Community and proximity

Community is not about profit. It is about benefit ... When we attempt to monetize all value, we methodically disconnect people and destroy community.
The nonmonetary exchange of value is the most effective, constructive system ever devised. Evolution and nature have been perfecting it for thousands of millennia. It requires no currency, contracts, government, laws, courts, police, economists, lawyers, accountants. It does not require anointed or certified experts at all. It requires only ordinary, caring people.
True community requires proximity; continual, direct contact and interaction between the people, place, and things of which it is composed.

Dee Hock, 1999, Birth of the chaordic age, p.43

institutional crisis

We're in an accelerating, global epidemic of institutional failure ... [with] organizations increasingly unable to achieve the purpose for which they were created, yet continuing to expand ...
schools that can't teach
universities far from universal
corporations that can neither cooperate nor compete, only consolidate
unhealthy health-care systems
welfare systems in which noone fares well
farming systems that destroy soil and poison food
families far from familial
police that can't enforce the law
judicial systems without justice
governments that can't govern
economies that can't economize ...

Dee Hock - 1999 - Birth of the chaordic age - page 28.

Purple

Posted by http://jonnybaker.blogs.com/jonnybaker/grace/


Christ's piece is you,
Christ's piece is me,
It is those that do,
And it is those that be,
Without one another we can't cover 360 degrees,
Because we don't need 'I's to see, we need We.

As every image that we see of ourselves is reflected,
Every image that we see of the world is subjective,
We need two points of view to gain some perspective,
And the ability and humility to accept this.

Because in our vision lies division,
A polarised view of action and pacifism,
But contradiction doesn't mean fact and fiction,
more like discordant harmonies in the melody of wisdom.

I need you, like red needs blue,
You need me, like do needs be,
And life shouldn't be binary,
Our eyes shouldn't be primary,
We need to trade in reds and blues for indigos and violets see:
We need to try and be purple.

Not just protest march bruises as we go out and do,
Or blood filled cheeks as we hold our breath and be,
I mean purple.
Full circle.
The hares and the rabbits,
the tortoises and turtles,
Purple.

So let us be moved to be mauve,
Maroon and mulberry,
Lilac, plum and lavender,
May the red and blue poles of our souls and our minds combine to be magnets of magenta,
Purple.

May we take the opposites and make the composite,
As every image has its limits
And every picture could be richer,
If we have someone else to see that we are in it,
We need to be purple.

[by Harry Baker aka Dubb]

Don't hold on so tight

"How do we present our views in the fullness of our embodied and perspectival commitment, without falling back into a pre-modern universalism that has rightly been criticised as expressing the will to power of those who have been able to express their views? I suggest it is not by pretending to an intellectual neutrality which in any case is only a pose, but rather by acknowledging and affirming the conditions of time and space, which limit our perspectives as well as giving them their distinctive perspectival power… We should not hold our views so tightly that we cannot appreciate the perspectival truths embodied in the lives and works of others. We should think of our 'truth claims 'as the product of embodied thinking not as terminally bored universally valid thought." 


Christ, C P. 1988, Embodied thinking: reflections on feminist theological method. Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 5, 1 - page 15. 

learning organisations

learning organisations are "organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to learn together.” (Senge, 1990, p.3). 

Senge, P.M.    1990    The Fifth Discipline     London: Century Business

What I would see and praise

What I would see
mid all the stress and tension of these days
what I would see beyond my pain and, seeing, praise
is how life works its way upon
our thick, opaque obduracy
presses down and pulls us out
to tissue-thin transparency:
yes, praise.
I would not choose to stretch this way.
Unwillingly I find myself drawn membrane-thin
so others can see through and in.
I would prefer to hold my dark
to guard my secrets safe behind
a studied public face -
but stretched reveal a larger life
admit a light beyond my own
and letting through these stronger, brighter rays
I praise.

Einstein

"Creating a new theory is not like destroying an old barn and erecting a skyscraper in its place. It is rather like climbing a mountain, gaining new and wider views, discovering unexpected connections between our starting point and its rich environment. But the point from which we started out still exists and can be seen, although it appears smaller and forms a tiny part of our broad view gained by the mastery of the obstacles on our adventurous way up."

Albert Einstein