37days

Ask for what you want

If you don’t ask, you don’t get. –Mahatma Gandhi

Months ago, poet Mary Oliver was giving a reading at a local university. I like Mary Oliver’s work, and in some cases, I even love it. Not like I love the poetry of some other poets—okay, just one, a man who shall remain nameless lest I be entered again into The Poet Stalker Database—but even so there are phrases and moments in Mary Oliver’s poetry that Speak To Me and Me Alone. Or perhaps not Me Alone, given the hundreds of other people who showed up at her reading. I love it when poets get rock star welcomes.

My friend Donna went with me. It turns out that Donna is a big Mary Oliver fan. We sat on the second row, waiting patiently. “I want you to meet a friend of mine,” Donna said to me as we were all waiting for the reading to start, a reading delayed by Mary Oliver’s desire to wait for her friend, Coleman Barks, to arrive. “I especially want Coleman to hear my poems about my dog,” Mary Oliver said, explaining the delay and asking our forbearance. And who could blame her? Well, my lord, if my friend were Coleman Barks and I had a new dog, I’d want to wait too, I thought to myself, so off we went to meet Donna’s friend who had just arrived.

I could barely focus on what Donna was saying to me, or her friend, either. I know I’ve written many times—and very recently!—about simplicity and not owning a lot of things and the evils of rampant materialism and how things keep us from being free and who we are—but honestly, you weren’t there. You cannot know how utterly and completely perfect that woman’s scarf was for me. My life would be complete, I knew in a hot blinding instant, if that scarf were around my neck and not hers. “That scarf is so gorgeous,” I gushed, plotting how to pull one end of it, twirl her out of it like a mummy, and then run screaming up the aisle for the exit. Screw Mary Oliver and her precious Rumi translating friend. I would run like the wind with that scarf blowing behind me, out into the dark, dark night.

A is for advocate

We fight for men and women whose poetry is not yet written. –Robert Gould Shaw, abolitionist

In 2008, I will be a better advocate for those who need—and want—my advocacy.

Long ago on a faraway planet, I once worked in an organization where I sat through a management meeting every Monday. Dante’s Ninth Circle of Hell no longer scares me. Been there. No, actually, it wasn’t that bad. I learned a lot. But sometimes…

One memorable Monday morning, the debate centered on what kinds of notices employees could—and, more importantly, COULD NOT—put on the employee bulletin board in the break room. Nothing sparks a good week at work like legislating the behavior of people you presumably trust enough to represent your organization on CNN to the entire universe, to spend the organization’s money by the thousands, and to write your news releases. Just can't trust 'em with that employee bulletin board, no-sirree-bob.

The debate centered on the appearance of a notice about a gay-friendly picnic that was being held the next month. Up to this point, all had been right with the world, what with all the notices for yard sales and pet sitters and used bikes, until the “gay” word appeared. Add “picnic” and presumably the world as we know it is ending.

I listened incredulously as my peers debated for more than an hour whether this, in fact, was an appropriate use of the employee bulletin board. Hmmm…let’s see. An employee put the notice on the employee bulletin board about something that obviously meant a great deal to the employee. I’m not sure how many more times we can use the word employee in that equation.

One vice president in particular was agitated by the very idea. The debate raged on: “What if?” and “What if?” and “What if?” as I thought to myself, “Man, what if I get hit by a bus on the way home. I’m gonna be really pissed that I spent my last two hours on earth like this.” “What if a picnic is just a picnic,” I thought, continuing my internal reverie. “And what if gay people are as fully human as you are?” I screamed inside my head.

“What if this is just a way to recruit people to be gay?” I heard him say loudly and angrily. “I guess if the KKK wanted to put up a recruitment poster or a notice for a march, we’d let them, too!”

I fell out of my chair. My eyeballs popped out of their sockets. I lunged for his throat.

B is for "be FOR something"

There is no virtue in being uncritical nor is it a habit to which the young are given. But criticism is only the burying beetle that gets rid of what is dead, and, since the world lives by creative and constructive forces, and not by negation and destruction, it is better to grow up in the company of prophets than of critics. -Richard Livingstone

In 2008, I won’t be against something if I can’t offer something to be for instead.

It is so very easy to criticize. It comes naturally, quickly. “What a lousy conference,” we might say. It is harder to solve, change, make better, offer constructive suggestions. We don’t take the time to fill out the conference evaluation in the kind of detail that would offer suggestions for the next time around; we’d rather just complain. It's easier! More fun!

I worked for years for a man who expected I would tell him the real truth. When others kissed up to him, he’d more often than not appear at my office door and say, “well, what did you really think.” And I would tell him.

One day, he appeared in my office door to ask that question, but he started by jokingly saying, “well, I’ve come to ask our office cynic a question…”

Hmm.

