A Sense of Wonder in the Digital World
The Digital Product Team at the CAC operates from a deep sense of curiosity. We sit with questions each day on the best solutions to technology problems. How can we make this easier for our end users? How can we create ease for those interacting with our digital platform?
This means that often we don’t have the answer, so we must be curious. It’s commonplace to hear a member of our team say, “Thank you for sharing this with me. I don’t know the answer but let me sit with it and see what I can come up with.”
It’s these pauses that power our team to effectively partner with the CAC programs. Digital Product Team members take the time to “not know” and find a better solution for everyone in the end.
My own experience of this stems from a line in Richard Rohr’s teaching in The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See: “We moved from wondering to answering, which has not served us well at all.”1
This wisdom led me away from the pattern of always needing to have the right answer and solution. In my work life, it transformed the way I approached everything and everyone.
A problem with a coworker? I went from always being ready with a defense to being curious about their experience on the other end. A technology glitch? I felt the flurry of reaction but have learned to practice a pause and move forward with a solution serving a larger purpose. As Fr. Richard writes,
In short, good leaders must have a certain capacity for non-polarity thinking and full-access knowing (prayer), a tolerance for ambiguity (faith), an ability to hold creative tensions (hope), and an ability to care (love) beyond their own personal advantage.2
These are the principles we utilize every day as we approach our work. I’m grateful for both Fr. Richard’s work and the opportunity to put this wisdom to practice every day for the Center for Action and Contemplation team.
1 Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See (New York: Crossroad, 2009), 47.
2 Rohr, The Naked Now, 158.
Jessie Jones joined the CAC in 2020 as the Web Product Manager. She lives in Albuquerque with her partner and two children. You can find her hiking, mountain climbing, camping, or any other activity to get outside and enjoy the beauty of New Mexico.
This reflection appears in the Winter 2023 issue of the Mendicant, our quarterly donor newsletter.