There is a gentleman in this world who some say is a shaman.

Some people say he uses coyote tricks for his own purposes in our culture that he picked up in other lands.

Some say he’s the son of a Baptist preacher, therefore his perspective of faith is understandable.

Others say, only because he studied healing cultures in other lands did he come to the faith treasured by his family of origin.

He’s recounted things I can’t imagine. I sat in the audience one day where he was sharing metaphysical secrets of Eastern mysticism he had been granted after being anointed as someone special.

He detailed a story where he visited an indigenous culture in a remote African area only to hear that the tribe received visions while around a fire. They told of a rope descending from heaven, a man in white descending the rope and delivering the message to all who were around the fire that there was One God who had One Son who came to save the world…and that they should have joy because of this news

It’s no wonder that one of his many books is entitled, “The Bushman Way of Tracking God: The Original Spirituality of the Kalahari People.”  He’s a psychotherapist, an ethnographer and a cybernatician.

In other words, Bradford P. Keeney is an interesting character.

And, today after a long week of work, and a long day of faculty meetings, I retreated to my office.  I began to search the collection of books on my shelves and finally found what I was looking for.  I needed to read a bit of Keeney because I was struggling with a way to help influence change in a stuck system.  Finally, on the fourth shelf I checked, lodged between “The Kite Runner” and “Primal Leaders,” I found it:  Aesthetics of Change, by Bradford P. Keeney, 1983.

Yes, I was in need of some coyote tricks, and I knew just the writer to help me.

So I opened the volume, but I never got past the preamble of pages that come before the text.  I had what I needed and I never read a word he wrote.  There on a blank page, resting high center were two quotes.  The first was by Jorge Luis Borges and read, “I leave to the various futures (not to all) my garden of forking paths.”

Okay, THAT quote was filed in the safety deposit box of my right brain and flagged for follow up.  I wasn’t ready to talk about gardens.  I needed to talk about people…who can be gardens, but who were not currently considered that way in my present state of mind.

The second quote was by e.e. cummings and stopped me short: “Always the more beautiful answer who asks the more beautiful question.”

When my brain reads grammar that doesn’t come easily, it goes into a loop.  And that’s what happened with cummings’ words.  I read the quote thrice more.  Then I decided I needed to study the nature of questions, answers, people and beauty…so I began to do research.

And when I found the following excerpt I quit looking.  Some beautiful soul had done thinking long before me about questions and answers and come up with enough thoughts to shift my focus from change that needed to take place in others…to the more relevant “change that needs to take place in me.” Continue reading Always the More Beautiful Answer Who Asks the More Beautiful Question →