, is just another pane in another stain glass wall, like all those others broken behind you.

And so it goes. We frustrate ourselves by breaking glass wall after glass wall, never arriving at the center of the maze. I guess that's okay. Gives us something to do. But maybe sometimes--due to a prick of conscience, a life experience, sheer boredom--we become inclined, for a brief moment, to stop the mad striving. In that place of respite, once our breath stops fogging the glass, we see the wall for what it is. And then maybe, instead of breaking it, we pause, stop looking beyond it, and finally see ourselves reflected.

Thus shall I bringeth this to a close. In spite of all I've just written, this quest is not going away, neither the blog. (Sorry.) With all of these epiphanies also comes a measure of self-awareness, and there is simply something hardwired within me that must strive. I am a seeker, and a quintessential American. The rugged western individualist who must bend the world to his will. Always going, never arriving, but still blogging about it, and newly unburdened by the nagging sense that there is still a holy grail somewhere from which I must drink.

I can think of no better way to close this year's spiritual questing than with the words of that spiritual giant, the great Eminem, who once said, "I can't tell you what it really is / I can only tell you what it feels like / And right now it's a steel knife in my wind pipe / I can't breathe but I still fight while I can fight." Or more pertinently, "Look, if you had one shot, one opportunity, to seize everything you ever wanted, in one moment, would you capture it? Or just let it slip."

Listen to what Eminem is teaching us: Lose yourself . . . to find yourself. 

Or what so many other sages throughout time have concluded:

• The road ends where the sky begins.
• The course of the Lord is one eternal round.
• Now is forever. Forever is now.
• The kingdom of God is within you.
• You are already that which you seek.

And while I'm not labeling myself anything particular, here's a bunch of humanist/atheist folks who share this central insight much more eloquently than me.

And here's a link to my first post a year ago, a preamble, which strangely makes today's post seem more like a reformulation. I am glad to have written what I've written this year. It's my journey. These have been some of the way stations. I'm hopeful someone somewhere got some benefit.

I think all of this--these few paragraphs today, these last twelve months--has been a way of saying something that, in the end, nobody else cares about. Not really.

But I care, so I'll say it. Hey, Mark Elliott Foster and anyone else out there of like mind and spirit in this incomprehensibly vast and beautiful universe, welcome to uncertainty.

Appendicitis and the Narrowed Clarity of Purpose

This past Thursday, at the stroke of midnight on our sixteenth wedding anniversary, I awoke from surgery, cleared the anesthetic cobwebs, and was overcome by one singular sweet sensation that flooded my mind as both a thought and a feeling: the pain was gone. That awareness, the exquisiteness of that recognition of relief, brought a sudden halting laugh and a few tears along with it, thus announcing to the battle-hardened PACU nurse that I was indeed alive and well, and rather loopy.

It wasn't just the drugs--though I had some good ones on board by then that I'm sure obliterated any residual pain and augmented my loopiness. But between closing my eyes in the OR and opening them an instant (actually forty-five minutes) later, the poison had been removed. My festering appendix that had reduced me to a moaning quivering shell of a man was gone, surgerized by the expert Dr. Quan and her staff. With the appendix gone, so was my pain.

And my next thought was even more sweet: where's Elizabeth? She had suffered with me, staying by my bedside on a most unromantic evening for a good seven hours while I waited for surgery, a bright angel on a dark night. I just wanted to hold her hand again. Happy anniversary, sweetheart.

I don't mean to present my appendicitis as some sort of true catastrophe. No, in the big scheme, this is small potatoes. (Actually, about the size of a green bean, a vestigial hollow piece of colon attached like a stalk at the base of the cecum.) It's a common condition and a safe surgical procedure, done laparoscopically so all I'm left with are three pencil-width wounds on my belly. Five days later and I'm feeling almost back to normal. I'll be back at work tomorrow.

