• Rachel Maddow author of Drift, on the Daily Show, on public and political sense making: "conspiracy is just easier than complexity"
• http://yfrog.com/nz31lmej Bit of spring from Utah.
• RT @acuginotti: A big part of this #homeschooling & #unschooling journey is deschooling the parents
• RT @annbadillo: What We Owe Adrienne Rich by Madeline Ostrander — YES! Magazine http://bit.ly/H3IYr3
• My sweetie and partner Teresa Posakony launched her website, http://bit.ly/H39FeL. Emerging Wisdom. Check it out.
• Provocative sufi mystic articles (thanks MJW for forwarding) that change the story. http://bit.ly/GWzZW8 and http://bit.ly/GWA1xn
• Inspiring article on health care renewal and participative leadership, forwarded from friend Tim Merry. http://huff.to/H4MxKf
• Nice harvest video from friends working with community in Minnesota: http://youtu.be/wg7IV1ot-80.
• From Cecilia Corcoran, Fransiscan Sister, this gem: “Only in the experience of a luminous interior life can we move with the inner authority to respond with a compassionate heart to know and do what is ours to do.”
• Interesting writing retreat in Vermont April 19-22. Join my friend Lex Schroeder and Erica Dhawan for Ideas That Move: http://bit.ly/wCNUzc
• From one of my labour union hosting colleagues on capitalism -- "surely there must be a way for reasonable distribution of wealth."
• RT @laurelhubber: "leadership is about creating change that you believe in" - Seth Godin. Or hosting process of share creation.
• Watching Elijah at swim class. He is a fish!
• A couple hours of yard work today. Great to pull out winter kill and spread some compost. Something good about hands in dirt.
• The Most Astounding Fact with Neil DeGrasse Tyson. From my friend Corbin. Great images, music, story. http://bit.ly/xNXHnt
• Great meeting today with my friend Carla and a school principle preparing for a bully-prevention community conversation later this week.
Tweets of the Weeks
April 1, 2012 By
Commitment to the Tension
March 28, 2012 By
I appreciate this phrase from Jeff Thies, “we maintain a commitment to the tension,” from a phone call I was in yesterday. Jeff is a senior leader with St. Joseph Health System. He was describing some of the realities of their efforts, everything from the inspiring spiritual grounding of dignity, care, connection, and compassion to the juxtaposed current runaway-cost of healthcare, confrontative political context in the US, and culture of disease management. I love Jeff’s honesty in it. “We try to stay present to what wants to evolve,” he said.
Good to hear this with Jeff. And, beyond the words of it, nice as they are, to feel the realness of his voice. Hmmm.... To stay present requires a realness. And an ability to lean in to the tensions. Become curious about them with each other. That’s pretty good learning and practice at all levels of scale, isn’t it.
Good to hear this with Jeff. And, beyond the words of it, nice as they are, to feel the realness of his voice. Hmmm.... To stay present requires a realness. And an ability to lean in to the tensions. Become curious about them with each other. That’s pretty good learning and practice at all levels of scale, isn’t it.
Currency is Exchange
March 22, 2012 By
I appreciated this topic for our monthly local Participative Leadership Practitioners Circle (PLPC), co-hosted last week by Ben Mates and myself. Complimentary Currencies is a body of work Ben has been supporting and exploring in the Salt Lake Valley.
As always with this group, we have a simple, deliberate format. The topic invitation is sent in advance so that people can choose to participate. We sit in a circle. The group has been 6-16 people. I usually offer a bit of context for the process and specifically for the evening. We check-in with a bit of voice from everyone. We give our attention and curiosity to the topic for the evening. We harvest some of the learning. We close with deliberateness. Good simple process for tapping intelligence in the group.
Ben’s description for the invitation was this:
The way we use currency to exchange and circulate wealth is often unconscious. We rarely consider that there might be alternative means of facilitating this exchange/circulation. I'm interested in convening conversations where we examine the often-unconscious assumptions around money and begin to explore alternative currencies that could offer healthier ways to be in relationship with each other and the world that gives us life. How can I best engage people and invite them to explore?
This was a great night of learning for me. Ben offered some framing about how money is energy and his focus is on creating alternative ways for energy to move and flow in a society. We played a couple of games to get this point. And then we played an additional game to help see some of our own patterns and beliefs in relation to money, things, exchange. The conversation that followed was very stimulating to me. Deep. Reflective. Thoughtful. Not surprising -- this is what I know in how Ben is in the world. He is one of the good challengers and paradigm shifters that I know.
