Conversation #12 ~ Can I be fearless? (pp. 150-159)

"What's important is to notice what we do with our fear. ... Fearlessness simply means that we do not give fear the power to silence or stop us."

That's from page 152 of Turning to One Another by Meg Wheatley.  Here are a question to think about:

"What might I need to walk out of?" (p. 154).

And here's a picture of the "Orange Revolution" of 2004, when the Ukrainian people protested a fraudulent election (p. 155).

How would you answer her question?

"Can I be fearless?"

Conversation #11 ~ What is our role in creating change? (pp. 142-149)

Wangari Maathai  called herself an "accidental activist" (p. 147).  I read her book — Unbowed: A Memoir — shortly after it was published in 2006, a few months before I started blogging.  The story of her life was so compelling that I still remember details from the book, which I rated a 9 of 10.  In the summer of 2011, I read a beautiful children's book about her called Seeds of Change: Planting a Path to Peace by Jen Cullerton Johnson.  When I learned Wangari Maathai had died (September 25, 2011), I felt it as a personal loss, maybe because she was born the same month I was born, in April 1940.  I wrote about these two books on my Bonnie's Books blog.  It's interesting that today's question is about creating change, and the children's book about Wangari Maathai is entitled Seeds of Change.

My book club on Facebook, made up mostly of clergywomen, read Margaret Wheatley's Turning to One Another a couple of months ago.  Here's an exchange between Barbara and me on this very section of the book:

Barbara:  "Part III, #11, (pp. 146-7):  What is our role in creating change? — I appreciated being reminded of Wangari Maathai's courageous work to plant trees in Kenya:  The Green Belt Project.  I'm sad to know Dr. Maathai died several years ago, yet her legacy continues to help humans and the earth.  I'm wondering whether anyone out there sometimes feels inadequate — or your work feels inadequate — when learning about stories such as Dr. Maathai's.  Every contribution counts and makes a difference, but do you ever wonder whether your/our work is effective?"

Bonnie:  "Barbara, to answer your question, yes, I feel inadequate, wondering if I'm really doing anything meaningful.  I haven't done anything that inspired women to plant millions of trees in Kenya, as Wangari Maathai did.  But in both of the classes I taught on Sunday, we talked about Luke 13:20-21, which says:  'To what should I compare the kingdom of God?  It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.'  Yeast, or leaven, works slowly but steadily.  What I say or do today may seem insignificant to me, but it could make a difference to someone someday that I can't even imagine.  For example, Shirley saw that I mentioned here on Facebook that 'my online book club' was reading Meg Wheatley's book.  Since she's in my online Book Buddies discussion group, she asked if that's our next book for discussion.  Now it is, because she and I decided to do it.  Donna is reading the book, too, and will join that discussion.  That's a mere three of us in that discussion, and (so far) only three here:  Judith, you, and me.  But look at the world map at the bottom of the Book Buddies blog.  Few of us are still talking about books, though there were several of us a few years ago.  But look at the map — [NOTE:  I'm updating the data] — people from 5637 places have read the Book Buddies blog in the last 2-1/2 years, or if you click on the map, you'll see that it's been viewed 42,801 times in that same period of time."

And our Book Buddies group has grown beyond the original three for this discussion.  I'm still hoping Barbara will join us here.  So let's answer Meg Wheatley's question:

What is our role in creating change?

Conversation #10 ~ When do I experience sacred? (pp. 134-141)

When I googled "sacred" to find an image for this post, this stained glass window came up among other pictures of cartoon characters with swords, that seem to be part of the gaming world.  It was in the 13th line of images, which may be important on this Friday the 13th.  (Or maybe not.)  You can see it more clearly if you click on the image to enlarge it.  Anyway, in Turning to One Another, Meg Wheatley says:

"Sacred is not a special place, or a ritual, or a particular group of people.  It's more normal than that. ... the ritual isn't sacred, it just opens the door to the experience. ... sacred is available in our day-to-day lives" (p. 136).

It's all about being connected.  She asks the question at least three different ways.  How would you answer?

How would you describe sacred?
How would you describe the feeling of sacred?
When do I (you) experience sacred?

Conversation #9 ~ When have I experienced working for the common good? (pp. 126-133)

Think of "any experience where you worked for others rather than yourself" (p. 129).  Meg Wheatley asks these questions.  Choose one or two — or just tell us about the experience.

• How well do you remember that experience?
• Do you remember the purpose of the work?
• How often did your efforts teeter on the brink of failure?
• How many times were you surprised by someone's ingenuity, or your own?
• And now, long after it's over, how do you feel about those with whom you shared this experience?

This weekend, I read about a brave soldier and learned this:

"What motivates soldiers in combat is not hatred of their enemy, but love for their comrades."

Wheatley said a lot in this part of Turning to One Another.

• "When we work for the common good, we experience each other in new ways. ... We focus on the work, not on each other" (p. 130).
• "[W]hen we serve others, we gain more than hope.  We gain energy" (p. 131).

How would you answer her question:  "When have I experienced working for the common good?"

Conversation #8 ~ What is my unique contribution to the whole? (pp. 116-125)

On page 121 of Turning to One Another, Margaret Wheatley says:

"I'm sure you've had the experience of stereotyping someone because of their appearance, and then being surprised when they didn't fit that judgment."