I didn’t see myself as the office cynic, but I knew in an instant from the sharp pain I felt at his words that it was, in fact, true. Sure, I was creating more than I was complaining, but I did fall on the critical side of the continuum. I had to acknowledge that while I knew why I was being intellectually critical (that is, critical of ideas and not people, though, well, what the hell, I did plenty of that too)—to move the organization to greater heights—I began to realize that looking deeper and holding us all to a higher standard often sounded negative. I would sit in endless meetings that felt mindless and center-less and make pronouncements at the end, sounding like the Lord of Doom. I was right sometimes, but even so, I often only made pronouncements and not suggestions. I needed to be for something, and not just against things.

H is for human rights

Most people, no doubt, when they espouse human rights, make their own mental reservations about the proper application of the word ‘human.’ –Suzanne LaFollette

In 2008, I will fight for the rights of human beings I see being dismissed and excluded and not listened to. And killed for who they are.

And I will remember that H is for human rights. Not white, middle upper class, straight, fine brick home rights, but human rights.

Not different-but-enough-like-me-that-I-feel-comfortable rights, but human rights.

Not multicolored-but-white-inside rights, but human rights.

I will believe in equality, not just with my superiors—which is easy—but with those people I judge as inferior to me. I will believe in equality, not just with people who agree with me--which is easy--but with people who don't agree with me--which is more difficult.

I will remember that it takes action to ensure the human rights of others, not weariness, and not just talk. That it takes being for something, and not just being against something.

And I will remember that being neutral isn’t. As Paulo Freire reminds us, “Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral."

I was delighted to hear a college professor of mine, Jerry Caris Godard, speak this past Sunday. What a joy to reconnect after these many years out of school, to come to know former professors as adults, each of us grey-haired now. His topic was William Blake; he offered ten “angles of vision” into his “passionate entanglement” with Blake. It was number eight, among others, that caught my eye: “As my lifelong openness to others is amplified, I recognize (more explicitly than Blake) that ardent advocacy of gender equality is a necessary but not sufficient condition to set sexism aside!”

“So too,” he remarked, “with racism.”

It is not enough to want something.

It is not enough to want a portion of something. As Desmond Tutu said, “I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.”

And it is not enough to look away from what is right in front of us, as Carl Rowan reminds us: “It is often easier to become outraged by injustice half a world away than by oppression and discrimination half a block from home.”

Intentions: Let’s start here. Now. Consider yourself part of the solution. Grant specificity and humanity to the Other.

From the last alphabet challenge: H is for horse

Poets take us deep inside aural clutter

Hey, I know the poet featured on today's Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor. Why, just a few days ago, he sat on my front porch in a green rocking chair talking about D. H. Lawrence, tree roots, kids, and a new story I'm writing about the Greensboro Massacre. Congratulations, Sebastian Matthews. I feel famous just knowing you. Gorgeous poem.

Live at the Village Vanguard

Near the end of Bill Evans' "Porgy (I Loves You, Porgy)"
played live at the Village Vanguard and added as an extra track
on Waltz for Debby (a session made famous by the death
of the trio's young bassist in a car crash) a woman laughs.
There's been background babble bubbling up the whole set.
You get used to the voices percolating at the songs' fringes,
the clink of glasses and tips of silver on hard plates. Listen
to the recording enough and you almost accept the aural clutter
as another percussive trick the drummer pulls out, like brushes
on a snare. But this woman's voice stands out for its carefree
audacity, how it broadcasts the lovely ascending stair of her happiness.
Evans has just made one of his elegant, casual flights up an octave
and rests on its landing, notes spilling from his left hand
like sunlight, before coming back down into the tune's lush
living-room of a conclusion. The laugh begins softly, subsides,
then lifts up to step over the bass line: five short bursts of pleasure
pushed out of what can only be a long lovely tan throat. Maybe
Evans smiles to himself when he hears it, leaving a little space
between the notes he's cobbled to close the song; maybe
the man she's with leans in, first to still her from the laugh
he's just coaxed from her, then to caress the cascade of her hair
that hangs, lace curtain, in the last vestiges of spotlight stippling the table.

-Sebastian Matthews, from We Generous

 

Retreat to move forward

Sometimes we have to retreat to move forward.

The next 37days retreat is scheduled for September 28-30, 2007, and registration has just opened for it. Limited to 14 people, I hope you can be one of them. I'll be joined by my business partner, David Robinson, in facilitating the weekend retreat. He's magical and brings so much to the gathering. Plus, we laugh a lot.

September 28-30, 2007  / MIND THE GAP: The Power of Personal Stories

[A 37days Retreat]

“The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.” -James M. Barrie

If you had only 37 days to live, would you feel happy with the story you have lived thus far? How would you express that story, learn from it, leave it for others? Those are the fundamental questions behind this blog and the grounding for this unique, experiential weekend gathering focused on unmasking our personal stories to achieve greater creativity, healthier relationships, and fuller engagement in what poet Mary Oliver calls our “one wild and precious life.”