One part of the game had us naming for ourselves something that has three qualities (and energy). 1) what you like to do, 2) what you are good at, and 3) what people value. I found this particularly valuable to notice these things and notice that these becomes currencies that we can offer to each other. Nice. There is a spirit to it. That helped me to see more of that.
For those interested there are many further resources to stir the thinking.
- Ben has an article pending publication in Catalyst Magazine (benjmates@att.com)
- An article by Michel Bauwens on post-capitalism (thanks to my friend Ria in Belgium)
- Several books by Bernard Lietaer: The Future of Money; The End of Money and the Future of Civilization, New Money for a New World (search for these on Google or Amazon)
- Several Books also by Charles Eisenstein: The Ascent of Humanity is particularly good I found.
Thanks Ben, all.
As always with this group, we have a simple, deliberate format. The topic invitation is sent in advance so that people can choose to participate. We sit in a circle. The group has been 6-16 people. I usually offer a bit of context for the process and specifically for the evening. We check-in with a bit of voice from everyone. We give our attention and curiosity to the topic for the evening. We harvest some of the learning. We close with deliberateness. Good simple process for tapping intelligence in the group.
Ben’s description for the invitation was this:
The way we use currency to exchange and circulate wealth is often unconscious. We rarely consider that there might be alternative means of facilitating this exchange/circulation. I'm interested in convening conversations where we examine the often-unconscious assumptions around money and begin to explore alternative currencies that could offer healthier ways to be in relationship with each other and the world that gives us life. How can I best engage people and invite them to explore?
This was a great night of learning for me. Ben offered some framing about how money is energy and his focus is on creating alternative ways for energy to move and flow in a society. We played a couple of games to get this point. And then we played an additional game to help see some of our own patterns and beliefs in relation to money, things, exchange. The conversation that followed was very stimulating to me. Deep. Reflective. Thoughtful. Not surprising -- this is what I know in how Ben is in the world. He is one of the good challengers and paradigm shifters that I know.
One part of the game had us naming for ourselves something that has three qualities (and energy). 1) what you like to do, 2) what you are good at, and 3) what people value. I found this particularly valuable to notice these things and notice that these becomes currencies that we can offer to each other. Nice. There is a spirit to it. That helped me to see more of that.
For those interested there are many further resources to stir the thinking.
- Ben has an article pending publication in Catalyst Magazine (benjmates@att.com)
- An article by Michel Bauwens on post-capitalism (thanks to my friend Ria in Belgium)
- Several books by Bernard Lietaer: The Future of Money; The End of Money and the Future of Civilization, New Money for a New World (search for these on Google or Amazon)
- Several Books also by Charles Eisenstein: The Ascent of Humanity is particularly good I found.
Thanks Ben, all.
Serving Refugee Populations Better
March 21, 2012 By
Earlier this week I was on a first phone call with Debra Kreisberg, Joseph Nsabimbona, and Angeline Habonimana Nsabimbona. Debra was a a participant at an Art of Participative Leadership training a month ago in Utah. I appreciate her invitation to explore some community engagement work that she is involved in. Joseph and Angeline, whom I was meeting for the first time, are a married couple whose work is to support refugee populations in the Denver, Colorado area. Joseph and Angeline left Burundi in 1994. They are founders of A La Source Refugee Ministry.
The point of this call was to explore ways to help Joseph and Angeline with their work. I listened to them. Their work is inspiring, particularly oriented to serving refugees from the Great Lakes area of East Africa. They focus on youth, asylum seekers, and organizations that deal with refugee populations. Their format is what you would expect -- training classes, forums, and seminars. Joseph and Angeline, like many others, are trying to imagine next ways for helping people get to the heart of the work. What they do is great. What they want to do is reach more people, scale their work. Yet, in scaling it, not lose the heartfulness of it. This is where Debra wanted to make the connection. She had felt and seen this at the Art of Participative Leadership training she participated in.
I appreciated in particular the clarity of story that we arrived at on the phone together. Or key points of the story that help their work now.
1. Together We Are Stronger -- This is the belief that Joseph and Angeline expressed. As well as variations of it: “Together we are better.” I offered the African proverb that I heard long ago. “If you want to go faster, go alone. If you want to go further, go together.”
2. In Coming Together We Partake of that Strength -- This is a fundamental belief in the value of coming together. And I believe it is one of the core questions that Joseph, Angeline, and Debra are asking: How can we experience the power of together in a way that lasts? This is different than just hearing the words, inspiring as they may be. And this is where I feel I can be helpful with them, offering social technologies and participative formats that entangle the group heart if you will, or the group imagination.
3. Harvest Commitment -- It is great to focus immediately on what we intend to harvest. Commitment is part of that. Appreciation is another. As powerful as it is, we don’t come together just to hear the strength of story and appeal to compassion. We invite and welcome that energy to move into the qualities of deeper relation and action.