But in the context of my normal life, the timing and setting could hardly have been worse or more dramatic. The pain was as severe and unrelenting as anything I've ever experienced, so I'm going to call it a mini-catastrophe. And within this mini-catastrophe, something surprising but altogether welcome occurred: a swirling vortex of impending and seemingly weighty life decisions and their accompanying angst just drifted away.

Without going into details, I've had a stressful few weeks concerning the future of my clinic and my career. This is my prime excuse for not writing recently, for not expounding upon this quixotic spiritual quest I embarked on nearly twelve months ago. (I know, you've been biting your fingernails waiting for the next installment.) But I've had no available bandwidth to engage deeper existential questions. On the spiritual spiral, I've of late regressed into contemplating more mundane problems, namely, how am I going to steer my career, chase my dreams, and still put food on the table. (Or last Thursday night, how am I going to get some dang pain relief?) I haven't been sleeping well, feeling on edge, flailing in the uncertainty of it all, which perhaps suppressed my immune system and allowed the appendicitis to develop . . . ? Nah, I've had way more stressful times in which the appendix held up just fine. I think in the end this was a random lightning strike, no matter what meaning I might attribute to it. But the fact is that this event did occur, most strangely, at a time of heightened anxieties, and what feels like a crossroads.

But suddenly none of that mattered. Well, not suddenly. I had woken up Thursday morning after a nearly sleepless night due to a) worry and b) what I thought was indigestion. Dull ache right around my belly button. Greasy hamburger the night before. No big deal. I was consumed with thoughts about my clinic and staff. But as the morning progressed, so did the belly pain. Maybe just constipation? I thought it would fade. I was still hoping to pull off the romantic anniversary trip that I had planned for Elizabeth, which unceremoniously ended thirty minutes after checking into the hotel, when I found myself laying on the floor next to the toilet, moaning, dizzy, feverish, nauseous, strong indications that a) this was more than just constipation, and b) our impending couple's massage was not going to happen. I pushed on my right lower abdomen. Yowzers! So that's McBurneys! At this point, any halfwit second year medical student could have made the diagnosis. My wife explained the situation to the hotel manager, who graciously offered us a raincheck, and we headed to the ER, a torturous twenty minute stop-and-go ride hitting every possible bump through rush hour traffic on the way to Swedish Hospital.

By the time we got there, my pain had crescendoed. I staggered into the waiting room, barely able to compose a complete sentence to the completely unimpressed triage lady. "Why are you here?" Uh-uh-abdominal pain. "On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your pain, ten being the worst pain imaginable?" (At this point, a Brian Regan skit came to mind.) Eight. No, no . . . nine.

Before long, I was in a room with the IV running, pain meds on board, but still writhing in pain. My incredible primary doctor and friend, Dr. Groce, came personally to the hospital to deliver the news. White blood cells, 16.8. CT scan positive showed a fecolith, fat stranding, and dilated appendix. I met the nice surgeon, Dr. Quan who would soon ride to the rescue, but . . . it was going to be another six hours before an OR suite became available. I would be moved to a room upstairs and brought back down to pre-op in about five hours.

This was most disappointing news ever. In spite of powerful meds, my pain had actually gotten worse, and now seemed inescapable. They gave me another and then another dose of potent narcotics. I became somewhat sedated, but still with the awareness of this bone-deep ache in my belly that hurt with the slightest movement. There was a poison wreaking havoc inside of me that nothing could mask. In all seriousness, in that extremis, death did not seem an unpleasant alternative. I gripped Elizabeth's hand, and began counting down the hours. Absolutely nothing else mattered to me. The operating system of my brain had frozen on the word PAIN. I had regressed all the way down the spiral, my brain a ball of red hot neurons. I was white-knuckling it and just hoping to outlast the pain until relief came.

And then . . . I was whisked to the OR, closing my eyes and quite literally before I knew it (so weird how anesthesia renders the passage of time instantaneous) I was awakening to that most glorious, definitive relief of pain. Hallelujah. Cue the laughter and tears.

