Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope
to the Future
By Margaret J. Wheatley, author of Leadership and the New Science
I first discovered Margaret Wheatley in the pages of Shambhala Sun magazine, when I read her amazing reflection on e.e. cummings’ "Four Quartets" with which I was working for SHIRT OF FLAME. I went on to follow her work with Peter Senge, Berkana Institute and the Shambhala Summer Institute for Authentic Leadership (which I still hope to attend someday).
Meg is an inspiring advocate for what Paulo Freire calls “our vocation to be fully human.” Her work is all about connection, relationship, self-discovery and communication, and how those things affect change – that is, how focusing on human relationships help us be and create the change we wish to see in the world.
Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future was recently reissued in an expanded second edition, and Berrett-Koehler was kind enough to send me a review copy.
Like the conversations it hopes to inspire, Turning to One Another is heartfelt and simply written. The book is not a manual for some new technique for cross-cultural, inter-generational dialogue, although Meg admits such studies have their place. She finds that over-study of dialogue impedes real, personal, natural conversation, and it is those conversations that in her experience hold the greatest value for personal and communal development.
Meg wrote Turning to One Another to address the global crisis of uncertainty and irrationality, cynicism and despair. She asks, “How can we become people we respect, people who are generous, loving, curious, open, energetic? How can we ensure that at the end of our lives, we’ll feel that we have done meaningful work, created something that endured, helped other people, raised healthy children? What can we do now to restore hope to the future?”
The answer? “Only connect.”
I’m just beginning my community-building tour for MyOutSpirit.com, so I couldn’t have started Turning
to One Another at a better time. In
each city I visit, starting in Austin, TX, I’ll be convening conversations to
address the central question that inspired me to create MyOutSpirit in the
first place – continuing the conversation that started at the Gay Spirit Culture Summit in 2004:
What
can we do to shift LGBT culture toward deeper, more positive, caring,
authentic, safe, respectful community that supports each individual in being herself
or himself and valuing his or her uniqueness, strengths and inner wisdom?
As we said then, “There is a need for healing and for being together in a safe haven where we can see, hear and touch each other’s hearts and souls. We need alternatives to bar culture, unsafe sex, body obsession, alcohol, drug & sex addiction and other destructive behaviors. We need to transform negative messages we have heard about being LGBT into self-love, strength, compassion and wisdom.”
That deep cultural work seems more important than ever, and as great as MyOutSpirit.com is at helping spiritual lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer and questioning people find affirming resources (and each other), it’s only virtual. Not that connecting with another human being online can’t bring us joy – of course it can. But what MyOutSpirit.com can’t do as JUST a website is do the real work of shifting culture.
The website can consolidate resources. It can help people find friends and
partners. It can even start
conversations.
But what the LGBT community really needs is a MOVEMENT where actual cultural shifting takes place; a movement of immediate and personal conversation, action, eye-contact.
It’s easy to say things on your MyOutSpirit profile, but how do you LIVE? Actions speak louder than words, so if we all SAY we want queer culture to be deeper, more positive, caring, authentic, safe, and respectful, but queer culture isn’t CHANGING – what aren’t we doing?
On some level, we are incongruous. Our actions are not mirroring our deep desires.
Margaret Wheatley suggests that the way to begin is at the beginning. “If you start a conversation, others will surprise you with their talent and generosity, with how their courage grows.
“I
think the greatest source of courage is to realize that if we don’t act,
nothing will change for the better.
Reality doesn’t change itself. It
needs us to act.”
She reminds us with example after example, from Solidarity to ending apartheid to mothers demanding safe streets, that the story of a great change usually begins with, “Some friends and I were talking…”
Pick up Turning to One Another. Start talking.
~ Clayton Gibson, on MyOutSpirit tour in Shreveport, Louisana
our pastor will preach his last sermon at our church tomorrow...it's a sad and very unsettling day for us all. i'm reminded by your post of one of the first sermons i heard from him several years ago. he posed the question: "is the real conflict in the world between good and evil, or could it be between good and indifference?"
apathy and cynicism, indifference, seem to be rather run of the mill...not just in the lgbt sub-culture but in the larger national culture as well. "peace" as a concept has been reduced to nothing more than an "inside" salutation for the pretend enlightened. it seems to me that tension is far more the apparatus of change...or for the individual "being the change". peace is the illusory end of change...that which realistically can occurr only at the end of life. using tension as a positive force for change is the trick.
it's good that some can create change within the sub-culture but when it ends up as no more than preaching to the choir it just becomes moot...smoothed out tension...droning noise. harmony is not created by everyone playing the same note on the same instrument over and over again it's more weaving all the different notes played on different instruments into music.
i don't think it's much of a celebration of diverstiy to try to win others over to the same message. i think it's greater to create a climate where the different messages can truly respect one another and find ways to work for the greater good of each...to create an environment where change can occurr as uplifted enlightenment, not born only of conflict, but of tension and understanding. covering up difference with a false sense of togetherness isn't really the stuff that feeds the engine of change, in the long run it only digs the trenches deeper and wider...albeit doing it in the dark.
so, working outside of one's own sub-culture is a very important message as well. about all that's good about working within the community is making others within the community feel better about themselves, to the point of taking the message out of the community and having it heard where it really matters...in the greater community. we can all be made to feel better about ourselves but with that as an end goal it will never get us out of the "us against them" mentality...our goal should be integration with our larger culture...full membership...not covering up our difference but celebrating it and demonstrating it's worthiness for others who don't "get it" to celebrate as well.
much love and hope. pj
Posted by: pennyjane | August 08, 2009 at 06:48 AM
I love your response PennyJane! I also want to ad that if we run around all the time only looking at the crap of the world, then we're likely to believe the world is crap. Talk about living in a box! The kingdom of heaven is all around, we have but to see.
Posted by: HLR | August 13, 2009 at 08:00 PM
i'm with you, hlr. seems we usually see just what we're looking at....'cept for mirrors and bathroom scales...they lie!
much love and hope. pj
Posted by: pennyjane | August 14, 2009 at 01:19 AM