Sometimes the flowery words of scripture are like the duff on the stable floor. So overlaid with blather that the beautiful invitation to relationship and conversation are covered over in layer after layer of rococo …
What do you wish in your life? What are you looking for? What are you seeking?
Where are you going? Who is going with you?
The teaching of Augustine: … our hearts are restless until they rest in God…”
Sometimes the flowery words of scripture are like the duff on the stable floor. So overlaid with blather that the beautiful invitation to relationship and conversation are covered over in layer after layer of rococo …
What do you wish in your life? What are you looking for? What are you seeking?
Where are you going? Who is going with you?
The teaching of Augustine: “… our hearts are restless until they rest in God…”
It is now a moment… where am I going? Who is going with me… resting in the heart of creation. In my world, the heart of God. The heart of all creation.
We seek to solve a problem… however, the elements of the problem are not clearly defined. The rule of three… an input, a process, an output. At a scope, a scale, and in a context. A who, a what, a where… with a when, a how and a why. Rinse and repeat. Deeper and deeper goes the wander. with each pass, a greater clarity can come. In the growing moras of a challenge; a new pass in the rule of three. The rule, when the questions are in the incorrect order… may kick up a fuss that says a point has been missed. True. In this miss, the projection error can now be corrected.
Movement from blather to insight. Perhaps insight through blather. Just a touch to understand that questioning in engaged moment can move a culture far along a path. Most especially, when the whole of the culture practices the questions of this simple rule. Not to find a one correct answer … no; to engage the garden that is found in the dialogue.
When I begin from that place of walking to where I am… this is not an existential experience. It is a finding place for scope, scale and context. It is the rooting place of who, what, where, when, how and why. There is a place that invites a beginning moment.
If all emotion is based in projection, assessment of projection, engaging projection error and then recalibrating the projection so that it more closely responds to experience… and, in that set of practices, a connected and fostering attitude is manifested; a from what is assembled.
Context and from what … to what.
Gremlins and a journey…
Muray Bowen is responsible for the next image. That dance of triangle that invites the gremilins of guilt and shame… that of not good enough, bad playing… I did something bad… I am bad… Learning to engage in the gremlin dance and once dancing… beginning to be clear about where I live… and in that rooting in place, knowing self the better and the more.
Thank you Murray Bowen
Open and learning — Closed and defending
In hearing a conversation… is it based in yes/and or yes/but? Do the conversants cut off or give a lead for the next round? In participating in policy design, a room design, a song, a creative activity, a walk… in engaging a process; what is my attitude of participation. Are the who, the what, the where… dancing in a shared form? Is the when, the how and the why… in sync, in congruence, in… ?
Does the connective collaboration align and integrate both up and down a power structure? If yes/and, open… if yes/but… a system in defense. A system in decline. It is not black and white… for there are too many varibles of inside/outside, scope/scale, input – process – output…
This multi-variable sense and framing allows a fostering, sustainable system of integrating different levels of competence and structure to flex and dance in the storm. It is where we live in this moment. Well, it is where I find myself living in this moment.
A riff on the work of Clare Graves, Chris Cowan, Don Beck, Ken Wilber, and Said Elias Dawlabani
Passing the torch…
It is easy to hold on to a place. Even as the place leaves me. That desparate desire to have a home and a place to belong. To reflect on this sentiment. To own it as a desire.
In recognition, “There are many days that I wish desparately to fit in; to feel as if I belong. And yet, I do not. For to fit in, is too painful to my soul.”
What was a story or narrative of yesterday, a foundation of memories in stone… That castle has crumbled. In the strewn ruble… a wisdom comes from the foundation stones. The anchored ships in resentment bay begin to pull up, to come to harbor, to refit, to renew… to integrate the lessons learning in projection error. In that stripping away, collapse, renewal… there is something else happening. The dance. The pulse of all creation is beating in slow harmony. It never stops. It always pulses… it always invites. Just … for a while, perhaps, a situational deafness has been about. In the renewal in a new dawn… the wisdom and walking through the dark time now breaks as a seed breaks open.
There is a great wisdom in this cycle… a gread and wonderful wisdom.