We have friends, Megan and Rick, whose home burnt down this week. (Here is a website where you can help their recovery.) I was speaking this weekend with Megan's mother, who relayed to me that two nights after the fire (coincidentally on the same night as my appendectomy), Megan and her kids celebrated Rick's birthday in a hotel room, newly aware that everything--photos, clothes, appliances--in the home had been destroyed and that their family would be displaced for at least six months. And yet as they ate birthday cake while sitting on the floor, they looked at each other and began to cry, but tears of relief. They had lost everything, and yet they had everything--each other, their kids, their dog, their health, their lives. Everything of value. Everything they needed. Their community had reached out to them in love and relief. They would survive this Catastrophe (this one with a capital C.)

As she shared this story, it resonated acutely with me. I've just experienced a similar unexpected life simplification, induced by a mini-catastrophe. I'll call this disruptive epiphany the Narrowed Clarity of Purpose.

All this other stuff that has seemed so weighty? The job negotiations? The search for meaning and purpose? So first-world. I'm honestly grateful for this experience, for the brief respite it has provided in my ongoing mental and spiritual exertions, for placing in sharp relief what matters most. I've got a wife and children I love. I'm going to have a job. Food will be put on the table. (No greasy burgers for a while, just to be safe.) Life is good, and in a way that has much more meaning than a week ago, I'm pain-free. What a relief. I'm also appendix-free. One less thing to worry about.

Though there's always the gall bladder . . .

The Perfect Skipper

(a relevant, refurbished original poem about anticipation, disappointment, and resilience)

The wilderness traveler
happened upon the stone
and stooping seized it so to skim
out over the slow bend in the river.

The canyon walls were growing dim.
The blue stripe of sky had kept
for a day's time the cirrus clouds bound,
but now they ignited and burned
rose and apricot into their native chalk tone,
and seemed to unravel, or
suddenly grow fonder of infiniti and forever,
for without so much as a sound
they surrendered to the loftiest winds and dissipated.

Out along the river he merrily stepped,
and in his hand the thin flat rock turned.
Such a skipper as this,
he anticipated,
seven or eight times might kiss
the green and silver surface
yet still reach
the purple shale slides strewn
along the opposite beach.
And if on impact it should splinter?
Well, then--
it will have fulfilled its purpose.
He grinned,
cradled then gripped
his perfect skipper--
and with precision let it fly.

The downstream rapid's din
nearly disguised the kerplunk.
It skipped
not once, and then it was sunk.

Were it winter,
even late autumn,
it might have skated across like a hockey puck.
But swollen with the melted waters of June,
the green river bend
offered no such luck.
It absorbed the stone like a coin,
conducing it to join
its rolling gravel at the bottom.

For a long time he stared where the stone had gone.
It's just as well, he thought,
then looked to the deepening night sky,
taunting with its iridescent Dipper.

He spat, ambled on,
and soon forgot.

People Paradox

A wise physician once gave me these words of wisdom: "I went into family medicine because I wanted to work with people. Trouble is, people aren't all they're cracked up to be."

A wise nurse I worked with had this refrain, "There is a very thin line between love and hate."

It's no secret that our human relationships provide us with both with our greatest joys and greatest sufferings.

It's the romantic in me that often wants to reach out and embrace everyone and everything, pouring out unconditional peace, love and joy on this suffering world from my tender bleeding heart. But that well runs dry quickly, and that sort of reach leaves one's guts exposed.

It's the introvert in me that often wants--needs--to retreat within, to my fortress of solitude, to find my peace and presence there, my drishti, in something that's not moving, something more stable than these fickle human beings everywhere. But that sort of withdrawal usually leads to isolation and stagnation.

There's an incredible communal power that comes from being in an arena packed with U2 super fans and singing in unison, "I want to run, I want to hide, I want to tear down the walls that hold me inside, I want to reach out and touch the flame, where the streets have no name . . ."

