Category: General Learning

In one of the main clarifying stories I tell myself, I recognize that me and most people are sorting and seeking some layer of meaning and purpose. We want to know ourselves. Our surroundings. We want to know our neighbors. Our colleagues. We want to do good with all of that — not because we are forced, but because it is inherently desirable and fulfilling.

Well, here’s the thing.

When we get in the river, into deliberate processes of learning and connection together, the river gets in to us.

It’s as if (or maybe just is) the bigger river of life and of learning carries us away from our shores and out into the current of deeper waters and deeper understanding. When the river is in us, it is my experience that insights also flow so naturally. Ideas. Nuances. Projects to start or to define. Friendships. Intuitions. Things to stop.

Today I participated in another Center for Purposeful Leadership Zoom call. This time featuring Peter Block and a few of his colleagues.

In that river, I got river…

• “make a living out of common sense” — that’s Peter offering broad arc of his professional life
• “how long does it take to fall in love… 12 minutes” — that’s Maya Mehta, a community organizer describing the work of small group connection (strangers) over a meaningful question
• “learn to be radically human” — that’s Cheryl Persigehl reflecting on purpose in a group and in a community
• “it (the facilitation) doesn’t have to be dramatic” — that’s Peter again standing for simplicity (turn to your neighbor; share was is meaningful in what you are hearing)

What delight, to begin to recognize, and to practice more simply, and with more courageous consciousness, to be in learning together. What delight to learn of the gifts of the river that carry hearts, minds, bellies in kayaks of presence together.

Yup, all of that.

I participated in a group this morning — about 35 people on Zoom. The organizers are thoughtful people from the Center for Purposeful Leadership.

Their prompts today for small group discussion included:
– how to navigate in disrupting times?
– how to proceed grounded in love?

This map above, NILO, is one that I created a few years back, and that I continue to find helpful for such prompts. I suppose because I need nuance.

The basic map brings things into relationship. What is inner is also connected to what is outer. And vice versa. What is happening now is also connected to what is longer arc, both forward and backward.

Relevance today for these CPL prompts is that it helps to have good company to explore disruption both inner AND outer. And, also, to explore things that are well cohered both inner AND outer. Likewise to explore the patterns of disruption and coherence that are visible now, yet ALSO visible in the longer arc. It all helps to see the bigger view, and, to get meaningful insight / choice of action.

I felt simple in this call. Good simple. Clear simple. Which is / was so acutely my inner need this morning.

I’m glad for maps that bring view of the whole and of the parts.

My pal, Lawrence Kampf and I are convening a small group today, eight of us for ninety minutes on zoom. Our theme is, “The Art of Going Deeper.” He picked three people to invite. I did too. People that we know are inclined this “going deeper” way already.

Lawrence and I go back to the mid 2010s. He was participant at an AoH near Loveland, Colorado. Then the next year joined a hosting team — so we got to learn what it was like to share the same room and the same field of wonder. Over these last ten years we’ve met sporadically via Zoom. And over the last two years found our way to a rhythm and regularity. The common thread that I’d name is “wonder and witness” together.

Today, we extend that pattern to this group and field of eight.

Lawrence asks an advance question via email to the group. Well, it is a curiosity really. He says something like, “When we commit to something, not only are we taking a step, but the universe also begins to move us.”

Definitely true for me.

I begin to feel the deepening that I want to share today. I begin to recognize questions that have been living in my periphery, now coming right home to the hearth. I begin to recognize subtleties. And blatant stuff too. It’s as if, the learning ecosystem lifts from the map and becomes visible.

These are all exciting things for me. They are that flow that Lawrence speaks of.

Here we go, again.

I returned late last night from Phoenix, AZ. After a couple of flight delays (engine parts) that eventually led to a rebooked flight. Also after the gift of some added conversation — airport wait time — with my colleague Krista, the main steward of the PBUCC’s (Pension Board, United Church of Christ) Next Generation Leadership Initiative.

I’m moving slow this morning. After a full week of hosting, designing, playing, adapting, teaching, collaborating. It’s true that my body is tired — my last overnight “sleep” in AZ was three hours. It’s also true that my psyche is tired. As in, needs rest. As in, needs some slow pace. So that integration can happen. Of all of that hosting, designing, playing, adapting, teaching, collaborating.

There are stories to remember. That I want to journal about. That I want to celebrate and give attention to. And that I want to carry with me to the next places of learning that I go to, be they deliberate learning groups, or be they life of home and family love.

I feel a bit like I’ve been in a long sauna and sweat. It’s not just that a slow pace is what I want — it’s what I’ve got. And rather than feeling ashamed about a slow pace, I find myself wanting the much more kind response, of honoring it. If integration of experience were a road with speed limits, today isn’t 75 on the interstate highway. It’s not even 25 on the residential streets. It’s more like 10, like when you are in a park, where slow moving is how you get a better chance to see.

That’s my important learning today, from the slow lane.