David Keating

Cliché as it may sound, I believe that we’re all on a lifelong spiritual journey.  Even those of us who claim no “faith” at all. We simply call it by different names.

My own path has led me over promontories so high that they left me feeling as though I could see forever; and through a few dark, bramble-filled stretches that left me beaten and drained. Eventually, it led me to embrace what I’ve come to think of as the Principle of Mutuality.

It’s the yardstick by which I measure my success, or lack of it, in deepening my relationship to the people I care about, the world I’m part of, and the incomprehensible vastness of a universe we’re just beginning to understand.

It goes by many names – the Golden Rule, the Ethic of Reciprocity, Reciprocal Altruism, being “wired to care”, or just plain common sense.

Although the blogs indexed here deal with distinctly different topics, they are all, even the sci-fi site, linked by that common theme.

Whether it’s played out in the political arena, in business, in our personal lives or in our dreams and imaginations, we can no longer deny the web of interconnectedness that binds us one to the other. That reality is underlined and made concrete by the very existence of the medium we’re using right now.

We live, as the Chinese proverb says, in interesting times.

From politics to business; from faith to fantasy; if you find something here to pique your curiosity, tickle your fancy, or challenge your assumptions, I hope that you’ll pass it on to a friend, take a moment to add a comment, or send me an email.  I’d love to hear from you.

My Spirituality

I hold to a panentheistic (don’t leave out the “en”, it’s important) understanding of God. That is, that God, whatever you conceive “God” to be, is both immanent (intimately part of all of Creation) and transcendent (beyond Creation).

The traditional image of God as some sort of bearded guy on a throne in the sky is, I believe, an obstacle to our spiritual growth. Theos, the Greek word translated as “God”, isn’t a man writ large. It’s a concept that encompasses all of Creation. When, in the course of my personal spiritual journey, I realized the liberating power of that concept, it led me to write Do Unto Others.

I’m probably best described as a Progressive Christian; a broad umbrella that covers those who, while rejecting outdated doctrine and dogma, still find relationship with the Divine through the message of radical love that lies at the heart of Christianity.

Seems Like God – Reflections on Life and Faith is home to essays, discussion, and resources from that perspective.

Unity in Diversity

Late in 2005 I encountered Paul McKenna’s Golden Rule Poster. It was the genesis of a new understanding.

I have never believed that any one faith or tradition has an exclusive claim to the truth of God’s Presence. All life-affirming religions, secular moral codes, and scientific endeavor can help us to learn something of God, Creation, and the universe. However, while I had always understood my faith from an ecumenical perspective, I hadn’t invested much effort in thinking of it from an interfaith point of view.

Paul’s poster changed that. It led me to other resources, including Jeffrey Wattles’ book The Golden Rule, which documented the principle’s presence across millennia of human history. Not only was the concept of “doing unto others” present in other religions, it was also the foundation of the Ethic of Reciprocity and humanity’s secular moral codes. Research is even finding evidence to indicate that it’s part of our genetic makeup.

That’s why the subtitle of Do Unto Others is The Underlying Principle of Life and How to Live It.

The Golden Rule Radical is dedicated to articles that speak to this universal principle - a concept that can provide common ground for a world that can no longer afford to ignore the reality that what happens to the least of us, affects all of us.

Business

I’ve been a small business owner, a manager in large corporations, a process designer, a trainer, and a number of other things. No matter what situation I was in, I always found that I achieved the best results when I treated my employees, my bosses, my customers, and my companies the way I’d like to be treated. In his book, There’s No Such Thing as Business Ethics, John Maxwell points out that the same ethical guidelines we apply outside the workplace must be the ones we live within it.

 7 Questions for Business is a practical, shorthand method of applying what worked for me to any business environment. It also includes articles discussing ethical business conduct. In addition, you can express your opinion in a poll, or add your own comments and experiences.

My Politics

Whether the world is “globalizing”, “shrinking”, or “interconnecting”, it’s clear that the brinkmanship and confrontation that has long characterized politics can no longer be the standard method of operation.

Statesmanship, a word created to recognize those who rise above the petty self-interest of personal agendas and national prejudice, has always understood the necessity of considering the greatest benefit to the broadest population.

Reciprocal Politics, the newest addition to this directory, is a place to discuss the efforts of elected officials to practice statescraft, what happens when they fail, and how we can encourage them to continue to try.

Creative Writing (Science Fiction)

As a teenager, authors as diverse as Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein and John Wyndham were my constant companions. Perhaps, then, it isn’t surprising that I found the idea of aliens or ancient astronauts ”mentoring” ancient civilizations proposed by people like Eric von Daniken more akin to the myths that permeate human history than to any scientific “truth.”

More than that, I couldn’t look at those myths without seeing again the underlying principle of mutuality and the lesson we never seem to learn of what happens when we ignore it.

As a result, my own sci-fi effort, Danaerea (dan – air – ee – uh), weaves together the whole of human history, evolution, mythology, and science into an alternate reality that explains not only why we no longer live in a Garden of Eden, but how the battle rages, hidden from view, to enslave humanity or free it once and for all.

… The Unwritten Ending

In January of 2009 I was diagnosed with a cauliflower-sized growth in my chest called a thymoma. I am grateful to be a Cancer Survivor.

That experience reminded me just how little time we each have to change the world for the better. I make no pretense to have “the answer.” Unless, as in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the answer really is 42.

Otherwise, if the past fifty plus years have taught me anything, it’s that we are all part of the problem, and that we all have to be part of the solution.

After all, mutuality says we’re all in this together, aren’t we?

As I said at the beginning,  if you find something here to pique your curiosity, tickle your fancy, or challenge your assumptions, I hope that you’ll pass it on to a friend, take a moment to add a comment, or send me an email.  I’d love to hear from you.