And there's the misanthropy that is the inevitable result of elbowing your way through Walmart at 4 am on Black Friday as you try to get that HDTV for $299 but come away instead with a blender you don't need for $12, which maybe wasn't actually such a good deal after all?

I feel frequent tension between these two poles. I think most people are the same. It's what makes us both anticipate and dread reunions. It means that there is a great table of brotherhood that we all sit down at together, and there is a lonesome valley that we all must walk alone. 

I don't think these oscillations make us selfish or needy or unstable. It's a continuum of our life experience. It all comes in one package. It means we need intimacy as well as elbowroom, society as well as solitude. It means we're human.

(But as we know, humans aren't all they're cracked up to be.)

When I Heard the Learned Astronomer

Walt Whitman, 1819 - 1892

When I heard the learn’d astronomer, 
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, 
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, 
   and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with
   much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, 
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

(Special thanks to Jeff, who has this posted on his studio wall.)

Sunday Morning Routine

Yoga and coffee. Throw in a little spiritual wisdom from Pastor Steve.

That's the way Elizabeth and I spend our Sunday mornings now. It's the best.

The kids sleep in. We go to Monique's yoga class. It's a mixed level class, always packed with thirty or more people. For Elizabeth, it's a welcome chance to be a yoga student again, after having been an instructor all week. For me, it's a chance to stretch my super-tight hamstrings, strengthen my flabby core, and still my monkey mind. Monique brings an energy and gentle wisdom to her class, which always hums with a communal vibe. When we get to the final relaxation, shavasana, I'm ready to be fully present in that moment, in that darkness that "has no concept of space or time." It's the melting of the walls of mind, spirit, and body. It is a profoundly spiritual moment for me, one that I look forward to all week. "The light in me honors the light in you which is the light in everything."

But the serenity is only just beginning. Elizabeth and I then go to Atlas Coffee, a little local coffee shop that opened just down the street about a year ago. We order from the friendly young owner and the talented baristas. I get a pastry and a banana and make a meal of it. Then Elizabeth and I sit and chat about the week that was, and the week to come. There's no time pressure. All around us are other folks relaxed and visiting on a lazy Sunday morning. Again, that humming communal vibe.

When we get back to the kids, they're usually just stirring, watching baseball highlights or eating cereal. (So nice to have kids that are increasingly independent at home.)

Then, on weeks when I'm able, I head off to Columbine United Church to hear my friend, Pastor Steve, preach. It may seem strange that I go to church when I'm more agnostic than religious now. But it's not your normal church, and Steve's not your normal pastor. His theology and heart is open wide to the wonders of the Cosmos. (Here's a link to his most excellent sermon today.) He and I meet monthly for coffee, too, and our topics range from our relationships with our fathers to the the destiny of the Universe. He's one of my good friends and mentors, and I always come away from his sermons and our chats enriched with some true spiritual wisdom. Not only that, but on Sundays I get to enjoy the musical genius of Mitch Samu, their jazz pianist virtuoso music director, and his assembly of talented musicians. (And once in a while, I get to play some of my music there, too.)

Then I come home to my wife and kids, and we play chess, go fishing, watch baseball, or do home projects.

This is what I do now on Sunday mornings. In the post-Mormon community, this is often referred to as "Second Saturday." I love it. I feel spiritually enriched and recharged. I feel community. I feel freedom to think and breathe. It's a great way to end the old week and begin the new.

"Sometimes A Man Stands Up" by Rainer Maria Rilke

Sometimes a man stands up during supper
and walks outdoors, and keeps on walking,
because of a church that stands somewhere in the East.

And his children say blessings on him as if he were dead.

And another man, who remains inside his own house,
stays there, inside the dishes and in the glasses,
so that his children have to go far out into the world
toward that same church, which he forgot.

