This evening, I’m joining Samantha Tan, Maria and Greg Jobin-Leeds in hosting a Walk Out Walk On book party with our friend, co-author Deborah Frieze. I appreciated Deborah’s take on this past weekend’s rapture madness – the following is from her blog post on the topic – Doomsday comes and goes. How come we keep falling for it? Read More
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Metaphors can be very useful in helping us grasp and work with otherwise complex issues and difficult circumstances. I’ve been working with one particular image lately as I’ve been doing change work on both personal and professional fronts. As we all know, it can be very difficult to move from where we are, even when we know change would likely bring something better. Of course, there are many different sources of resistance, and something I’ve been thinking about lately is how the reality of our current situation, while being an impetus for change, can also become all-consuming in a way that obscures other possible paths forward. I liken this to the image of standing under a bright streetlight at night. Where we are is fully illuminated, and beyond that, the dark is that much more obscured in contrast to the brightness in which we are engulfed. This can make any movement beyond that glow, as glaring and unpleasant as it may be, somewhat daunting. We can’t see the alternatives! But if we were to venture slowly out beyond the edges of the lamp’s light, what would we find? Over time our eyes adjust. Gradually, we are able to see more clearly that there are in fact viable alternative paths forward. Perhaps thinking about and allowing for this adjustment will embolden our stepping into the shadows.
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This past week I’ve been in Florida for our family’s annual pilgrimage and a desperately needed reprieve from what has certainly been a challenging New England winter. And as in years past, I’ve had the fortune to be able to attend a speaker’s series that my father-in-law has been instrumental in putting together down here. Last Friday I got to hear from Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor to President Carter and counsel to numerous other American heads of state, both Democrat and Republican, on matters of foreign policy. Brzezinski had only 45 minutes to present what ended up being a dizzying tour of his perspective on the current state of geopolitics and suggestions for US strategy going forward. As grand (and certainly opinionated) as this undertaking was, I was most struck by how he began his talk, and the ensuing response. Read More
Leave a commentThere is some exciting work happening through the Institute of Noetic Sciences called the Worldview Literacy Project. This initiative seeks to help students understand from a relatively young age what a worldview is, where worldviews come from, and the potential for switching and/or holding multiple views. Given that fundamental change is rooted in our mindsets and preconceived notions about what is and can be, this project would seem to hold great promise. Judge for yourself by listening to these remarkable young people and future (or perhaps current) change agents.
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Photo by: John Baez
As we continue to explore the inner side of collaboration and social change, I wanted to share a few highlights from a recent conversation with my colleague Roy Martin. I met Roy in my role as a faculty member of the Massachusetts Institute for Community Health Leaders program sponsored by Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of Massachusetts. He spends his days (and nights!) intervening in the lives of young people who are caught up in the drug trade and gang-related violence. He knows them intimately, loves them deeply, and puts himself out there personally to guide them towards a positive future.
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Thomas Rice, founding Board Chair of IISC, draws the rubber band connecting vision and mission.
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“How do societies create the breakthroughs needed for a more just, tolerant, healthy, educated, and equitable world? How do they challenge the prevailing wisdom without losing hope? How do they enact lasting change and protect it from the inevitable backlash?” This age-old question is subject of Paul Light’s new book, Driving Social Change, from John Wiley & Sons publishers. The Nonprofit Quarterly features a summary of the book in their most recent issue.
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Following is a repost by angel Kyodo williams, originally published in Transform, from the Center for Transformative Change.
Each January, whether formal or informal, uttered or silent, many of us resolve to do something different for the coming new year. We commit to starting some things and finishing others. We put plans into motion, we reassess, reevaluate and take stock of the life that we have and where we want it to be.
In two weeks, as President of the United States, Barack Obama will issue the State of the Union, as is constitutionally required “from time to time,” reporting on the condition of the country and setting forth his legislative agenda — resolutions for the nation — for 2011. Likewise, as a Movement of Peoples United in striving for a just and equitable world, we should require of ourselves a reflection upon the state of our union as we reconsider and reset our course for change in this new year. Read More
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We at IISC have the privilege of witnessing heartful, sometimes heart wrenching dialogue about critical issues in our world from multiple perspectives. We work with passionate laypeople and professionals focused on education, environment and sustainability, public health, peace and justice, youth development, racial justice, city planning and community development, to name a few disciplines.
I’m encouraged by a few themes that are coming up more and more in our work. And, I’m even more encouraged that increasingly, they are emerging as imperatives, not just “nice ideas.” As we facilitate processes and bear witness to the struggle to bring forth justice, here are some of the voices we’ve heard calling out: Read More
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One of the guiding mantras here at the Interaction Institute is the idea that “the success of an intervention is directly proportional to the inner condition of the intervener.” This idea and our commitment to “the love that does justice,” help us to uphold those practices that nurture our inner condition and facilitate our capacity to love. It is with this commitment in mind that I share the following review:
Sally Kempton has written a wonderful book. Meditation for the Love of It is a breath of fresh air in this current wave of meditation literature. Pleased as I am by the booming interest in the practice of meditation, I am often frustrated by what feels like a one sided perspective of a beautifully multi-faceted tradition. A masterful teacher, a great writer who is able to transmit her own direct experience of the Self, Sally Kempton makes accessible a rich meditation tradition that could otherwise be relegated to the inaccessible realms of esoterica. Read More
6 CommentsThe “No Labels” political effort feels more like the work of well resourced spin doctors than an emergent political movement that can address the paralyzing institutional polarization that might bring our country to its knees. I was struck by this quote from a New York Times story focused on Bloomberg’s role:
In fact, though, the rise of the independents represents a movement in exactly the opposite direction — away from party organizations altogether… This isn’t so much a political phenomenon as it is a cultural one. In the last decade or so, the Web has created an increasingly decentralized and customized society, in which a new generation of voters seems less aligned, generally, with large institutions. MoveOn.org and the Tea Party groups, for instance, were born as protests against the establishments of both parties, and they empowered citizens to create their own agendas, rather than relying on any elected leadership. Read More
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