Often, there is a gap between how we wish to be seen and who we really believe ourselves to be, between the story we meant to write and the one we’ve written so far. This gap mutes the colors of our lives and inhibits the quality of our engagements with other people—in our families, our organizations, our communities. Maintaining that gap diminishes our creative impulse and often splits our intentions. Why, then, don’t we do more to shorten that distance and mind that gap?

This unique Gathering will explore these questions:
How do we make meaning of our lives through story? What are the stories we tell ourselves about others? About ourselves? How do those stories reduce us? What learning and significances are right in front of us, in the stories of our days? How can we summon the courage to move beyond the limits of who we think we are into what we were meant to be? How can we relinquish our “role” in order to discover who we might be beneath the mask?  What treasures can be found in the in-between space between me and you, between perception and preconception, between my Self and the Other?

We’ll explore concepts such as:  Life as a finite or an infinite game, intention and direction, wicked problems & tame solutions, and naming our vicious and virtuous circles, those patterns that either reduce us or allow us to live expansively.

Learning Activities / We will: 

• Use improv theatre, ritual, metaphor, mask, story, writing, and other narrative tools
• Explore “role” and other expressive personal and organizational “masks”
• Be 85% experiential--not in the sense of simulations or role plays—but as unmasked engagement with others
• Invite participants to extract meaning from experiences as a collaborative learning community
• Use focused free writes to help participants frame experiences in their own language for deeper exploration
• Experience how changing ourselves can deeply impact our families, communities and organizations.

Here's what people had to say about the last 37days retreat:

“You created a safe environment for valuable learning.”

“I loved the gentle humor that developed in the group, the inclusive quality of the experience, and the practical writing techniques that I’ve probably encoded into my cells.”

“You don’t facilitate as if to say ‘we are the leaders.’ You’re great at taking cues from the group.”

“The story you wove through the whole weekend was masterful and amazing.”

“Your facilitation is beautifully collaborative.”

“Your ability to bring movement and play into the experience, and at the same time, relate that play to deeper concepts, was truly a pleasure to experience and to watch.”

“I appreciate all the thought, caring, and preparation you put into making the retreat weekend transformational for all of us.”

 Cost / To honor the impulse of giving behind 37days, this retreat is offered for a reduced fee of $475-775 inclusive of tuition, materials, housing, and all meals. Please pay what you can in that range.

Location / Our 2007 retreats will be held at the Bend of Ivy Lodge in Asheville, North Carolina. Go here for more information and registration forms for this and other 2007 retreats (PDF).

We'd love to have you join us there. It won't be the same without you.

Teach fear to heel

“We invent what we love, and what we fear.” – John Irving

A student of mine was murdered this week, on Wednesday.

No, she was actually assassinated as she prayed at a Buddhist monastery in northern Thailand. The reports are that masked gunmen in black leapt from a van and shot her in the neck, then turned to shoot her husband. Thai police have said they believe the couple was targeted for assassination by the Laotian government under a belief they were working against the communist regime in neighboring Laos.

I had met at lunch the day before with another professor to finalize plans for this student's independent study on global leadership this semester. Thankfully, my colleague called the next morning to tell me of her death so I wouldn’t have to hear it first on the news.

Break stride

"We don't see things as they are. We see things as we are." -Anais Nin

Coming home from Chicago two weeks ago, I was struck irretrievably ill in the cab on the way to the airport, that kind of I’ve- eaten- an- alien- food- poisoning- I’m- unable- to- stop- shaking nauseous kind of ill, the sort where you focus all your attention on staying upright, in which not vomiting becomes the only measure of success you can muster. An immediate, swift, and unstoppable sick that--like a train in a tunnel--just keeps barreling toward the light of day.

Fund your own revolution

“The American Revolution was not financed with matching grants from the Crown.” – David Bayles and Ted Orland, Art and Fear

Quick. Look around your office or workspace.

Do you have a clock there? Do you have a visitor chair—a chair where a visitor could sit, should one suddenly appear to visit with you? You do? Does it or does it not have arms?

We’ll get back to that. Hold that thought.

Replace "they" with "we" with "I"

We all believe in equality, as long as it is equality with our superiors.

What is the tipping point?

I’ve long been fascinated by the fact that our Social Contract works—that people stop at four-way stop signs and allow the person to their right to move first, creating a sweet dance of understanding and civility. By the fact that social anarchy doesn’t occur more often at Labor Day Sales, by the fact that people generally queue in straight lines and take turns to buy their Big Macs, that we muster the wherewithal to tell people when they have spinach stuck between their teeth, and that we are a nation of givers and volunteers.