Writer's Block

I haven't posted in nearly a month, and I doubt anyone has been on the edge of their seat waiting for this one. My primary excuse: between work and family, life has been hectic. But that's nothing new. Not many extra hours to devote to writing. I've sat down multiple times to try to hammer something out, but nothing flows.

In my former life as an English major and wannabe best-selling-platinum-rock-star-novelist, I have become well-acquainted with writer's block. But I think there is something else going on. Namely, I've found myself a bit tired and bored with this whole "40th year quest" thing, to the point that I'm rethinking it all.

But it has occurred to me that whatever mental/spiritual fatigue I'm struggling with at the moment is probably relevant to the whole journey, and so while it may not be very interesting, you, dear reader, now get to read a post about my spiritual writer's block.

A little perspective: When I set the terms for this twelve month journey, starting with my 40th birthday, it was as "a spiritual quest for meaning after leaving Mormonism"--intent being to express my own experiences and insights, and hopefully to reach fellow seekers who may be struggling in their journey, to provide hope and perspective. I've wanted it to be primarily forward-looking, as in, "Okay, so where do we go from here?"

Initially, I felt a lot of energy for this, which surged again after my meditation retreat, and then again after a couple of rear-view-mirror posts in the dead of winter that were more widely read. I feel good about my intentions, the changes I've made in my life, what I've written about, and the overall direction I'm headed. But nine months in, and I'm starting to question some of my underlying assumptions:

Chaos Theory

• Books. I've done a lot of reading, and yet the stack on my nightstand grows larger by the week. So much to read, so little time. But does it make a difference? Does it make one iota of difference for me to read another book? Another ancient text or some book by a New Age-y guru who thinks he's got it figured out? I get it, we're all connected. Live in the moment. Create your own meaning, blah blah blah . . .
• Or meditation and yoga. I had some phenomenal experiences with it, felt like I had really turned a corner, but guess what? I come out of it, the kids are still fighting, I forgot to pay the electric bill, and there's a basketball game on. Back to the same old, same old.
• Exercise. This has been pretty consistent. I enjoy it and feel like I'm in good shape. I've lost some of the belly fat, set a personal record for 10K in the Colfax Marathon Relay last week . . . but I'm still scrawny up top, still can't touch my toes in yoga, still aware that this machine is getting older by the day, that the clock is ticking down now, and doubtful that my health and fitness will ever be substantially better than what it is at the moment. 
• What about the big ticket items?  Finish a marathon and pass board exams--check (barely) and check (grrrr). But then what? I've found myself, per usual, greatly anticipating upcoming vacations and events, to the detriment of whatever else is going on right now.

Right now. Hmmm. Part of my ennui seems to be emanating, paradoxically, from my recent reading of a phenomenal book, The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. I'll be reviewing that soon. (Something to look forward to, eh?)

The irony is that this book has indeed filled me with perspective and excitement about living fully in the present, practical ways to disassociate from my monkey mind, and how to simply bask in Being. I love it. It feels as simple, clear and true as anything I've yet read. And yet . . . these Nows just keep coming, don't they? Bills due. Patients to see. Deadlines to meet. So is there really any practical transcendence in being wholly in the Now, while life progresses relentlessly before and after that? We live in world where we survive by the sweat of our brow, that demands preparation for tomorrow, for the summer harvest or the winter famine, for another downturn in the economy, for our children's college educations, for the zombie apocalypse. Not going to let my children starve or my patients die just because I'm living blissfully in the Now. And so, reading a book that appears to approximate The Answer has become paradoxically frustrating, because it seems impractical and unattainable. (Unless of course we win the $1,000,000 sweepstakes from Albertsons this month, in which case I'll devote all of my time and energy to the pursuit of Pure Enlightenment.)

This is not surrender. This is my description of a difficult phase that is probably part and parcel with whatever journey I'm on, coming out at a time when I can't think of anything else useful to write. Breaking through this barrier will take some hardheadedness and tenacity. I'm kinda good at those. But this spiritual block also might be forcing a recalibration.

