“The greatest and most important problems of life are fundamentally unsolvable. They can never be solved, but only outgrown.
--Carl Jung
Transformation is an alternative path that entails a good deal of practical and interior soul work, communal discernment, and hard choices to be made about the future.
Over time five attitudes and skills must be developed for the transformation to be successful: great motivation of the part of leadership and the vast majority of members; total commitment based on shared sense of urgency mandating an all-out effort; collective ownership for the success or failure of the outcome; new partnerships with other religious and lay persons with skills needed; trust in the facts revealed by the instruments used to determine needs.
The ambiguity of transformation challenges even those with the highest “P” scores on the Myers-Briggs. There are no maps, quick fixes, easy answers or guarantees. It is the nature of transformation not to know what lies ahead. Transformation is an emergent process. Ambiguity is not just an aspect of transformation to be tolerated; rather, it is something to be embraced as a necessary condition for transformation to take place. It cannot take place if we know the answers ahead of time or have a plan that will be strategically implemented.
Transformation cannot be rushed, but it can be spurred forward at significant moments in time like this one.
Dunn, Ted, Graced Crossroads: Pathways to Deep Change & Transformation, CSS Publications, 2020, pp. 168-218