4. Make it Better -- There are many of us who continue to adopt an energy of saving the world. I continue to learn patience to just make it better. I say this hear because many of the worlds that we are living in require a lot. There is a trap (of utter exhaustion for one) in expecting to save the world. Or to make it perfect. My friend Margaret Wheatley is a great teacher for me of these traps, reminding me that the spiritual warrior’s way is to do good because it is ours to do.
5. Our Greatest Resource Is Each Other -- Debra has a very strong voice on this. It is a call to reclaim the belief that human beings are resourceful. This contrasts some of the last several decades of a welfare model and disposition. I love the way that she challenges beliefs of scarcity of currency to abundance of human beings in relation with each other.
Serving better. Getting to the heart of it through well-held social engagement and interaction with each other. Inspiring.
The point of this call was to explore ways to help Joseph and Angeline with their work. I listened to them. Their work is inspiring, particularly oriented to serving refugees from the Great Lakes area of East Africa. They focus on youth, asylum seekers, and organizations that deal with refugee populations. Their format is what you would expect -- training classes, forums, and seminars. Joseph and Angeline, like many others, are trying to imagine next ways for helping people get to the heart of the work. What they do is great. What they want to do is reach more people, scale their work. Yet, in scaling it, not lose the heartfulness of it. This is where Debra wanted to make the connection. She had felt and seen this at the Art of Participative Leadership training she participated in.
I appreciated in particular the clarity of story that we arrived at on the phone together. Or key points of the story that help their work now.
1. Together We Are Stronger -- This is the belief that Joseph and Angeline expressed. As well as variations of it: “Together we are better.” I offered the African proverb that I heard long ago. “If you want to go faster, go alone. If you want to go further, go together.”
2. In Coming Together We Partake of that Strength -- This is a fundamental belief in the value of coming together. And I believe it is one of the core questions that Joseph, Angeline, and Debra are asking: How can we experience the power of together in a way that lasts? This is different than just hearing the words, inspiring as they may be. And this is where I feel I can be helpful with them, offering social technologies and participative formats that entangle the group heart if you will, or the group imagination.
3. Harvest Commitment -- It is great to focus immediately on what we intend to harvest. Commitment is part of that. Appreciation is another. As powerful as it is, we don’t come together just to hear the strength of story and appeal to compassion. We invite and welcome that energy to move into the qualities of deeper relation and action.
4. Make it Better -- There are many of us who continue to adopt an energy of saving the world. I continue to learn patience to just make it better. I say this hear because many of the worlds that we are living in require a lot. There is a trap (of utter exhaustion for one) in expecting to save the world. Or to make it perfect. My friend Margaret Wheatley is a great teacher for me of these traps, reminding me that the spiritual warrior’s way is to do good because it is ours to do.
5. Our Greatest Resource Is Each Other -- Debra has a very strong voice on this. It is a call to reclaim the belief that human beings are resourceful. This contrasts some of the last several decades of a welfare model and disposition. I love the way that she challenges beliefs of scarcity of currency to abundance of human beings in relation with each other.
Serving better. Getting to the heart of it through well-held social engagement and interaction with each other. Inspiring.
Bullying Prevention at Glendale Community
March 9, 2012 By
Last night I hosted an event with my friend Carla Kelley of the Human Rights Education Center of Utah. It was an evening with 100 people from the Glendale community in Salt Lake City.
One of the things that I think we did particularly well in this evening was to keep a simple and purposeful design. While people were eating, I introduced some simple context. First, a concept I’ve learned with my Berkana colleagues -- “Whatever the problem (dream), community is the answer.” And second, a principle I’ve learned with my friend Chris Corrigan about community work -- “There is no finish line in community work.” I shared that in community work, we know that we must turn to one another. That is what we would do during the evening.
There were multiple ethnic groups gathered for this event with need for language translation: Spanish, Tongan, Swahili, Burmese, Nepali, Somali. Carla, John Erlacher (Glendale Middle School Principal) and I agreed that we wanted part of the evening to be less reliant on verbal communication. We played some simple cooperative games that had people standing in circle and crossing through the middle with different levels of interaction and attention with other participants.
We then moved our evening into two rounds of cafe style questions. The first, inviting participants to share stories with one another about what they appreciate in this community, and what they know is a challenge. We harvested these. The second round was an invitation to share suggestions for improvement. Again we harvested these.