Here it is: I ain't gonna figure nothing out in the next three months, or the next three years, or the next thirty. There is no grand epiphany coming, no ascendance to a higher plain. There is the daily slog, and there are the intermittent joys, thrills, sorrows and absurdities. There is the journey. And I think that's all.

Maybe the simplest description of the Ultimate Grand Meaning of All Life and the Cosmos is this:

Now, just through writing here, I'm feeling a bit of the writer's block crumbling. Maybe priming the pump, and I guess this is called "powering through." I'm going to keep at this. I've got a few good things planned. I'm going to be reviewing soon the Tao Te Ching, the Baghavad Gita, and The Power of Now. I was hopeful to review War and Peace (seriously) and Moby Dick, but those aren't happening any time soon.

I have some funny moments in parenting and doctoring that I want to share. I want to share my awakening to the world of coffee and wine. I want to get out in nature and do some writing about the night sky. I have planned some more of my occasional diversions into the cosmic meaning of it all.

I also want to share some exciting developments in regards to the post-Mormon community here in Colorado. We're trying to help re-create community and support structures among those of us who've had our spiritual and social worlds collapse upon leaving the church.

My most exciting project is something I've been bantering about with my friend Jacob Hess, who has a PhD in community psychology. He's a believing Mormon and a good friend. We've engaged in a long "conversation about the conversation": why is it so hard for Mormons and post-Mormons to have intelligent, compassionate dialogue? We've discussed the need to create a "Third Space" where we can leave behind preconceptions, prejudices, pretensions to authority, and inflammatory rhetoric, and focus on listening, understanding, and loving each other. Is it possible? I honestly don't know. But I'm willing to give it a try.

So the big journey inexorably continues, as well as this little journey within it. We live to fight another day. at least up to some point, hopefully at least another 45 years or so in the future.

To be continued . . .

Living Fully Now

Plato's Cave

An oldie but a goodie . . .

Spiral Dynamics

"What I am proposing is that the psychology of the mature human being is an unfolding, emergent, oscillating, spiraling process, marked by progressive subordination of older, lower-order behavior systems to newer, higher-order systems."--Clare Graves

For those unfortunate enough to engage in a "deep" discussion of some variety with me over the past five years, chances are I've pressed on you a reference to the book Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership, and Change by Don Beck and Christopher Cowan. I happened upon this book a few years ago, and it's had an impact on how I view the human condition and my own journey within it. Due to a serendipitous encounter with my friend and mentor Pastor Steve Poos-Benson, I've recently re-read it, at what seems an ideal juncture. I think about it often, and how it applies in my life. Is the conceptual model it describes coherent with reality? I think so. I think it's generally considered a valid framework with a proven track record in implementation. It's a psychology book, a self-help book, a leadership manual. It's about evolutionary psychology, applied to both individuals and to civilization. It's a tough book to summarize, but I'm a-gonna try. 

Spiral Dynamics seems to resonate with holistically-minded people, describing in a useful format some elusive and profound insights about the ever-progressing nature of human (and cultural) psychology and spiritual development. It presents a schema that facilitates useful conversation about people and societies going through periods of growth, change, and turmoil. It jives with my experiences and observations. In particular, the last section of the book, "The Spiral Wizard's Field Manual," gives a good application of how this whole model works. 

Beck and Cowan based their model on the work of their mentor, Dr. Clare Graves, PhD.  Here is a citation from wikipedia about Graves' foundational theory, "The Emergent Cyclical Levels of Existence Theory":

Graves created an epistemological theory that he hoped would reconcile the various approaches to human nature and questions about psychological maturity. He collected pertinent data from his psychology students and others (in total a diverse group of around 1,065 men and women aged 18 to 61) in the seven years from 1952 to 1959.^[1] He gathered conceptions of the mature personality and conducted batteries of psychological tests using recognized instruments. His analysis of this data became the basis for a theory that he called, among other titles, "The Emergent Cyclical Levels of Existence Theory" (ECLET).

