37days

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.

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.

Account for your days

“So teach us to number our days, that we may get us a heart of wisdom” -Psalms 90:12

Flinging oneself into a new year is an easier jump if the past is accounted for, the ledger closed. I’ve written some 175,000 words on 37days this year. That’s a lot of periods, semi-colons, subjective cases and semi-annual partially plural separating conjective commas each week. I’ve held dear each piece of grammar I cannot diagram, despite Mrs. Harbison’s best efforts in the 7^th grade.

Do or do not do

"Do or do not do. There is no try." - Master Yoda

Something floated to the surface of my consciousness recently, vying for frontal lobe space, squeezing into precious real estate needed for phone numbers, due dates for 8^th grade science projects on water pollution, and the first verses of “The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock,” which so often comes in handy at cocktail parties and auto repair shops.

What floated toward the light?

It was the concept of intention.

Frame your storyboard

“Not equal to

Not metaphor

Nor standing for

Not sign.” – Minor White

Imagine Beetle Bailey’s surprise.

As Aldous Huxley said, perhaps Earth is another planet’s Hell. And maybe on that other planet, gargantuan people sit down with their oil drum vats of coffee, butter their big-as-car bagels, and open their 12-foot Sunday newspapers to find human Earth lives splayed above the fold as comic strips, our daily living played out for their amusement and edification in frames of our own choosing, and sometimes in boxes we wouldn’t choose—those defined by cancer, leukemia, dementia, racism, jealousy, hatred, boredom, inhumanity, wrong choices, name your fear, your awful regret, get inside that tiny box we draw for ourselves sometimes.

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.

Examine your car for dents

“When patterns are broken, new worlds emerge.” -Tuli Kupferberg

One interesting thing about life is that at a certain point, it all starts repeating.

Or perhaps it’s been repeating all along and it just takes a certain distance (age?) to begin seeing the patterns that emerge, again and again.

And perhaps those patterns keep emerging because we keep not seeing them, like a looping test, some sort of life exam, a great big sparkly Broadway musical of the Bill Murray film, “Groundhog Day” with all of us playing Bill playing the weatherman searching for Punxsutawney Phil and awakening every morning to the sounds of Sonny and Cher on the radio, finally recognizing with a start that we have, in fact, been here before and that, like Bill, we’ll have to keep on doing it until we get it right—an infinite regress of doing and knowing and recognizing and starting over.

Don't stop to wave, you'll drown

“Why are women immobile? Because so many feel like they’re waiting for someone to say, “You’re good, you’re pretty, I give you permission.” –Eve Ensler

This week, I watched a videotape of Eve Ensler speaking at the 2004 Omega Institute “Women in Power” conference. Ensler is a playwright most famous for “The Vagina Monologues,” which has played in 76 countries, with 35 translations, in places like Karachi and New Delhi and Cairo. It’s been described as a poignant and hilarious tour of the last frontier, the ultimate forbidden zone, a celebration of female sexuality in all its complexity and mystery.

Be outraged by your own racism

“No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them.” --Elie Wiesel

When my oldest daughter was in the first grade, she stopped me cold with just 16 words. “Mom,” she said as we stopped at a traffic light near Dupont Circle in Washington, DC, where we lived. "Why do you always lock the doors when a black man comes toward our car?"