What is this Website About?
Who We Are
We come from different cultural and religious traditions. Some of us are Jewish, some Muslim, some Buddhist, some Hindu, some Christian, some Atheist, and some None-of-the-Above. Some of us are educators, some are poets, some are musicians, some are philosophers and theologians. Together we offer a magazine for social entrepreneurs and spiritual seekers who want to live lightly on the earth and gently with others for the sake of a more hospitable and creative world.. Along the way we introduce a way of thinking called open and relational, or process, philosophy and theology. Our aim is to offer ideas that might help people create multi-cultural, interfaith communities that are creative, compassionate, participatory, ecologically wise, and spiritually enjoyable, with no one left behind! It is these kinds of horizons -- horizons of creativity and compassion -- that we hope to help open.
How Things Look to Us
Process thinking is rich and complex, but is informed by at least twenty key ideas. Here are some basics:
The most systematic articulation of this kind of thinking is the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead and its many amplifications developed by process thinkers around the world. But Whitehead and process thinking is not the only articulation. There are many other expressions: Asian and African, Latin American and European. Open Horizons thinking is an attitude, an approach to life. It can be communicated through many cultural traditions, both religious and secular.
What this Website is About
Open Horizons website presents essays, poetry, music, and images that illuminate the Open Horizons spirit. You might think of the website as a stained glass window evolving through time, with new pieces added every day. Or perhaps as an evolving hologram, with the individual essays and music and artwork presented as pieces of the hologram. The philosopher, photographer, and jazz musician, Bill Benzon, explains describes a piece of a hologram this way:
"A piece of a hologram, however, still contains the entire image. The resolution of the image, that is, its sharpness, will be somewhat reduced—the smaller the piece, the lower the resolution—but the entire image is there. A hologram is thus a way of distributing the entire image throughout the representing medium (the piece of photographic film). Similarly, the pattern of a culture is distributed throughout all the artifacts and practices of the people who live that culture. Each piece and aspect reflects the pattern of the whole."
And so it is with the pages in this website. They are pieces of the hologram reflecting Open Horizon thinking.
-- Jay McDaniel (January, 2018)
We come from different cultural and religious traditions. Some of us are Jewish, some Muslim, some Buddhist, some Hindu, some Christian, some Atheist, and some None-of-the-Above. Some of us are educators, some are poets, some are musicians, some are philosophers and theologians. Together we offer a magazine for social entrepreneurs and spiritual seekers who want to live lightly on the earth and gently with others for the sake of a more hospitable and creative world.. Along the way we introduce a way of thinking called open and relational, or process, philosophy and theology. Our aim is to offer ideas that might help people create multi-cultural, interfaith communities that are creative, compassionate, participatory, ecologically wise, and spiritually enjoyable, with no one left behind! It is these kinds of horizons -- horizons of creativity and compassion -- that we hope to help open.
How Things Look to Us
Process thinking is rich and complex, but is informed by at least twenty key ideas. Here are some basics:
- Every moment in a person's life is an act of improvisation: creating something new out of a settled past.
- Improvisation goes all the way down into the depths of matter.
- We live in a universe of inter-becoming; each event in the universe carries the influence of, and influences, all the others.
- The building blocks of the universe are moments and relationships -- not 'things,'
- Each and every living being is a subject of its own life and not just an object for others, with intrinsic value.
- Injustice lies in denying the value of other lives, other subjects; and it harms all involved.
- Our human calling is to enjoy life as best we can and to help build communities that are creative, compassionate, participatory, multicultural, humane to animals, and good for the earth, with no one left behind.
- As we seek to fulfill this vocation, we are beckoned by the ideal of Beauty: harmony and intensity of experience.
- This ideal of Beauty, and its inwardly felt beckoning toward the fullness of life for each and all, is how Deep Listeninig of the universe -- God -- is present continuously in life on earth and the entirety of the cosmos.
The most systematic articulation of this kind of thinking is the process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead and its many amplifications developed by process thinkers around the world. But Whitehead and process thinking is not the only articulation. There are many other expressions: Asian and African, Latin American and European. Open Horizons thinking is an attitude, an approach to life. It can be communicated through many cultural traditions, both religious and secular.
What this Website is About
Open Horizons website presents essays, poetry, music, and images that illuminate the Open Horizons spirit. You might think of the website as a stained glass window evolving through time, with new pieces added every day. Or perhaps as an evolving hologram, with the individual essays and music and artwork presented as pieces of the hologram. The philosopher, photographer, and jazz musician, Bill Benzon, explains describes a piece of a hologram this way:
"A piece of a hologram, however, still contains the entire image. The resolution of the image, that is, its sharpness, will be somewhat reduced—the smaller the piece, the lower the resolution—but the entire image is there. A hologram is thus a way of distributing the entire image throughout the representing medium (the piece of photographic film). Similarly, the pattern of a culture is distributed throughout all the artifacts and practices of the people who live that culture. Each piece and aspect reflects the pattern of the whole."
And so it is with the pages in this website. They are pieces of the hologram reflecting Open Horizon thinking.
-- Jay McDaniel (January, 2018)