Graves theorized that in response to the interaction of external conditions with internal neuronal systems, humans develop new bio-psycho-social coping systems to solve existential problems and cope with their worlds. These coping systems are dependent on evolving human culture and individual development, and they are manifested at the individual, societal, and species levels. He believed that tangible, emergent, self-assembling dynamic neuronal systems evolved in the human brain in response to evolving existential and social problems. He theorized "man's nature is not a set thing, that it is ever emergent, that it is an open system, not a closed system." This open-endedness set his approach apart from many of his contemporaries who sought a final state, a nirvana, or perfectibility in human nature. His inclusion of the bio-, psycho-, social, and systems theory as vital co-elements also described an inclusive point of view that continues developing today.

Graves' work observes that the emergence within humans of new bio-psycho-social systems in response to the interplay of external conditions with neurology follows a hierarchy in several dimensions, though without guarantees as to time lines or even direction: both progression and regression are possibilities in his model. Furthermore, each level in the hierarchy alternates as the human is either trying to make the environment adapt to the self, or the human is adapting the self to the existential conditions. He called these 'express self' and 'deny self' systems, and the swing between them is the cyclic aspect of his theory. Graves saw this process of stable plateaus interspersed with change intervals as never ending, up to the limits of the brain of Homo sapiens, something he viewed as far greater than we have yet imagined.

Spiral Dynamics builds on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. It proposes that human psychology and society continuously adapt to existing Life Conditions (which they call LC).  LC1 means the most basic life conditions are present--food, shelter, etc--but there is no time or capacity for deep existential questions. LC5 represents what many First Worlders experience today: material success, technological acheivement, scientific knowledge, along with a sense of alienation, ennui, and deep existential questions about our relationship to the earth and our purpose in the universe. The Orange v-Meme (keep reading, explanation forthcoming) got us to this point, but it can't get us past it. 

As life conditions continually change, then new paradigms of thought are required to meet new challenges. Beck and Cowan have a name for these paradigms/thought patterns/worldviews: v-MEMES. The v-MEMES are "unfolding, emergent, oscillating, spiraling," and in this schematic representation, they are conveniently color-coded, starting with BEIGE, the level of basic survival instinct, and ascending through PURPLE (tribalism) to RED (egocentric power) to BLUE (deference to orthodoxy) to ORANGE (independent entrepreneurism) to GREEN (global equality), and then eventually arriving at YELLOW and TURQUOISE, which are "second-tier" v-MEMES, where systemic thinking, integration, and holism come to life. As these v-MEMES sequentially manifest in the mind and in society, they oscillate between "self-expression" and "self-denial" tones: sometimes the ego needs to assert itself, sometimes the ego needs to take one for the team. Below is an excellent pictogram of the key components of this model, and how each level is differentiated:

Importantly, none of these levels is bad, or inferior. In fact, each is essential, and represents a stage in the development of the individual or society, often revisited in new iterations borne of necessity or from regression. (Think "red" in they terrible twos, again in the early teens, perhaps again in a mid-life crisis.) These levels reflect the continual growth of the human brain and society. You can't really healthily skip through levels. You have to experience them, then "transcend and integrate" each level as you move upward. It happens naturally and predictably as one ages and as life conditions fluctuate, though many people get stuck primarily in one particular level. Also, some levels may manifest circumstantially: at church, you may need to appeal to Blue to stay in the boat; at work, you may need to pull from Orange to get the job done; at that awkward family reunion, you may need to reach for Green to keep the peace. The authors speak frequently about the "health of the whole Spiral." It's a spectrum of thinking patterns that need to be balanced, transcended and integrated, and perhaps pulled out of the hat when life conditions demand it. 

