Listening to the Growing Edges

By Curtis Ogden

Scientists and spiritual leaders are both saying it, “Go to the edges.” That’s where new life, hope, and innovation resides. As our institutions and old worldviews crumble, we are called to look to the edges where ingenious adaptations are always happening. We know this is true of ecosystems. When the core is dying, something else is happening at the boundaries where there is greater resilience. When winter hits and all is withered on the surface, something else is beginning to stir underground, sending out new shoots and establishing new roots.

At a meeting with a school system today, participants acknowledged that they are still operating out of an industrial model whose time has long since passed. But this does not mean that there aren’t pockets of vibrancy and innovation. These are found at the edges of the bold experiments and adaptive efforts of teachers and students that often go undocumented. I heard a middle school teacher say, “Ask the teachers about what innovations are already happening in and beyond their classrooms. Just because they have not spread throughout the system does not invalidate them. Teachers have so many creative ideas, so much more that they would like to be able to do that they feel they cannot given institutional constraints.” The call is clearly to follow the energy, give it attention, nurture it, let it be the guide. Then let the structures adjust to accommodate (not assimilate) this energy. Let form follow function . . .

This is what a colleague recently said about the cutting edge of innovation for visual artists - “It’s all about crossing the boundaries of media. You don’t say that you are going to be a sculptor. Instead you start with an idea and let that lead you. Everything is on the table.”

I put this question to our organization, community, country, and world. What is/are our edge/s? What is becoming manifest there? What are those manifestations telling us? Where might they take us? What might they make of us?