Courageous Conversations Are No Longer Optional

True, right.

Amy Butler, Senior Minister of The Riverside Church, New York City goes on to share her reflections from hosting a conversation that included Brene Brown.

My job as host last Thursday was not to contribute any deep wisdom to the conversation; if you saw the event you already know that their exchange was so deep and intense that there was very little possibility I would succeed at even interrupting them. Rather, I was there to prod the conversation along if needed, to offer questions from the viewing audience, and to listen intently …

 

… which was what I was doing when Brown responded to a comment by McKesson: “There’s not enough preaching in the world that can make people change their hearts.”

 

I was startled when I heard it. I am a preacher, after all.

 

“There’s not enough preaching in the world that can make people change their hearts.”

 

This is a jarring comment for a preacher to hear, especially when we’re engaging issues that are so deep and raw that nobody is sure their best efforts at anything — protesting, policy change or even preaching — can make even a dent in the scar that America’s original sin has left on our individual and corporate psyches.

 

But here’s the strange thing: I’m a preacher … and I agree with Brené.

 

There is not enough preaching in the world that can make people change their hearts, and preachers who are under the illusion that theirs might, have a bigger problem on their hands. We live in a country where rhetoric of any kind is not doing the work of changing peoples’ hearts, but instead serving to more deeply entrench us in opinions we already hold and to polarize us in positions even further away from each other than we imagined.

 

We’re going to have to do more, to move past talking (even preaching!) and into the messy and painful work of deep conversation held together by real relationship. In fact, it’s increasingly my conviction that this may be the heart of the faith community’s work in this moment: building authentic relationships upon which these difficult conversations can rest.

The full post / article is here.

I love it that so many of us are growing courage and clarity together to connect, not just as nicety, but as bedrock for facing these times that we live in. In churches. In communities. In organizations. In ourselves.

 

Turning 1000

My first blog post was October 14, 2006. I wrote about my daughter Zoe as “Old Soul, Learning Partner.” She was 11. I’d invited her to sit with me and some of the people I was working with. I love it that this first post was about her.

So, it’s been 12 years now. WordPress tells me that today’s post is my 1,000th. Fun, right. Only 9,000 more to go!

I love the practice of writing. I love the aspect of blogging that is “learning in public.” I love the sense-making that arises from writing to develop thinking. Sometimes, we don’t know what we think until we say it out loud, or write it into words.

My blogging has included a few years of very sporadic posting. A renewed desire to share, followed by three months of nothing. And then there were the times of just doing it more often — once a week.

However, it was three years ago that I changed the name and the frequency of this blog. I changed the name from “Blog” (I know, exciting, right) to “Human to Human.” I loved being able to nuance the background intention — “to inspire reflection, individually and communally, on varied aspects of participative leadership practices, insights, and human to human depth.” I have to have the connection to the human depth — and “the thing behind the thing.” I changed the frequency from “whenever” to daily, Monday through Thursday (taking some weeks off, just because or for other writing).

I’m glad for those who read. I’m glad for those who share insights. I’m glad for those that contribute to my evolution and how any of us lean into an evolution together. As humans. As humans in quite a range of adventure, joyous to sorrowful.

So, in turning 1000, I offer a few words written by a friend engaged in Margaret Wheatley’s Warriors for the Human Spirit program. My friend has asked me to keep the anonymity of attribution. But these words, and this friend inspire me to keep opening to the full range of humanness in times such as these.

Here’s to our growth, our realness, our practices of consciousness, of kindness, and flow with life itself — all of us.

d

Warriors for the Human Spirit
are awake human beings
who have chosen not to flee.
They abide.
They serve as beacons of an ancient story
that tells of the goodness and generosity
and creativity of humanity.
You can identify them by their cheerfulness.
You will know them by their compassion.
When asked how they do it
they will tell you about discipline, dedication
and the necessity of community.

Patterning Encounter — Three Simple Rounds

In yesterday’s The Circle Way Online Class with Amanda Fenton, one of the contexts I shared with participants was when they went into small groups. They would have 25 minutes in groups of four or five. One person would host. One person would guardian. There were three “rounds” that we encouraged.

  1. Check-in (How is it that you are arriving to this small group circle now?)
  2. Main Question (Tell a story of when you have experienced The Circle Way components to be helpful — or challenging when missing.)
  3. Check-out (What was one thing you appreciated from your small circle?)

These three steps are a deeply engrained pattern for those of us that practice circle. With of course, a few assumptions tucked beneath them. Yesterday we highlighted “center” — the third space in which we contribute our thinking, feeling, and wondering. It is from willingness to attend to center that emergence becomes more visible and flavored. Yesterday we also highlighted “talking piece” — the act of creating more deliberate and uninterrupted sharing and listening.

I spoke these three rounds as engrained and entrained, just as it is for some of us with our morning habits — brush teeth, shower, cup of coffee. I also spoke what I see as underlaying purpose of each, that contributes to animating awareness and connection through circle.

Check-in invokes presence. It is the shift from social space to the deliberate attending in circle. Or to shift even from one form of circle to another. In our class it was from the group of 14 to the groups of four or five. Even a “mini check-in” matters. It’s like re-stabilizing our psyches to a new configuration of humans gathered. Each configuration benefits from a weave to animate the wholeness of that particular group. Check-in is what helps us get to that.

Main Question is animated by story. Circle is not presentation. Nor is it one person at the front of the room. Nor is it dumping data. Many things can be shared, including core facts and strong opinions. But circle uniquely invites us to a different quality of interaction together. I’ve learned this is often because of inviting people to be in the spirit of sharing story that shows a bit of how they relate to the main question. Sharing experience, even a tiny bit, that relates to the main question. Sharing story is itself a learning strategy. And yes, story creates delight — even the challenging ones.

Check-out invokes witnessing. It creates just a bit of deliberateness to notice what just happened. It’s difference than just racing away. It’s like being deliberate to tidy the dishes before rushing out of the house. Check-out tends to more of the energy and more of the experience in the group. It’s powerful and important to hear an individual express what they experienced, sometimes even in just a word. It’s powerful and important to notice how that is shared, or unique, in the group. We so often live in contexts that skip over the witnessing and even momentary sense-making together. Check-out is what helps us benefit from these qualities together.

Patterns. Aren’t we all learning these. To make conscious or change the unconscious ones. To claim and give light structure to the new ones.

Patterns of encountering. Well, isn’t this at the heart of it all. Daring to lean into the possibility of the whole and what is uniquely created in the middle. Daring to create added life and awakeness in who we are and what we try to do or be together.