Human to Human

A bit more here into the reading that I’m continuing to do in 2011. Allowing myself, inviting myself to read novels. There is a kind of freedom that I’m enjoying in this. And an immense sense of flow. Most of the books I have read in the last several years have been about leadership, organizational design, some on spirituality and psychology. Some on philosophy. All of these have been great. Yet, I recognize that for my own health (and desire for learning and freedom), I’m needing to look away for a bit so that I can even see those things. A bit like the physical phenomenon of looking at a dim star in the night sky, not being able to see it. By looking away it creates a visibility in the periphery of the star.

The House on Mango Street (Sandra Cisneros) — “You can never have too much sky. You can fall asleep and wake up drunk on sky, and sky can keep you safe when you are sad.” I read this one because my daughter was reading it. Lovely. About voice (“…learn to become the human being you are not ashamed of…”). About activism (“…anger, when used to act non-violently, has power…”). About home (“…home is about creating one’s desired environment…”). I loved even more what my daughter wrote about it for her class assignment. About the “storm of hindrances” that can be part of life. About integrating past to present. The beginnings of her learnings about integrating masculine and feminine and partnering. So many doorways into the learning that is becoming her life and the journey of father / daughter.

I seem to be working more with faith communities. I quite like it. I’ve always loved the immediate connection into issues that matter. With the Disciples of Christ last year, feeling such an appreciation for multiple ministries in the world. Offered by young people, old people, the grays. With the United Church of Christ, now, recreating a conference format for regional minister gatherings. With Catholic nuns, helping to evolved a community center.

I sense the times just call for an approach that is rooted more deeply in the heart and more open to inspiration and intuition.

Below is a book I read recently, a resource and story that I’m happy to dip into. Brian Bainbridge died a few years ago. With appreciation.

The New Parish Priest (Fr. Brian Bainbridge) — Recommended to me by Chris Corrigan for the work that I’m doing with faith communities. This is a short and simple read of shifting the culture in an Australian Catholic parish, using Open Space Technology as an operating system. From looking at the past to looking at the future. From control to shared service and offering. From “what do you want us to do, Father?” to “I’ve noticed this needs attention.” From “your” parish to “our” parish. Many stories of specific projects that began to come from the people of the parish. Nice reflections at the beginning and end on some of the learning of OS.

Two weeks ago at AoH Boston, Ginny Wiley, Naava Frank, and a few others lead a Resiliency Cafe (ala World Cafe). It was in the morning of our first full day together. The intention was to bring out some of the experience we know of resiliency, activate that kind of energy in the group, and link it to building our resiliency for working in times like these.

For this cafe there were three questions in successive rounds: 1) When have you experienced courage and what was that like before, during, and after? 2) What do you need to let go of to move forward with courage? 3) What is important to take with you to work with courage?

I won’t share the details of the stories here. Those were shared more in private. But I will share the principles that came to me from the stories. With gratitude to all those with whom I got to explore that morning, and the hosting team for creating a container in which this group of 36 could learn well.

Principles from Stories of Courage

1. Follow Your Freedom — particularly when aware that you have changed and others have not, even the ones closest to us.
2. Let Go — even in the moves of life that pick us up from our places of familiarity and move us, geographically, to new and different places.
3. Speak From Your Heart — this one was from me, so I can tell a bit more. These were the words spoken by my then eight year-old son as our family was deciding whether to adopt a newborn. We sat in circle on a bed after a mostly sleepless night. The kids spoke. The adults spoke. I invited each of us to speak from our hearts. When it came time for my son to speak, he shared, “There are times when we have to have courage. This is one of them.” Many tears followed. And an adoption.
4. Trust, Even When You Are Vulnerable — even when traveling abroad and you’ve lost everything to theft, yet need help.
5. Be Honest in Assessing Self; Be Real — particularly when you are overcommitted and haven’t been able to deliver on what you said you would or could for a group of students.

Things to Let Go Of to Move Forward

1. Being the Expert — or perhaps, the need to be the expert. The myth, mostly unchallenged and engrained that one person (leaders), if they are good, must know it all.
2. Control & Fear — pretty closely linked to expertise. Others have written about this extensively. In living systems, not all is predictable. Yet, most systems still measure as if all should be predictable. Closely related to “lack of control is failure.”
3. Need for Specific Outcomes — I don’t feel like this is a letting go of specific intentions. It is however, a welcome of surprise that shows up as a unique expression of manifestation of intentions. As Meg Wheatley says, “who we are together is always different and more than who we are alone.”
4. Aloneness — I’ve heard it said many times that the fundamental angst of humans is separation and aloneness. Yet, it is an outgrowth of the science within which all of us have lived — separation into parts to further understand what we hope is the whole. Byron Katie’s work is some of the best I know to shine a bit of light on such thoughts, so as to remove the unintended enslavement. Colleague Caitlin Frost is one of the best I know at helping to facilitate such — good clearing and letting go.
5. The Belief that “I Would Be More Comfortable Somewhere Else” — Funny how this one can hold so many back. The grass might appear greener, and perhaps sometimes it is. Yet, this is a belief that reduces ability to fully engage in the present.

Things to Take With You to Work with Courage

1. Authentic Self in the Work — As I’ve heard colleague Tim Merry say, “Be yourself. Everybody else is taken.”
2. Ease — When we look at our work as being in partnership with the seen and the unseen, the broader energy in the world, things don’t have to be efforted (thanks Amy Gilburg for this phrase). What if we were to look for the ease, and further, release ourselves from the belief that if it is easy, it must not be the right work?
3. Belonging — Presume connection until apprehended. With colleagues. With community. With purpose.
4. Work from Simplicity — I’ve always loved this about AoH gatherings. There is a point at which the simple becomes more visible and more plausible. Not as reduction. But rather, I believe, as higher resonance because of the group being together. Back to Meg, the group is always more….

Splendid learning. Gifts that I now carry with me that help immensely. From the simple exchange through the World Cafe format. Nice work team.

• Enjoying the green of Seattle (and though I like it the release from a month of shin, knee, and hip deep snow).
• Back in Utah after 10 days away. Unpacking. Checking in on my grandparents. Seeing Isaac. A hot bath. Reading. Rest.
• Elijah, my 5 year-old, on seeing sun-reflected prisms on the wall in our home: “Who spilled rainbows on the wall?”
• Patti Case, friend in work with faith community movements, on changing lives: “Love is the axis around which the rest of it spins.”
• RT #TED: Johanna Blakley on media, women, how social networks create passion-based community to transcend demographics: http://bit.ly/hTl4ds
• An article by Craig Hamilton that my friend Diana Durham shared with me this weekend. On collective leadership. http://bit.ly/fW1bJJ
• The source of emergence is a shift in energy, which often comes from an appreciative approach and clarity of purpose.
• Dreams as source for many insights. Images on which to project meaning. Invitations to be in relationship with the wholeness of the world.
• Steven Johnson (Where gd Ideas Come From) via K Crowley: When nature finds itself in need of new ideas, it strives 2 connect, not protect.
• Everything I know and experience with Sarah and Maria is exquisitely beautiful. Living wholeness: http://bit.ly/gaAm4B
• The best of life and work I’m in is rooted in flow. The intelligence of a much-expanded world becomes accessible. I feel this as awakening.
• Humans in upgrade. What we do in evolution with a changing planet. Much of the invisible accelerating into visible manifesting. Feel it?
• RT @katiaroha: “We are living in the middle of the largest increase in expressive capability in the history of the human race” @cshirk