When a person (or society) is on the brink of engaging the next level of the Spiral ("a paradigm shift"), there is a predictable period of turmoil. Beck and Cowan call this the Gamma Trap. Here's how that works: a person is at an Alpha State in their v-Meme, where they reside comfortably, and the world appears in harmony with their thinking patterns. "It all makes sense." But inevitably, new Life Conditions and problems emerge, and their present v-MEME cannot adequately address them. They feel discomfort--here called a Beta State. "Nothing makes sense anymore." They feel pulled towards a new Delta--the new way of thinking that will allow the brain/spirit to engage on a higher level and solve their new problems. However, they must first pass through Gamma--this is the existential desert, the dark night of the soul. The guideposts aren't there anymore. The map is leading you in circles. Many people (and cultures) reject the discomfort of Gamma and retreat to the seductively familiar (and falsely reassuring) Alpha state, and thus remain trapped in their old comfort zones--and old problems. "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." (Great quote, apparently misattributed to both Einstein and Ben Franklin.) But for those that "lean into" the Gamma Trap--if they survive--they make it to the Delta and engage a new v-MEME which empowers them to think in new ways and thus solve their emerging problems: "transcend and integrate." This Delta becomes the new Alpha State, and they resonate peacefully for a while until the LCs catch up and they encounter new problems that even their new v-MEME can't handle. They are thus compelled to progress further up the spiral, if they can cross their new Gamma Trap. Sounds like "eternal progression" to me. :)

One flaw of any model of human development like this (such as Seven Habits, which also had a big impact on me at another time in my life) is that they can be overly schematic and rigid. ("They've mastered these seven discrete habits, and thus they are highly effective. Congratulations! You, however, having mastered only four of the seven, are only moderately effective. So sorry . . .") Of course no individual or culture resides solely in one level of the Spiral. It's a spectrum. Not every individual has the capacity (instrinsic traits + life conditions + experiences) to progress all the way up the Spiral. As life conditions change, people can slide up or down the Spiral in peak phases, or regressions. Even people in the highest levels of thinking can become fixed and rigid. Yet some individuals are much more adept at moving up and down the spiral, meeting other people wherever they are at, helping them to adapt to their LCs, and helping them take the next step--or half step, or to survive a back step--up or down the Spiral. These people are referred to as Spiral Wizards. They are essential to helping maintain balance and the "health of the whole Spiral."

Despite being more fluid, perhaps the biggest critique of this model is that it is still hierarchical, and unapologetically so. While making no judgments of absolute superiority or value (people are where there are, society is where it is, everybody is just doing the best they can), Spiral Dynamics does suggest that as the human mind and civilization progress forward through time, there is a natural and beneficial ascendance up the Spiral. The thrust is upward, onward, inward and outward. Here's a final quote from Clare Graves that I think summarizes this idea. 

"I am not saying in this conception of adult behavior that one style of being, one form of human existence, is inevitably and in all circumstances superior to or better than another form of human existence, another style of being. What I am saying is that when one form of being is more congruent with the realities of existence, then it is the better form of being for those realities. And what I am saying is that when one form of existence ceases to be functional for the realities of existence then some other form, either higher or lower in the hierarchy, is the better style of living. I do suggest, however, and this I deeply believe is so, that for the overall welfare of total man's existence in this world, over the long run of time, higher levels are better than lower levels and that the prime good of a society's governing figures should be to promote human movement up the levels of human existence."--Clare Graves

So if you're moving through the Spiral, and find yourself caught in a Gamma Trap . . . don't despair, my friend! Lean into the change. You will survive, and things will get better. It's constant movement, adaptation, evolution. Resurrection and reincarnation. (Please don't take that literally.) It's the butterfly emerging from the chrysalis again and again, this continuous ascending Spiral of the human mind and society. 

(Here are some more resources, excellent summaries of the Spiral Dynamics model.)

www.rationalspirituality.com/articles/Ken_Wilber_Spiral_Dynamics.htm

www.aubynhoward.com/SpiralDynamicsIntro.html

www.spiraldynamics.com/book/SDreview_Dinan.htm