Open Spirituality

Connect the dots, because they are all drawn on the same sheet of paper: Open Access, Open Source, and Open Spirituality (of which Christian Mysticism participates).
In Christian Mysticism we have a devotion to truth. We care about people, as empathy is the primary expression of truth between people, and we are disentangled from the results. We aren’t worried how it turns out because here in the Realm of Shadows, not much really matters that much. Let God have His way, just participate willingly. We strive to clarify the mysteries.
Both Open Access and Open Source avoid hiding anything. As much as possible, all gates and barriers are removed. There’s no elitism, per se, just active minds which see the truth of some things better than others. Everyone can participate because you never know when the next genius will come along and make something huge of the truth someone else finds. I will say empathy is too often utterly absent in Open Source, but at least it’s open.
Granted, there are certain natural barriers. To get on the Net, you have to have a device and some form of signal routing. That’s the new paper and ink, the new TV and radio. Most research also requires resources not possible for most of the folks who can best use them, so we have institutions that pool resources and people. No one’s happy about how this is working out right now, but there is no easy answer. It’s changing, though, even as we speak.
Compare that with any institution or entity that operates along the lines of controlled access. Government? It’s desperate to control outcomes by limiting information, hiding anything it believes will cause the results to come out “wrong.” More than that, it will manufacture lies to create a false impression. Churches tend to do the same thing, though not always knowingly.
In Open Access, Open Source and Open Spirituality, we see the birth of a new civilization. You could easily see the fundamental openness in other intellectual threads, movements or whatever you want to call them. Open Politics is just getting started, but it’s really hard for people to swallow a form of activism which has almost no core beliefs. Something like the Occupy movement fails and succeeds at the same time. It fails to accomplish anything measurable and is nearly impossible to define, yet the impact of people coalescing around a rather amorphous goal is both more subtle and more powerful than anyone can measure.
This is what’s behind Open Spirituality — your theology isn’t the point. The unity of the Spirit is not something you can define in human terms because it is rooted outside the human realm and the intellect. Its power and impact is not easily measured in human terms until you suddenly realize so much has changed behind the shadows, it’s a whole new world.
(Note: I realize the term “Open Spirituality” has more than one meaning, and is used as a cover for some pretty cerebral stuff that is not actually spiritual. That’s more of Open Religion, which is a different thing entirely.)