It is a lot to ask to move into what many would define as concrete action plans in the space of 90 minutes together in a first meeting. Carla, John, and I knew this. However, what is essential and what I believe we accomplished very well was helping to create a pattern of invitation, of turning to one another, of sharing stories, of being curious with each other. It is the re-establishing of pattern that helps a system to begin to change. This is a fundamental principle of working in living systems. We created the format for interaction -- in play and in conversation -- that can create conditions for well and thriving community. And it was a lot of fun.
There was some news coverage from one of the local TV stations. That report and video is here.
My friend and colleague Glen Brown posted a thoughtful blog on the evening. It is here.
Some of the other pictures I have from the evening are here.
Great to be part of this story, and to offer a process that will help it be sustainable and attractive.
One of the things that I think we did particularly well in this evening was to keep a simple and purposeful design. While people were eating, I introduced some simple context. First, a concept I’ve learned with my Berkana colleagues -- “Whatever the problem (dream), community is the answer.” And second, a principle I’ve learned with my friend Chris Corrigan about community work -- “There is no finish line in community work.” I shared that in community work, we know that we must turn to one another. That is what we would do during the evening.
There were multiple ethnic groups gathered for this event with need for language translation: Spanish, Tongan, Swahili, Burmese, Nepali, Somali. Carla, John Erlacher (Glendale Middle School Principal) and I agreed that we wanted part of the evening to be less reliant on verbal communication. We played some simple cooperative games that had people standing in circle and crossing through the middle with different levels of interaction and attention with other participants.
We then moved our evening into two rounds of cafe style questions. The first, inviting participants to share stories with one another about what they appreciate in this community, and what they know is a challenge. We harvested these. The second round was an invitation to share suggestions for improvement. Again we harvested these.
It is a lot to ask to move into what many would define as concrete action plans in the space of 90 minutes together in a first meeting. Carla, John, and I knew this. However, what is essential and what I believe we accomplished very well was helping to create a pattern of invitation, of turning to one another, of sharing stories, of being curious with each other. It is the re-establishing of pattern that helps a system to begin to change. This is a fundamental principle of working in living systems. We created the format for interaction -- in play and in conversation -- that can create conditions for well and thriving community. And it was a lot of fun.
There was some news coverage from one of the local TV stations. That report and video is here.
My friend and colleague Glen Brown posted a thoughtful blog on the evening. It is here.
Some of the other pictures I have from the evening are here.
Great to be part of this story, and to offer a process that will help it be sustainable and attractive.
All I Ever Needed I Learned at Breakfast and in My Son’s First Grade Class This Morning
March 7, 2012 By
This post is mostly my journal writing. It is personal experience that connect to helpful principles for human beings in work and community.
When I am not traveling I volunteer in my son’s school class once a week. Yes, this post has a bit of a feeling of learning the important principles at a young age. But particularly, for me, these come from noticing as a father of a child who is now in 1st grade.
A spectacular morning with Elijah. Very loving. Very playful. Very purposeful. Skillfully guided in principle. The kinds of stuff I love.
His mom dropped him off at 8:15 a.m. Tired. A bit cold. A bit grumpy. That’s OK. I know how to work with this, particularly when we are one on one and I haven’t seen him for several days.
- “I’m cold,” he says. I offer the ease of fixing that by turning the heat on. “How does that,” he points to the thermostat, “make it warm?” I see the opportunity for a fun mystery lesson and invite it. I ask if he knows where the furnace is. “No.” I ask if he wants to find it and invite him to be a detective. We find the furnace. I show him the pipes and tell him that these are secret pipes that run through the floor and ceiling. I show him the vent in his room and explain that this is how the thermostat talks to the furnace so that the heat can come through the secret pipes. I LOVE the learning. The content is interesting, but mostly I LOVE the process of getting curious together. Supporting him in his curiosity. He wasn’t satisfied to see just the vent in his room. We walked around each room upstairs and downstairs. And then I added playfully this principle -- that I want to be warm, but don’t need to heat the whole house to do that.
- Elijah lays on the couch under the blanket to get warm. I tease and play with him staying close to him. I ask if he can think of lots of ways to keep himself warm. We start naming. “Have a fire. Go under a blanket. Have some hot chocolate. Have a hot bath. Exercise. Ride bikes.” It isn’t the specific naming that I care about so much. It is the curiosity and the imagining out loud together.
- We have oatmeal. Instant for today. I invite him to choose between original and apples and cinnamon. He chooses the latter. I join him with that. Principled again -- invite choice and join in sometimes just to join in.
- I take him to school. We park at the end of the parking lot. “This is where we always park, isn’t it.” He is right. I reply with yes and that this is our spot. “What if someone else parked in it?” Elijah asks. I explain that it isn’t our spot but it is one that we often choose to park in. It is available for anyone though. I love again the naming of principle. We don’t have to. We choose too.
