There is a context in which I gave this talk which has to be considered as part of the content of it. The talk took place at the end of a two month series of events that will, without question, be seen as a tipping point in a long pursuit to get a set of ideas and capacities into the main stream of American thought.

Distracted as I was by factors I will explain, I thought a great deal about what it was I wanted to say. First off, of course, I wanted to deliver a message that was useful to the United Methodist community. And, I wanted to see how this message, which was an updated restatement - now 25 years later - of the the basic assumptions, intensions and story upon which we created MG Taylor. This was the message I believe most relevant to their intent and it was a test - a measure - of the readiness of our culture to embrace the kind of changes suggested by it.

I was very pleased with the outcome on both counts.

While preparing for this keynote, I was in constant motion: San Francisco to Nashville, Atlanta, Boca Raton, Davos, Zurich, Milan, Zurich, New York, Washington DC, Nashville, Kansas City, Nashville, and outside of Boston where the talk was given and, then, back to Nashville. These two months are captured in my hand-drawn Notebook #7 [post 9/11 series link]. This two month itinerary, itself, is not unrelated to the content of the talk.

Rato