Archive for June, 2010

Jun/15/10//Gibrán Rivera//Inspiration

Validation

Sometime ago I caught this heart warming short film on @NurtureGirl’s blog – Nurture.biz – and since it has come up in conversation a couple of times lately, I thought it would be a good time to share it forward. It is so important to contemplate our own individual power to make things beautiful.

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Jun/14/10//Gibrán Rivera//Learning Edge

Systems Thinking & Leverage Points

One of our consultants just wrote the following e-mail to our team here at IISC. I thought it would be a good idea to put the question out to our readers – any thoughts?

Hello Colleagues,

I am wondering if you might have ideas about two things:

1. How to introduce systems thinking to a group – simply…

2. What questions you might ask when trying to identify leverage points in a planning process?

Context: The group has gathered a lot of anecdotal information, the intention is to gather additional information on best practices and research, however, we are not there yet. So how to begin to identify levers when we don’t have the benefit of having all data?

Thanks for any thoughts you might have on this!

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Jun/10/10//Curtis Ogden//Inspiration

Sufficiency

Muller

There’s something about the word and notion of “sufficiency” that I love.  Years ago, while living in France, I learned to enjoy the way the words “ça suffit” roll off the tongue.  The term and idea resurfaced for me recently when I learned about the Third Annual Global Sufficiency Summit that was held here in Cambridge, MA in April.  It has come up again while reading the newest book by Wayne Muller, whose writings were a helpful guide to me during my time in graduate school.  Muller’s A Life of Being, Having, and Doing Enough focuses squarely on the question of how we go about determining what is sufficient in different areas of our lives.   He suggests that our failure to consider or know how to address this question has contributed to putting us in individual and collective dire straits.

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Jun/09/10//Curtis Ogden//Inspiration

The Learner’s Plea

Thanks to Ginny McGinn of the Center for Whole Communities for introducing me to this poem by the Chilean biologist/philosopher Humberto Maturana.  We used it to launch this week’s The Masterful Trainer workshop, and it generated some wonderful reflections on the role of teaching, training, facilitation, and leadership in this day and age.  Enjoy . . .

The Student’s Prayer

Don’t impose on me what you know,
I want to explore the unknown
and be the source of my own discoveries.
Let the known be my liberation, not my slavery.
The world of your truth can be my limitation;
your wisdom my negation.
Don’t instruct me; let’s walk together.
Let my riches begin where yours end.
Show me so that I can stand
on your shoulders.
Reveal yourself so that I can be
something different.
You believe that every human being
can love and create.
I understand, then, your fear
when I ask you to live according to your wisdom.
You will not know who I am
by listening to yourself.
Don’t instruct me; let me be.



















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Jun/08/10//Gibrán Rivera//Spiritual Activism

The New Way

armsopenLast week I wrote a raving review of the Movement Strategy Center’s report on organizers transforming the practice of social justice:   “Out of the Spiritual Closet.”  I really think it’s amazing.  Here are nine themes that the report outlines as part of the emergent “new way:” Read the rest of this entry »

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