- At school, he wants to be the first to work with me. My job has been the same since the start of the school year. I work one on one with the kids, usually 3-8 in a 45 minute period. We do frequently used words and skip-counting. Each time I come I find a way to customize and play with a rather mundane task. The kids are starting to gather around wanting to be next because they know it or see it as being fun. Again, I offer choice -- words or number first. And I do three things really quickly with them. I invite relationship -- comment on their shirt or ask what they did yesterday. I offer surprise in the order of the words, departures from what they expect. I challenge them to do something they think they can’t do but is really extension of pattern that they know. The can skip count by tens to 100 by remembering the song. I ask if they can do it from 100 - 200. Many say no. But then I help them to see the pattern that extends their learning. Their smiles are enormous when they realize they already know how to do it.
- The kids get excited when I come to recess. Today they wanted to chase me, which we did. Then I had them form into a circle and be in a cooperative game, passing a clap. Fun to see them shift to another surprise.
- Elijah is proud of me. He seems that way. And doesn’t want me to leave.
- Oh, and Elijah and I meditated too before school. We’ve done it before. For six minutes to match his age. Sit quietly and breath. With eyes open or shut. I try to make it easy yet purposeful. And sharing that mediation is for keeping you healthy and smart -- I don’t tell him about emotional body or clarity of mind. Elijah regurgitates one of my answers when I ask why -- “so that you can hear the trees.” I smile and I reinforce it with the simplicity and my belief that he will learn to hear many things in his life -- that there are many things to hear.
A months worth of good, maybe more, happened in that one hour and forty-five minutes together. Eight home runs in one game -- quite something.
Get curious together. Imagine out loud. Invite choice. Join in (participate). Less “have to” and more “choose to.” Invite relationship. Offer surprise. Help to see pattern. Experiment with cooperative play. Keep healthy and smart through deep listening.
Yup, just a bit of important learning and practices there that are about a whole lot more than first grade classes.
When I am not traveling I volunteer in my son’s school class once a week. Yes, this post has a bit of a feeling of learning the important principles at a young age. But particularly, for me, these come from noticing as a father of a child who is now in 1st grade.
A spectacular morning with Elijah. Very loving. Very playful. Very purposeful. Skillfully guided in principle. The kinds of stuff I love.
His mom dropped him off at 8:15 a.m. Tired. A bit cold. A bit grumpy. That’s OK. I know how to work with this, particularly when we are one on one and I haven’t seen him for several days.
- “I’m cold,” he says. I offer the ease of fixing that by turning the heat on. “How does that,” he points to the thermostat, “make it warm?” I see the opportunity for a fun mystery lesson and invite it. I ask if he knows where the furnace is. “No.” I ask if he wants to find it and invite him to be a detective. We find the furnace. I show him the pipes and tell him that these are secret pipes that run through the floor and ceiling. I show him the vent in his room and explain that this is how the thermostat talks to the furnace so that the heat can come through the secret pipes. I LOVE the learning. The content is interesting, but mostly I LOVE the process of getting curious together. Supporting him in his curiosity. He wasn’t satisfied to see just the vent in his room. We walked around each room upstairs and downstairs. And then I added playfully this principle -- that I want to be warm, but don’t need to heat the whole house to do that.
- Elijah lays on the couch under the blanket to get warm. I tease and play with him staying close to him. I ask if he can think of lots of ways to keep himself warm. We start naming. “Have a fire. Go under a blanket. Have some hot chocolate. Have a hot bath. Exercise. Ride bikes.” It isn’t the specific naming that I care about so much. It is the curiosity and the imagining out loud together.
- We have oatmeal. Instant for today. I invite him to choose between original and apples and cinnamon. He chooses the latter. I join him with that. Principled again -- invite choice and join in sometimes just to join in.
- I take him to school. We park at the end of the parking lot. “This is where we always park, isn’t it.” He is right. I reply with yes and that this is our spot. “What if someone else parked in it?” Elijah asks. I explain that it isn’t our spot but it is one that we often choose to park in. It is available for anyone though. I love again the naming of principle. We don’t have to. We choose too.
- At school, he wants to be the first to work with me. My job has been the same since the start of the school year. I work one on one with the kids, usually 3-8 in a 45 minute period. We do frequently used words and skip-counting. Each time I come I find a way to customize and play with a rather mundane task. The kids are starting to gather around wanting to be next because they know it or see it as being fun. Again, I offer choice -- words or number first. And I do three things really quickly with them. I invite relationship -- comment on their shirt or ask what they did yesterday. I offer surprise in the order of the words, departures from what they expect. I challenge them to do something they think they can’t do but is really extension of pattern that they know. The can skip count by tens to 100 by remembering the song. I ask if they can do it from 100 - 200. Many say no. But then I help them to see the pattern that extends their learning. Their smiles are enormous when they realize they already know how to do it.
