Category: General Learning

A few words from participants in a reflection circle with Transition US and Resiliency Community activists at an Art of Hosting in Saco, Maine, April 11-13, 2014. Really fantastic people responding to a question from Bob Stilger, “What have you heard in these 24 hours together?”

What did you hear?
In the far, in the near,
the essence in twenty-four hours?

Better together says we and Jack Johnson.
Men, women, sharing time, sharing rhyme.

Stories, world view, one and two.
To be heard. In such a short time.
Oh my!

Deep dive, deep thrive.
In just twenty-four hours I feel the kindred spirits.
Hear it? Hear it?

Cheer it, this collegiality.
Trackin’ back to the edge of the forest,
to the edge of magic.
Yes, you said that!
Imagine that!

Serenity, unconfined, vulnerable.
Thanks a lot.
No, really, thanks a lot!

When the soil is healthy
transition occurs,
the foundation of soil isn’t a blur.

Bridging worlds,
curled together,
inner worlds of shared balance,
the vibe of I and we.

We are not alone,
the tone,
the wave,
the rave,
from the cave come these provocative questions.

No solutions?
No problem
in the depth there is awesome liquid,
soup, 
a primordial leading to the adjacent possible.

Just look. 
Just look.
Just look.

We have it.
Period.
Indeed.

Work,
play,
workplay,
playwork,
not a shirk.

In this form, 
I share; we share.

What is it from in us, 
already in us,
that heals?

Human group is our nature.
What if, what if?

Just look. 
Just look.
Just look.

We have it.
Period.
Indeed.

 

I’ve referenced Glen Lauder several times on this site. He is, among other things, a friend and colleague in New Zealand who can’t help but get to the core of things. He is one of the best I know in working with groups.

Glen offered these words below last year, which I recently shared with a group I was facilitating. I think of them as a kind of invitation to begin. They loved it. I wasn’t surprised. I post them here with Glen’s permission.

You may not get this 
Straight away 

The people who might get it straight away 
May not be here 

That might be an issue 
Because they matter 

And it might matter
That you don’t get this 

It might matter, that you Do 

The people who are not here 
Who might get this much more easily might be 

Women

Maori 

People who are not in positions of power or analysis 

People who in some way are alienated, excluded, 

Or have a different viewpoint.

Or they might be off building something.
Growing something.  
Unfolding something completely new.
They are our entrepreneurs.

You can be that, here.
You can be an Intrepreneur.

Someone who finds a better way inside where you are.

But not by being how you have been being.
Not the same.  
Not the same doing.
And not asking to have the same stuff as before.  

Not more Guidance that doesn’t work. 
Not more Process that you developed for others to follow. 
Not more policy that they have had no chance to own.   

But as an  intrepid explorer who travels with others in respectful partnership
That holds that the whole is important as well as the parts 
And that all the parts matter. 

Who is willing not to know 
To feel lost 
To admit despair 
To witness profound failure and not turn away.
Because we are facing profound failure right now, and turning away. 

Those who are willing to find this new way are turning to face that 
Turning to one another and saying
There must be a better way. 

That is 
what this is. 

Let us turn 
to that
Now. 

 

Yes, that is me, sitting on the back of Reverend Rick Dake, Clarkston, Michigan, United Methodist Church, kneeling underneath me. It is from a February Regional Event that I helped design and host in Orlando, Florida. It was a meeting to honor partnerships and celebrate community associated with Church and Community Ministries.

There are several things that I like about this picture:

• That Rick rescued me. This was during an improv exercise in which the players are tapped out of a scene while the remaining person hold’s their position. 
• The laughter that you can see in peoples faces. Part of honoring and celebrating is welcoming ourselves to some play.
• That there is some physical exchange here. Many modalities of engagement work. It’s good to have something physical, beyond the space of conversations and words that represent ideas and thoughts.
• In the center, to the left of Rick, are several items. Flowers, objects, pictures, wishes. Our primary meeting shape was circle. The center, used for our meetings and for worship, was created by participants.

My gratitude to all the people that gathered for this event. Church and Community Workers. Partners. Conference Leaders. Global Ministries Staff and Leadership. To Kathleen Masters, who continues to shepherd a large and inspiring vision within this group. And to Reverend Rick Dake for the seat!

Spirit of Wisdom, direct our hearts.
Spirit of Wisdom, direct our hearts.
Guide our visions, free us to risk.
Spirit of Wisdom, direct our hearts.

The Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration (FSPA) have lifted up a new leadership team for the coming four years. A president, a vice president, and three mission councilors. Five very impressive FSPA Sisters from a nominee circle of ten very impressive women. They represent a team that will steward essential direction, shifts, and some major decisions facing the community. They are also a touchstone of vision that will invite input and collaboration in the spirit of what my friends Christina Baldwin and Ann Linnea aptly name as “leaders in every chair.”

My partner Teresa Posakony and I helped design and host an elections process that took place over the last seven months within the FSPA community. It involved deliberate circles of community discernment, individual reflections, and a discernment weekend at which 20 sisters participated. It culminated these last few days with an Elections Assembly. Prayers, openings, and closings offered by sisters. Questions to reconnect and re-animate mission and the experience of the June 2013 General Assembly. Small table conversations. Movement. Play.

 One of the things that really impressed me in the Elections Assembly was the commitment from the nominees to a transparency. In a few places, we asked the nominees to respond to questions as if they were holding a circle together in front of the room. Ten people talking and listening together. 110 people witnessing it. Not campaigning. Not regurgitating. Just speaking what was in their hearts and what they were hearing during the days that felt important. This distinction — “on the spot for transparency and witnessing,” is very different than “on the spot to synthesize everything that happened” — was important. It is less testing. It is more tuning. It shows a value that I believe the current leadership team will try to strengthen in the FSPA community and with partners and affiliates, the practice of transparency and inclusion.

It takes a kind of maturity to suspend individual certainty, to suspend individual bias, to open heart, mind, and soul to the discernment that comes uniquely from engaging with the group.

These FSPA Sisters did this in spades this week. I was happy to be a part of it.