Shalom Quest
Living Values Project

Spirituality and Lifegiving Values?

“What do you value?”
“What do you treasure?”
“What gives life meaning to you?”

This whole Shalom Quest project is rooted in a confidence that the focus and power of every expression of ‘spirituality’ lies in their understanding and engagement with universal lifegiving values. This remains true whatever we might believe about the origin of values.

Values are about beliefs, behaviour and beauty
Values develop in the very earliest stages of life – they are our ‘spiritual mother tongue’
Values become internalised, deep within us – becoming the essential fabric from which we weave our personal worldview
Values are buried within our behaviour – they form the ‘meaning environment’ within which we live and move and grow
Values form both the foundation and essence of culture – they are the spiritual core at the heart of all cultures
Values have the most astonishing power, which is present in every value, that is able to bring about the most extraordinary transformational changes
Values not only express their own distinctive quality, but also hold within themselves a resonance of each and every other lifegiving value
Values each reveal – as we learn from them – that the wisdom they communicate is able to unfold a spiritual path for everyone who embraces them
Values are of primary importance – at the centre of all existence (human and more-than-human), being as subtle and subversive, as they are dynamic and dramatic in their impact

What are Universal Lifegiving Values?

What is a ‘value’?
- Our definition: ‘values are the understandings we hold about what is good, which influences our thoughts, our choices, and our behaviour’
- Our demonstration: values only move from being ideas to becoming our ideals when we embrace them as our personal identity by our behaviour: a mental concept becoming meaningful character
What is a ‘lifegiving’ value?
- The clue is in the name – lifegiving. These are values, which when they are embraced, physically and mentally enable a person to flourish, thrive, and be alive. Everything about them is ‘good’
- There is another name – life-twisting. These are good values someone deliberately twists to distort them, wilfully choosing to value negative behaviours. Evil is always the perversion of good
What is a ‘universal’ lifegiving value?
- Shared language – every people-group across the planet recognise the same lifegiving values; like love, wisdom, peace, freedom, truth, justice, to name a few; literally treasures of the cosmos
- Enriched culture – every people-group also adds fresh insights to each lifegiving value; they also add new values previously unknown to any other culture: in doing so they enrich all cultures

Why is shalom given such central importance?

Because: there is a Hebrew story that says:

“Every value and blessing that would ever be created lay altogether in one huge pile. However, in spite of searching everywhere no one was able to find any bag, or box, or container that was actually capable of holding them all. This being so, the divine finally decided they would create shalom”

Shalom, usually translated ‘peace’, better understood as ‘wholeness’, is a key lifegiving value
As a single white light-beam produces the full colour spectrum, so shalom can source all values
Wherever you think values are sourced (imagination, evolution, god) a shalom centre has value

Why is a Shalom Quest Living Values project important?

It is about creating resources that will enable people to deepen their understanding and experience of the nature of values:

Because: where would you go …
- To find all (at least most) universal lifegiving values gathered together in one single place?
- To see the values clearly (yet subtly) named and identified, alphabetically and collectively?>
- To see these values set out (mapped) in such a way that their interrelationship is made clear?>
- To find the global spiritual-cultural meaning(s) given to each of these values?>
- To find those unique values particularly associated with different individual cultures identified?
- To find the diversity of creative media associated with each value exampled and expressed?
- To hear the real-life stories of people’s experience with a particular lifegiving value being told?

We have reason to believe that nothing like this exists or has even been attempted before. Its true worth will probably only be fully realised once people are able to experience it for themselves.

How will the Living Values project unfold?

We see this project as a series of very clear dynamic steps, which will both complete and continue repeatedly, as new values are identified and understood. The key steps are:

Step One – Gathering:

This identifies and names each value, and then begins to arrange them in alphabetical order to make finding them very much easier
This gives an overview of the project, it also creates an index of values, which in turn provides a palate from which we can do further work from

Step Two – Mapping:

Starting with the central all-inclusive value of shalom – imagined as the source from which all other values flow – ‘core values’ then begin to be identified
A ‘core value’ is a value around which other values (highlighting key aspects of the core) orbit the core (e.g. love: affection, tenderness, kindness, compassion etc.)
This is all presented using ‘mind-mapping’ techniques, using digital technology like – thebrain.com – using hyperlinks to emphasise the interlinking of all values

Step Three – Defining:

This is finding and building the content that gives each value its substance from across all global cultures, using everything from etymology to artificial intelligence
This records the depth, breadth, texture and wisdom of global values over history, trying to capture the spiritual ethos of each value
This will be an ongoing process using a ’WikiValues’ approach with regular updating

Step Four – Resourcing:

Here the ‘defining’ is expanded to find content to support and illustrate the value in many different forms: stories, songs, poems, drama, dance, music, art and images, film, architecture, and the more-than-human environment and experience
Making this content available in multi-media format to make it accessible to others as widely as possible

Step Five – Teaching:

Universal lifegiving values are everywhere, but surprisingly (even shockingly) they are often anything but lifegiving – flat, cold, corporate, and devalued in the process
Teaching is creating environments where values come alive! Presenting the values with accompanying media in such a way that they inspire people spiritually, this is what Shalom Quest is all about
Teaching is about learning! It’s not about telling it’s about accompanying. Helping people discover for themselves the practical worth in living life by values every day

Step Six – Living:

The Living Values Project is just that, it’s about living! It is nurturing values thinking in everyday living. It’s recognising that spirituality is very scientific, putting values to the test in life and seeing if they are true. Simple question, “Do they work?”
Living is also to mature. Learning the skills of a values craftsperson, with the spiritual and relationship dexterity to help re-fashion difficult situations towards becoming shalom-shaped

For more about living by values go to: ‘Values as a spiritual focus’

If you want to get involved in the Living Values Project please click here and complete the contact form