- The kids get excited when I come to recess. Today they wanted to chase me, which we did. Then I had them form into a circle and be in a cooperative game, passing a clap. Fun to see them shift to another surprise.
- Elijah is proud of me. He seems that way. And doesn’t want me to leave.
- Oh, and Elijah and I meditated too before school. We’ve done it before. For six minutes to match his age. Sit quietly and breath. With eyes open or shut. I try to make it easy yet purposeful. And sharing that mediation is for keeping you healthy and smart -- I don’t tell him about emotional body or clarity of mind. Elijah regurgitates one of my answers when I ask why -- “so that you can hear the trees.” I smile and I reinforce it with the simplicity and my belief that he will learn to hear many things in his life -- that there are many things to hear.
A months worth of good, maybe more, happened in that one hour and forty-five minutes together. Eight home runs in one game -- quite something.
Get curious together. Imagine out loud. Invite choice. Join in (participate). Less “have to” and more “choose to.” Invite relationship. Offer surprise. Help to see pattern. Experiment with cooperative play. Keep healthy and smart through deep listening.
Yup, just a bit of important learning and practices there that are about a whole lot more than first grade classes.
Tweets of the Weeks
March 5, 2012 By
• So enjoying this morning beginning to read Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible. I need novel and narrative.
• Working again today with financial planners. Fascinating to me how they work at the intersection of finance, therapy, counseling.
• From my friend Kinde Nebeker on how perception is not reality: newmoonritesofpassage.com/perception-is-…
• Good piece here from my friend Helen Titchen Beeth on evolutionary entrepreneuring and properties of living systems: bit.ly/yYzdIi
• I love this kind of film. Simple. Short. People offering. Harvest. This one on generosity from Karmatube: bit.ly/y0mkiz
Waking up beloved community
March 2, 2012 By
Last night in Vancouver listening to Le Vent du Nord, a terrific traditional band from Quebec. They put on one of the best live shows I have seen in a long time with outstanding musicianship combined with incredible energy. Listening to them and watching people dancing I had a deep experience of why we humans need art. It brings us into a joyful relationship which each other that we seem built to need – a kind of belonging that transcends each of our individual reservations, a sort of shared ecstasy. The cynic might say that such an attitude is decadent in a world of suffering, but I think it is clear that without these experiences of ourselves as joyful collectives, the serious work of living in our time is compromised by our own personal and private fears.
Lately I have been working with mainline Protestant churches and Christian communities a lot and I have appreciated being able to bring deep cultural and spiritual stories to our work together. The times they are all in are times n which the traditional forms of Church are dying and the new forms havent yet arrived. And while the leaders i have been with welcome the shift, many congregations are in grieving about the loss of an old way of doing things,
Last weekend in Atlanta, the group I was with picked the story of Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones to explore together. In that story, Ezekiel, who is a shaman, is carried into the spirit world where is comes across a valley of bones. Turns out that these are the bones of an army and God says to him “can these bones live?” Ezekiel does what all good shamans do when confronted with the awesome power of mystery and gives up any pretense of knowing the outcome. So together, God gives Ezekiel instructions and wakes up an army.
The armies of the old testament stories have always troubled me, because they are forever slaughtering and committing genocide because of God’s commands. But read as an allegory, suddenly this stuff becomes very powerful. For example, most spiritual paths have you confronting archetypal enemies on your pathway, such as greed or anger or the ego. To achieve enlightenment, to get to the promised land, means overcoming these enemies. And an army then seen in this context is a group of people that are greater than any one person’s fear.
So here is Ezekiel in the valley into which an army has been led and slaughtered, and he is being engaged in the work of waking up an army. Why? Well, once they have been woken up, God tells Ezekiel that they can go home. Home is the promised land, a place of freedom and kindness and relaxation and fearlessness. Coming home to oneself, finding home as a community.
To illustrate, another story I heard yesterday. One of the congregations I have been working with has been waking up to themselves in the work we have been doing together. When a group of people wakes up like that one has, all the dust and cobwebs come off them, and all of their beauty and warts are revealed. While we have designed and implemented many little projects in the Church, we have also awoken a little power struggle over a small but important issue. Typical of these kinds of issues, a small group has dug its heels in and doesn’t see its impact or connection to the larger community. Last night they all met and with some deliberate hosting, quickly discovered a common consensus on moving forward, one which I am led to believe takes each person outside of themselves and into a common centre of action.
