Organizational Communication and Development since 1980
Application of solution in a problem set that is not as defined. The if only solving…
When the whole of the system engages and enrolls in the solving… then the solving is a solving. When the solving is based in prejudicial framing of the elements, then the solving is … as shifting sand.
The speaking… framing by label. Creates the shifting sand.
# 04-26-2020 A Sacred… Sunday Morning…
The air smells like the Russian River in summer. The compressed heat, cool for the moment, ready to turn on the after-burners… in a while. In a while. In the yard, the Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow blooms in profusion. The Jays play and cavort. Their tilt head look of … “… and what do we have here?” As they dance along my walking route.
The ancient bones of the house gift the upstairs bathroom with the smells of long ago, my youth, as a child visiting the grandparents. Bones that in human years are ancient, in house years are ‘pretty old’, in relationship to all time… a blip… perhaps a half a blip… for the moment, ancient feels a comfort.
Faces and voices zoom down the hall. The office is full of project. The slow recycle of paper, ancient in relation to projects. Twenty five drafts of one chapter of a paper that was written, now four or five years ago… dusted in the filing cabinet. The final paper, part of a public document, a policy document so… it will live in the minutes of a meeting in front of some body… as long as that body is a functioning library of its work… how funny to have stuffed the drafts in a file and … kept, because, well you never know. The knowing that went into the paper has moved far down the river. And, as I was reading the framing from that then, I was and am struck by how far my thinking has come since that day.
Foundations crumble. Those ancient stalwarts who, with voices of thunder, call out importance. Foundations crumble. In the crumbling, so many opportunities to build anew. In the cacophony of the crashing… a path revealed…
Reading again, an old favorite author. A little story of plague. The moments… recognition, standard engagement, a breach of the standard, a collapse of the rigor, sudden emergence of possible path, complete fatigue, demoralization, overt anger and
demands for the crumpled frame to provide as advertised…, the ironic turn of phrase that castigates ‘other’, frustrated words of human frailty, demand for help, wailing for help, voices of ‘help thy self’, many voices speaking, many voices shouting, in many corners, graceful care, one, two, three… in overwhelming corners, graceful care… And then, a sunrise where, all is changed and in the sun breaking through the passing storm, those voices, still in great Greek Choir raised… now is the new day. In that new day, a cycle of integration, yet again. This, the great run on… it is not a closure, it is an integration.
When a great strife has painted the whole of the earth… then there, in the cracks, the new integration comes again, and again, and again. The moments… and again.
In the thinking chair, in the black and white… knowing the colors and seeing the great relief in the black and white… now the integration. Changed yet still many voices… Experts humbled, workers raised up, information aplenty… and now, as a symphony… from cacophony, the score invites a conversation. In that conversation, each day, a new integration. Enough. And enough…
04-07-19 A ripple in the linkage across all creation
Sleep was filled with disjointed dreams. Dreams of connections, apparent; yet falling away as if a stage falling away from a speeding rocket. Spent and falling away. In olden times, that stage would then fall to the earth and be sunk in the sea as fodder from the sky. These days… the stage is landed and reused… sometimes.
We are in a time of sometimes. That transition of a from what to a to what… That wonder of links apparently broken and yet linked in so many ways … the falling away, in so many cases actually moving to a set of other links.
When the connection is all to … me; the shift is a wild pulling and tearing. Wild, at times painful and always a challenge. In the renewal this spring, of so many parts of my immediate world… that tearing and reconnecting is strong. The renewal of the plumbing. The renewal of the water system. The renewal of … each aspect of … means a tearing out and then a building back in. The opening of space to allow replacing, renewing, and finding path. The discerning of connections that worked at one time and now, with shift, no longer flow. In that discerning. … In that discerning there is an awakening to opportunity. Seeing what appeared sacred in a new set of ways. Just so… learning something beyond. That place of … It is a great and gracious moment. This wonder… indeed.
Feeling the work of the pulling and pushing… In yesterday’s renewal of space of tank house and garage. That making anew.
Now it is morning… actually, moving quickly to afternoon…
And the gratefulness of yesterday’s work, into today’s putter. The wonder of… just sitting in this moment. That is enough. In grateful moment… enough.
03-29-19 What do you mean?
