My relationship with my mentor Lissa Rankin was just beginning, so every email from her was to be taken seriously. “I was with my first mentoring client of 2013 yesterday . . . and she expressed interest in meeting more awesome visionaries who shared her mission to be of service to the world. I suggested she join me and many of my friends at Chris Guillebeau’s World Domination Summit [in Portland, Oregon] this summer, just after July 4. . . .how fun if we could all rendezvous together and create our own mentoring meet-up!”

It was tempting. I love events and conferences. But it sounded pricey, and I’d never heard of “Brene Brown, Susan Cain, Danielle LaPorte, Jonathan Fields, Pamela Slim, Kate Northrup, and others like them.” I didn’t know what I’d be doing or where I’d be living or, well, anything.

Plus, 2013 was the third year of another event that I had heard about, The Wild Goose Festival, and while I’d never heard of most of the presenters there either, I’d go almost anywhere to hear Phyllis Tickle, who would certainly be one of them.The Wild Goose Festival was to occur only five weeks after the Portland event and was in Hot Springs, North Carolina (fairly near Asheville), which was close enough to drive to while Portland, OR, certainly was not. With luck my long term ace-networking friend Larry Bourgious would be going too.

As the time drew nearer to Wild Goose, the Spirit Moxie conversation was about to go live with its “little things that can change the world” tag line that seemed a tad presumptuous as I listened to general “gloom and doom” news headlines on racial and religious tensions, as well as reports of outright violence, on multiple continents. The Kingston Trio sang it more than 50 years ago.”They’re rioting in Africa. There’s strife in Iran…”

How dare it still be true!

However while at Wild Goose, which I described to friends as a Christian Woodstock, I was struck by something that felt very strange. The energy there seemed to mirror the energy described by those who reported on the World Domination Summit (WDS). Wild Goose is a gathering of people both committed to social justice and to an understanding that the Church is evolving into something new and exciting. WDS brings  together those committed to  making their lives and the world work with each other. (Both of these descriptions are mine and not those of the sponsors.)

The two conferences draw different demographics. Portland’s WDS was about twice as big and three times as expensive to attend. Housing in Portland was in luxury hotels, although  the website also talked of hostel options. The majority of attendees at Wild Goose in Hot Springs, NC, were sleeping in tents or campers, although some opted for luxurious cabins or the local hotel. The overtly secular WDS had a group toast of sparkling apple juice.The overtly religious Wild Goose highlighted sessions featuring beer and hymns. (Does anyone else think that’s funny? Yes there was beer in Portland and juice in North Carolina.) Coffee was central in both locations. Both had music that engaged: DJ Prashant (Portland-Bollywood) and Speech of Arrested Development (Hot Springs-Hip Hop/Rap). Both had stilt walkers (really). And while the main stage at WDS was a beautiful theatre, here are pictures from the two events:

Yup. And this was the third year for both

But what’s the point of this review? Despite different sounding topics and speakers, people seemed to come away with the same hope and energy. It is here, within these apparently disparate venues, that perhaps the Kingston trio song isn’t as true as it sounds. Most of the real work happened in small group conversations over daytime coffee and late night wine. Lissa had more than 100 people show up to talk about the possibility of transforming the medical system here in the United States. In the magical group of 15 (that usually morphed into 20 or more) with whom I traveled (aged 10 to 793 months), I spent hours wrestling with why it takes years and years for people to wrap their minds around the joys of diversity and the mysteries of consumerism that to me sound obvious.

LIssa reported on her experience this way: “Pretty much everyone I met was either on a mission to fulfill a calling or on a quest to find one. After the conference ended with a tear-jerking sparkling apple juice toast, I found myself reinvigorated in my own mission to heal health care, and everyone I spoke to felt inspired to change the world in their own small or big way.”

At Wild Goose, there were exhibitors with direct causes to share as they, too, worked to change the world. Speakers reflected and challenged and around the edges people shared their passions, their hopes, and a commitment to the political work needed to make change a reality.

The tension between the two conferences, the mistrust, and the differences in direction were illustrated in two different exchanges. One was a friend trying to wrap his mind around the apparent miracles he had seen at a healing service sponsored by the church he attended, wanting and not daring to believe. When I shared the work Lissa, a medical doctor, had done in her book Mind Over Medicine, where she gives possible physical explanations for those who need them, he got angry and said he didn’t want explanations. While I don’t think it changed the miracle part, I didn’t have the words to engage that one. Similarly Phyllis Tickle warned the gathering about embracing too much of the secular energy around change and challenged us to hold to our Christian heritage. And while I, too, know some of the dangers of secularism, I keep seeing God’s (however you define God) hand in all of this.

I’m holding that there is something in the world, something happening now, that wants the world to work, wants people to be whole, the land itself flourishing, air pure, peace, laughter, joy…

The mix at Wild Goose included Christians (from Roman Catholics and Episcopalians to Baptists and non-denominational house churches), Mormons, Jews, Buddhists, those drawn towards “the divine feminine”, and avowed atheists. There were probably witches and agnostics, and I’m betting there was the same mix, if in different proportions, at WDS. We just gathered under different auspices. But the true sign of doom is if we therefore discount one another. Two conferences, both committed to making the world work. Let’s pay attention.

Thoughts?

Things working as they should:
Larry, Phyllis, me

Photo credits (from top, left to right): sparkling apple juice toast, World Domination Summit, July 5-7 2013 – Armosa Studios
Beer, The Wild Goose Festival, August 8-11 2013 – Spirit Moxie
Closing Party at Pioneer Square, World Domination Summit, July 5-7 2013  – Armosa Studios
Main Stage, The Wild Goose Festival, August 8-11 2013 – Spirit Moxie
Larry Bourgious, Phyllis Tickle, Sally B. Sedgwick, The Wild Goose Festival, August 8-11 2013 – Spirit Moxie