In short, they had a different experience of themselves and each other, an experience that awakens the centre that Le Vent du Nord awakened last night. It is an experience that Christians can understand fully from their traditional teachings – Jesus constantly talks about love at the centre of the work of the world, and that community is the experience we are after. In the best forms of Christianity – including the form in which I was brought up! – the spiritual path is one of discovering kindness and a shared centre. From that place, transformation of community, family, organizations, and the world can be experienced and pursued. The hard work of dealing with power is made more human by acting from love and the beautiful work of cultivating relationship is put us to use by transforming power.
Last week I took an afternoon in Atlanta and went to visit Martin Luther King Jr’s Church where love and power awoke together in what King called “beloved community.”. These past months and years, I realize that this is what I am working for everywhere – in First Nations, organizations, communities, companies, churches and elsewhere. The beloved community draws us back home to our own humble humanity. It tempers the world’s harsh edges and it enables powerful structures to create beautiful outcomes.
And that experience is worth waking up for. Even an army.
Governance vs Stewardship
February 28, 2012 By
I have been in several conversation threads lately about these two topics. Lots of good questions being asked by people on the Art of Hosting list-serve -- Can you use the Art of Hosting as a pattern for governance in organizations? Also, lots of good issues coming up with some of my local colleagues at the Salt Lake Center for Engaging Community (SLCEC) and in relation with friends in The Berkana Institute network -- What is the difference between these two and in what circumstances would either be called for?
I think the reason this feels so compelling to me is that most of my work settings are in the context of networks. They are groups of people that are connected by a cause and purpose, yet most of them are free agents, if you will, trying to offer what they can when they can. Many of these people are the pioneers of the world, the social entrepreneurs that are helping experiments of the new come to form.
At SLCEC, my overall effort comes under the heading of “change, leadership, and dialogue.” We are an organization, an institution (that can do things that individuals can’t). However, none of us are salaried. What happens through the center is because one of us or a combination of us offers something. We imagine something. We create it. We offer it. We take the risk -- that feels like old language here, but it serves to name some of the dynamic. Even with the organization in place, the things that get done are because some of us offer it. Some of this is assignment. However, by far, most of this is volunteered or expressed willingly to meet a need.
I recognize similar dynamics in The Berkana Institute network. And really all of the affiliations I am in where I can get my work done. Through the Art of Hosting global community, we get things done by people offering to do it for a season. With my closest working and teaching companions, we come up with ideas and then we work from principles of invitation and offering.
My Grandfather, now 94, would have related to a job. He worked 40 years or so at one company. He was defined by his job. And in that era, the organizational form that made sense was much more about rules, descriptions, policies, and governance. All of that is good. All of that is at play today.
However, the network as organizational form is much more in place today. Or the Community of Practice. These forms are not sustained by governance in the same way that the organization my Grandfather worked needed it to be. They are sustained by stewarding from particular shared agreements, values, and practices. Today, in many cases (most), we work without guaranteed funding (or cut budgets). WIthout clear org charts. Without rigid boundaries even. For me some of the words that help to explain that are self-organization, emergence, and living systems.
The point of all of this, aha for me, is that these old patterns of governance and policy and permission are not the essential patterns needed to get work done in so many of todays organizational forms. Networks call for extreme volunteerism, running wildly. If you have people who care, celebrate. If you have groups of people with so much heart that you can’t track all that is happening, enjoy that chaos. That’s a good problem to have. It is key to the new organizational forms of these days. Humans in networks call for and ask for heartfull engagement, peer leadership -- not authoritarian blessings or disapprovals.
Governance. Know when to focus on this model. Use it when it helps. Stewardship. Know when to experiment with this. Stewardship may feel more messy. It’s easy to default to governance. But noticing how that default chokes the lifeline of a network -- well, there is a skill set important for all of us to develop. Learn to work in the mass that is a network. And notice how much things have changed in how things get done, even within organizations. Now through communities, networks, groups of people that want to do some good in the world.
Quite exciting really.
I think the reason this feels so compelling to me is that most of my work settings are in the context of networks. They are groups of people that are connected by a cause and purpose, yet most of them are free agents, if you will, trying to offer what they can when they can. Many of these people are the pioneers of the world, the social entrepreneurs that are helping experiments of the new come to form.
At SLCEC, my overall effort comes under the heading of “change, leadership, and dialogue.” We are an organization, an institution (that can do things that individuals can’t). However, none of us are salaried. What happens through the center is because one of us or a combination of us offers something. We imagine something. We create it. We offer it. We take the risk -- that feels like old language here, but it serves to name some of the dynamic. Even with the organization in place, the things that get done are because some of us offer it. Some of this is assignment. However, by far, most of this is volunteered or expressed willingly to meet a need.