An image…
Pulling up anchors and refitting… from anchored in, in Resentment Bay to sailing away.
The more I learn… The less I know…
Engaging all of us… where we are… finding interesting moment. In gratitude.
The work … each day. With thanks, humored moment and great appreciation.
Listening deeply. When I hear something through a projected filter… and the projection is in error… the ass hole box gets checked. Sitting with a set of projection error awareness.
The questions were in the wrong order. The hearing filter was set in the wrong place. The kind offer was heard as accusation. So… in this sudden awareness, the steps to make amends can form.
The process of renewing. We speak of progressive maintaining. We speak of lifecycle cost. We speak of differed Maintenance. Each has a point of emphasis. Each has a series of underlying narrative that sets the foundation for the analysis that creates a cost benefit.
Description…
The elements of linked system are described. The assumptions of each system… described. In that description; the links, foundations, stresses, all of the connected tissue, come to awareness. A series of observations and tests are conducted to assess the connected nature … In planning it would be called nexsus.
Now phases…
Perhaps an element is discovered to have multiple layers of links to a greater and lesser element. Even, in a surprise discovery or enlightened awareness, a connection, thought in one way… emerges in another… This phase of description and discovery give so much granularity and context to the scope and scale of the queries to this complex connection of elements.
There is the from what…
Removing the ‘should of’ – ‘could of’ – ‘would of’… And the result… the What.
Planning a to what…
Now comes the so what to get in the way or disrupt the jouney or deployment planning… Laughter ensues.
So for the moment… there we leave it… festering in a dance of redux. Gaining energy to burst into next steps…
Bursting into renewing… or finishing the degrade to make room for the renew.
I know that the bears, sitting with their figit spinner, are all focused on the day. It makes sense that they are focused. For, that is the pose that is their world.
I didn’t wake up thinking about a blog. I woke up thinking about the incredible beauty of the valley. Washed from days of rain. The sun is bright and makes believe that it is warm. Later today, there are meetings to ponder important issues of water, the cost of infrastructure, completition for resources… all of that concern that rings so important in the rising tide of leadership.
It is important work. Suddenly understanding that an old friend is positioning to take on another role in the fishbowl. That of moving from back bencher to an on the dais face. From gentures on the floor of the chamber to the raised seats. Even if he is not successful in this shift, he is working hard to create the option to ‘explore’ such a place.
Listening to young children, confronting leadership with great passion. That same leadership is equally passionate. Two blunt objects slamming into each other. A great deal of passion. A great deal of energy. The breakthrough is when both parties begin to listen and learn … shared passion, engaged in agreement of outcome. Understanding that it is not a place to which we go back. It is a journey that moves with time. So, there is not a place to return. It is a journey with story arc.
The wonder of engaging is that we look easily to being collectivly for what we are against. I hear it in my own conversations between. The power of a movement, a sustained movement is to be for what we are for. The whole of the idea; a collective of human movement. It is messy. It takes time. It is about seeing beyond the next quarter. In that, and in the description of those areas where I can not engage this larger vision. There are some things that are not negotiable. The sacred moments where there is not the energy to argue into a void or against a tide of being for what we are against…
This muse of engaging systems for which a binary is a violent reduction of both the depth of system and the sustaining connections that feed and foster. In so many arguments of being for what I am against… the reduction to A or B… straw man standing… a great joke. The humor of efficient argument. And… of a Saturday morning in February, a place to stop. For, the wonder of the morning is that it is a gift, this day. Moment to moment, a gift. With thanks.
