Sep/16/09//Linda Guinee//IISC:Outside
OK, to be totally honest, I wasn’t reflecting on this while I was on the scooter, but that’s often where I am reflecting…
I had an incredible conversation with Susan Shaer, the Executive Director of WAND (Women’s Action for New Directions), the other day.? We were talking about creating a longer term vision and strategy given all that’s happened recently for those working on peace, security and foreign policy issues. We were reflecting on the amazing changes that have happened – and then Susan started talking about changes in what she was calling “new media” – and how that affects organizing strategies. At one point she said, “if we had known ten years ago how much time we would now spend reading and responding to email, think about how differently we would have organized ourselves.” And so I’ve been thinking about that ever since.
How should we be organizing for the new technologies that are ahead of us (instead of what is)? What are the new strategies for engaging people in our issues — not thinking just about what’s available now, but what’s coming? How will these changes affect how we work? Any ideas?
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Sep/15/09//Gibrán Rivera//Featured, Structural Transformation
One of the issues with the current funding system is that it tends to invite dishonesty from organizations seeking grants. And perhaps we should not say dishonesty, but the system certainly makes it easy to fall into the temptation of overstating the case, of presenting an aspirational goal as an established reality. This pattern is detrimental to everyone involved. It hurts the funders who will not be able to meet their goals even if they believe they are funding with purpose. It hurts those being served, organized or mobilized, and it certainly hurts the organizations who get caught in the game.
Part of the problem with the normalization of this often subtle dishonesty is that it actually keeps organizations from staring their own reality in the face. As a consultant to all kinds of organizations, from foundations to the grassroots, I experience this insidious state of non-truth as a serious obstacle to my own work. We can’t help an organization move if the organization can not be honest about where it is. The situation forces us to spend a lot energy surfacing the truth, but if we were starting from truth then we would be able to use that energy to hit the ground running. Read the rest of this entry »
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Sep/11/09//Melinda Weekes//Structural Transformation
Eight years ago Today:
- 8:46 am – AA Flight 11 hits the North Tower of the WTC
- 9:03 am – UA Flight 175 hits the South Tower
- 9:37 am – AA Flight 77 hits the Pentagon
- 9:59 am – South Tower falls
- 10:03 am – UA Flight 93 crashes in Shanksville, PA
- 10:28 am – North Tower falls
As a nation of families, neighborhoods, communities and citizens, let’s pause to remember the lives and courage of the nearly 3,000 who lost their lives 8 years ago today, on September 11, 2001.
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Sep/10/09//Curtis Ogden//Inspiration
One of my favorite summer reads was the book Leading from Within, which is co-edited by Sam Intrator and Megan Scribner, both of whom have connections to Parker Palmer’s Center for Courage and Renewal. The book is a collection of favorite poems selected by a diverse group of leaders in business, medicine, education, social services, politics, and religion. Each poem was chosen because it provides guidance and support for these individuals’ work and lives, and each is accompanied on the left facing page by a short commentary that sheds light on the poem’s significance.
One of the contributors is Carla M. Dahl, a professor and dean at the Center for Spiritual and Personal Formation at Bethel Seminary. For her poem, Dahl selected John O’Donohue’s “Fluent”:
I would love to live Like a river flows, Carried by the surprise Of its own unfolding.
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Sep/09/09//Linda Guinee//Featured, Spiritual Activism
A few months ago, I wrote a post called “Over-Working“, in which I was questioning the ways that I (and many of us) over-work. I am just now returning from a five and a half week sabbatical, thanks to the generosity and forethought of the staff and board of IISC and clearly, given what is happening to so many people right now, a great deal of privilege at having the kind of work environment I have.
It has been an amazing span of time, opening me in many ways and creating quite a space to build the life I’ve long been wanting. And so, in this returning to work (and, for some, school) time of year, I thought I’d reflect a little on what taking a break has meant.
About ten years ago, I spent three weeks at Plum Village, a Buddhist monastery in Southern France. The time there was primarily spent in silence – with long periods of sitting meditation, walking meditation, and even working meditation. (No surprise, I struggled with over-working during working meditation!) One of the practices at Plum Village is that each week, everyone takes a “Lazy Day”. Read the rest of this entry »
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