I recognize similar dynamics in The Berkana Institute network. And really all of the affiliations I am in where I can get my work done. Through the Art of Hosting global community, we get things done by people offering to do it for a season. With my closest working and teaching companions, we come up with ideas and then we work from principles of invitation and offering.
My Grandfather, now 94, would have related to a job. He worked 40 years or so at one company. He was defined by his job. And in that era, the organizational form that made sense was much more about rules, descriptions, policies, and governance. All of that is good. All of that is at play today.
However, the network as organizational form is much more in place today. Or the Community of Practice. These forms are not sustained by governance in the same way that the organization my Grandfather worked needed it to be. They are sustained by stewarding from particular shared agreements, values, and practices. Today, in many cases (most), we work without guaranteed funding (or cut budgets). WIthout clear org charts. Without rigid boundaries even. For me some of the words that help to explain that are self-organization, emergence, and living systems.
The point of all of this, aha for me, is that these old patterns of governance and policy and permission are not the essential patterns needed to get work done in so many of todays organizational forms. Networks call for extreme volunteerism, running wildly. If you have people who care, celebrate. If you have groups of people with so much heart that you can’t track all that is happening, enjoy that chaos. That’s a good problem to have. It is key to the new organizational forms of these days. Humans in networks call for and ask for heartfull engagement, peer leadership -- not authoritarian blessings or disapprovals.
Governance. Know when to focus on this model. Use it when it helps. Stewardship. Know when to experiment with this. Stewardship may feel more messy. It’s easy to default to governance. But noticing how that default chokes the lifeline of a network -- well, there is a skill set important for all of us to develop. Learn to work in the mass that is a network. And notice how much things have changed in how things get done, even within organizations. Now through communities, networks, groups of people that want to do some good in the world.
Quite exciting really.
Lean Down Hill
February 27, 2012 By
Saturday I skied for the first time in about a year. And before that, for the first time in about five years. This time it was at a place called Stevens Pass, just north of Seattle. Lots and lots of powder. Lots of good remembering from my ski muscles, along with a few achy muscles at the end of the day. It takes a fair amount of work to get ready to ski. Sometimes to the point of wondering why I’m doing this. First run helps me to remember how much I love being out like that. Big open spaces. Fresh air. Movement of body in relation to the mountain.
I love learning through my body. And through play and exercise. It helps me remember important learnings that help me to understand more of the medium of facilitation and consciousness shifting that I’m in in all of my work. There were two particular points that I appreciated Saturday.
First, with all of that snow that continued all day, there were some places where visibility was really low. Though my preference by far is to see the hill, not being able to do so I find heightens my other senses. I had to feel the hill. In my legs. In my hips. Absorb what was coming not because I could see it in advance, but rather, feel it in the moment. This feels like one of those good capacities for leadership today. Feel it in the moment. Not everything can be tracked out front.
Second, was from listening to one of the ski instructors at the top of the run. This was a man that was teaching younger kids how to ski. He was telling them three things. One was how to grip their poles. Two was to bend their arms and the elbows keeping their hands in front of them. Three was the kicker, to lean down hill. Skiing isn’t to be met with a hesitancy. Easier said that done perhaps. It actually becomes easier in the learning and in the relearning later in life. You have to lean in to the piece that gives you movement. You have to lean into what sometimes you feel hesitant to do.
Well, good learnings at a lot of levels here. I’m glad to have had a great day skiing and to remember in my body these learnings.
I love learning through my body. And through play and exercise. It helps me remember important learnings that help me to understand more of the medium of facilitation and consciousness shifting that I’m in in all of my work. There were two particular points that I appreciated Saturday.
First, with all of that snow that continued all day, there were some places where visibility was really low. Though my preference by far is to see the hill, not being able to do so I find heightens my other senses. I had to feel the hill. In my legs. In my hips. Absorb what was coming not because I could see it in advance, but rather, feel it in the moment. This feels like one of those good capacities for leadership today. Feel it in the moment. Not everything can be tracked out front.
Second, was from listening to one of the ski instructors at the top of the run. This was a man that was teaching younger kids how to ski. He was telling them three things. One was how to grip their poles. Two was to bend their arms and the elbows keeping their hands in front of them. Three was the kicker, to lean down hill. Skiing isn’t to be met with a hesitancy. Easier said that done perhaps. It actually becomes easier in the learning and in the relearning later in life. You have to lean in to the piece that gives you movement. You have to lean into what sometimes you feel hesitant to do.
Well, good learnings at a lot of levels here. I’m glad to have had a great day skiing and to remember in my body these learnings.