Lent 24
“What do you mean by saying, “You will be made free”?” John 8:33-47
A friend sent me a business strategy for the census to get a complete count which he calls “cage and engage” … it is the basic principle of the dislocation of the American Japanese right after Perl Harbor. It also has echos of the Reservation movement/genocide, the Armenian genocide and the Nazi’s solution to the jewish problem. It speaks to every solution model of environmental or ecological preservation. It assumes the limits of the problem and describes a deployment that fits a certain set of criteria. Instead of engaging the elements of community that havea dynamic place. It assumes that the identification of a supernumerary goal… to count every countable person with accuracy, allows the dislocation or assumptive caging… The means to get to the end. The power over… the very reason that the count is a challenge to begin with. “We” in order to help the most of “Us” … invite “all of us” to use these tools to get to the complete count. Implicit in this is the “They”. The entrance to Auschwitz… work makes you free… “you will be made free…”
The pervasive feeling of wonder… to be invited to be of the elect to make this perfect complete count happen… The wonder of delivering so much value for so many… all through the idea of cage and engage. Each of the carefully cared for engagements… the very best of engagement… and the outcome… a ‘perfect’ complete count…
That moment of mistake when … this idea, rationalizes the idea of cage. To entrap in order to identify… We laugh at the long lines of entrapment at say… Disneyland. The fun of beginning to moo… or of the slow lines to get in to a sporting event… mooing again. The concerned security people gazing… or the wending path, carefully designed by Temple Grandin to ease the anxiety as a cow or pig walks to slaughter… All carefully managed for reduction of cost and enhancement of product. The value add…
I understand the thinking of my friend. It is the cost benefit analysis that is evident in every behavior that is undertaken by institutional thinking of late. The cost and benefit to get to the wonderful ‘better world’… the magic of … “And then a miracle occurs” that creates all of this value. The miracle is the vesting of authority or system to get the caging done. Once caged, a population is easy to count accurately. The value proposition is straight forward. The act of caging can be a benign act… the incarceration to get to the better place… We, the people… in order to form a more perfect union… require of each of us… to coming to be counted… The hooking together of a set of ideas to engage a set of behaviors which, in this benign … and … the information, the data, gathered will ‘serve’ the greater good. Giving up … to get latter … the sacred deal with the higher power.
The challenge is that there are the cagers and the caged. If we all are engaged in all of us… then there is not an inside and outside the cage. This inside/outside is the tension, the problem. My friend is always outside. The problem is always inside. There is a separation of the elect and the counted… mostly because his counting is at a different level than those who must be caged and engaged. The subtle art of giving authority to the intercessor. And then, having that leadership have a different set of rules… rules of engagement. The subtlety of an equality play that makes the count equal and the access to count a binary. Those who engage the count and those who need to be caged so that the count can be imposed upon them. They who engage and those who must needs entrapped engagement.
Missing the mark by imposition of … the sin. The Mistake.
The work of the lenten moment of this morning. Humbling to see both and all. To see the both and… In seeing, to also see the subtly of and difficulty of … community in equity. Community in equity, informedwith equitable engagement. To allow equitable engagement through a path… a path … many paths. That many paths challenge. To engage complete count through many paths. So, that each may find a count place. The invasive model … leveraging community to make sure that a hearth is open for each and all.
That moment when each is a friend to … for then there is no stranger. At the well, the water of living … it is a dream inwholeness. It is a moment … an arc, a prayer, a blessing.
That hierarchy … to engage the whole of the hierarchy … there is the invitation. That each person… held in hierarchy, may come and see, may come and be, may, in communion, be counted in the whole of the host. Raised up and counted in the whole of the host. That the least and greatest … the lion and lamb are each among the “All of These.” That is the blessing prayer of this day.
03-20-19 Comfort in…
Lent 15
“… saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?” John 5:1-18
It is comforting to have the dogs wake up and start asking to go out at a certain time. It doesn’t matter that they were keeping me safe from some ‘heard’ thing … just three hours ago. The wagging and smiles… the wonder at seeing, as if for the first time, yet again, what is out there in the world… the excitement of ‘come and see.’
It is comforting to wake and walk out the door to get the papers. That short walk from front door, out the gate and to stoop down to pick them up. In the walk, to take the pulse of the morning. To breathe in that air of the new day. Checking the tank for water. Having a conversation with the dogs… security. A new moment.
It is comforting to breathe in and breathe out. It is comforting to see the clouds in the sky and to hear the harvest all around. It is comforting to be wakened in the night with security … saying that they need to go and see… later… saying that they are ready to come in.
In this comfort is also the still small voice. That voice of wellness in each breath. The answer is yes. For the question is … the comfort in… Do you want to be made well? In gladness and deep lenten preparation, yes.
There is comfort in the question. There is comfort in the reflection. There is comfort in the conviction… the invitation to conviction. And the renewal in breathing in creation. All of a moment. All of a morning. All of each morning. In humbling seeing. The laugh at the wonder of the joke. And in that … comfort in all of this wonder. Comfort in…