Chris Alexander
Brene’ Brown
Viktor E. Frankl
Murray Bowen
Lisa Feldman Barrett
Richard Feynman
T.H. White
Atul Gawande
William F. Buckley
Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza
Gabor Mate’
Barbara Brown Taylor
Ernest Becker
Daniel Botkin
Temple Grandin
Steven Pinker
John Sarno
Peter Wholleben
Richard Rohr
Parker Palmer
Anne Lamott
Christopher Cowan and Don Beck
Clare W. Graves
Seth Godin
Michael Gungor
Peter Block
Daniel Tammet
Edwin H. Friedman
Donald Miller
Harry G. Frankfurt
Jay Harman
Janine M. Benyus
Adam Kahane
Jackson Katz
Rebecca Solnit
David Graeber
It is a partial list of authors who have demanded attention this past year. Even as I tap this sentence, asking forgiveness for those forgotten, more raise pages to be included. Ah, such a rich place of learning to tap. In that demand is also a grand invitation to look at the foundations of much of my thinking. An invitation to evaluation, discarding, even wholesale remodeling. Along with this list of amazing thinkers, a larger context of the universe in which we all dance has also emerged. The simple question of, “Around what do you organize?” This simple question turns much of the narrative of the past several years on its head. The deeply shaken set of held belief, life narrative, story arc… all dumped upside down. The grand humor of seeing some of the foundation stones… turned over to reveal so much richer a vision. …
In song, in writing, in listening to the hopes and dreams of many clients… in the growing that happens each day in the fields around the house. In the deep seeds of thinking, observation and listening that the fun and challenging partnerships around and surrounding demand…
All of this, a tradition of taking stock. A tradition of pausing to give thanks for so many teachers. A gift of this huge classroom. And so many partners in that learning.
It all started with a review of the current list. The list that shifts and grows each year. For, there is so much to learn. In each new learning, the reminder of … the more I learn, the less I know.
As with questions… Who, What, Where, When, How and Why…. Scope, Scale and Context add to the frame. A conversation about this or that disaster… Major, I am saying MAJOR… until the frame shifts to scope and context. Major in relationship to what context…
The sink overflowing… on a slab on the wash porch on the patio… on the third floor of the apartment that has just been remodeled with fine imported hardwood floors… on the second floor and the roof collapsed and the kitchen stove tipped over and started a fire… and… and… and…
Friends, ran out of gas on the way home from a party, that we both attended. As they coasted to a stop, we pulled in and asked to help… a long walk turned into a pleasant drive to get some gas, pour it into an empty tank and … soon after, all were homeward bound. Scope, scale and context.
A disastrous meeting of two vehicles on the road… speed, impact, … oh my. Again, scope scale and context.
When a regulatory scheme is deployed, what is the scope, the scale and the context. From the regulator’s vision? From the regulated’s vision? Ah the permutations that can come from this set of variables.
Then, what happens when the three variables are not congruent or the responses are out of wack or… the train wrecks that can come from assumptive response of scope, scale and context. Such a wonderful world to explore.
Walking in the world this morning. Started to think through this idea of resilience and disaster. The walk … a beautiful day on the eve of Christmas.
First there is Scope. Then comes Scale. Finally Context.
Disaster comes in all shapes and sizes. All contexts. All scopes. All scales. Full stop.
When the walk eases away that set and rigid form to hold disaster in a certain frame… there is room to find paths beyond a disaster.
May this full on day be blessed with moving beyond and remembering scope, scale and context. Framing each in congruent response. With congruent expectation. In congruent available bandwidth.
This morning, while walking, it was clear that each breath was enough for the moment. Breathe and step. Pump the arms and then turn for home. Enough on this eve of Christmas. A blessing.
I wonder at the stunning images that are painted in each moment as the sun rises in the valley. Standing for just a few moments in the breaking dawning of this day. The brush of the sun … the shadows in grand shift. The light breeze of morning. Now, a bit later, the sun begins to come in through the office window. It has risen over the hill and kisses the cabinets behind me. The light in the office shifts.
The pile of notes, trinkets, letters, contracts… all the parts of daily conduct… litter the upper part of the desk. It is a goal of christmastide to file or toss, recycle and find proper place… after the shifting light stops holding my attention.
Perhaps some practice of a tune will find its way into the mix of putter that is a lovely Sunday morning. That putter practice of having a tune work itself out.
Perhaps this afternoon will yield a nap. The plan that was for this afternoon found itself executed yesterday evening. So… there is much room for an alternative set of putter plans.
Years ago, a younger group of crew learned to putter on a walking trip into a downtown where none of us live anymore. It has informed so many gatherings since. The putter practice. That moment of seeing in clarity and then holding that seeing in a putter plan.
Just up the road. With thanks… puttering, just up the road.