Oh, yeah!  We moved into a new house on the day before my twin daughters started kindergarten, so I didn't know the other children or their parents.  When the first little girl visited our house one afternoon, I told her mom I'd take her home.  She was an awkward child — and very excited about her new bed that she wanted to show us.  I drove to her neighborhood, following the directions her mother had given me, and let the little girl point out which house was hers as reached the corner of her street.  Expecting a small bungalow, I smiled as I glanced where she was pointing.  Taken aback, I looked again — up and up and up — one, two, three floors high, with a curved drive at the front entrance, branching off to ... was that servants' quarters back there?  A maid answered the door, and the girl's gracious mother encouraged us to go up the curved stairs in the entry, so the excited girl could show us her new canopy bed.  The whole kindergarten class with parents was later invited to visit the family's horse farm an hour's drive into the country.  Oh, how very wrong my stereotype had been!

What stereotypes have we been guilty of?  Do you stereotype people by nationality?  By looks?  By how they dress?  By age?  By gender?  By race?  By occupation?  How do you stereotype teachers?  Grading papers was always my least favorite chore!  Why must we label each other, anyway?

Click to enlarge and see their signs

So how do you answer Meg Wheatley's question, "What is my unique contribution to the whole?"

Conversation #7 ~ What is the relationship I want with the earth? (pp. 106-115)

From garbage trucks to landfills to mountains of trash to a sea of garbage, also called marine pollution.  "When will we ever learn?  When will we EVER learn?"

Enlarge this landfill mountain (click on photo) and see the yellow Komatsu excavators.  Those were manufactured across the street from where Donna works, and we may have seen them sitting on the lot, ready to be transported — where? — to try to control a landfill.  Notice the "tiny" humans crawling all over this "mountain."

This picture was taken from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch website:
http://greatpacificgarbagepatch.info/
Visit the GPGP site for more information about this horrible mess.

Garbage is the result of our lifestyle.  We glorify competition — Super Bowl, anyone?  Therefore, we are in a time that many scientists refer to as "the sixth great extinction" (p. 108).  We're arrogant (Bonnie's term, not Meg Wheatley's).

"Instead of honoring nature's principle of no waste, (one species' waste is always another species' food), we decided we could accumulate huge amounts of garbage" (p. 109).

If some can see that cooperation is what life's all about, why do other insist on competition?

"Life becomes stronger and more capable through systems of collaboration and partnering, not through competition" (p. 110).

"Life ... is pushing back forcefully right now ... dramatic and frightening climate changes all around the globe, destructive floods, more deserts and barren soil, new diseases and pandemics" (p. 112).

And what do we continue to do in our relationship with the earth?  We are still "trying to play god with it" (p. 113).

Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago?
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls have picked them everyone.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Words and Music by Pete Seeger (1955)
(c) 1961 (renewed) by Sanga Music Inc.

How do you answer Meg Wheatley's question in this chapter of Turning to One Another:  "What is the relationship I want with the earth?"

Conversation #6 ~ Am I willing to reclaim time to think? (pp. 98-105)

When I read this sentence (p. 100), I thought of the history of Book Buddies.

"Are you encouraged to spend time ... reflecting on what you're learning?"

Here's the back story.  One day in 1996, I was paying for my purchases at Cokesbury Bookstore in Knoxville.  While the clerk was ringing up my books, I picked up the one on display near the cash register:

The Deep End of the Ocean, a new novel by Jacquelyn Mitchard, was about family torn apart when the youngest son was kidnapped.  Nine years later a young boy knocked on the door and asked the mother if she needed the lawn mowed.  She suspected he was her missing son.

The clerk noticed my interest and said, "Oprah's starting a book club, and that's the book she's chosen."  It looked interesting, so I added the book to my purchases, read it, and joined Oprah's new book club discussion on AOL.com.  Some of her readers were more active in the online discussion, and I invited them to an AOL chat room I opened for us once a week.  One of them called us "book buddies," and our group was born.  Donna was among that earliest group, and I met her and several others in person in 1998 when book buddies began getting together with each other.  A few years later, Oprah left AOL.com and went to Oprah.com.  Some of us moved with her, and I started two or three books groups at the new place — Book Buddies, Essencia Island, and Around the World in Eighty Days.  I think that's when I met both Shirley and Mary Zorro.  (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

After her mother died, Donna (AuntyDon) sold their house and moved to Chattanooga.  We opened a bookstore together in 2004 and named it Book Buddies, after the online group of friends.  Donna and I met Mary last year when she visited her daughter, who lives in a Chattanooga suburb, and the three of us walked a labyrinth together.

Donna, Bonnie, and Mary in 2012

When Oprah suddenly and without warning took down all the book discussion groups on Oprah.com, we were left without a "home" of our own.  Years of book discussions gone, just like that.  So I started this blog for us.  Notice our URL is http://bookbuddies3.blogspot.com.  See that "3" in the middle?  This is the third incarnation of Book Buddies — first with Oprah, then as a bookstore, and now on a blog where our book discussions will remain forever available, unless Blogspot folds or closes us down.  The books we've read are listed on the sidebar, linked to our discussions since 2007.

All that to explain why I say "Yes" to Wheatley's question.  Yes, I am willing to make (or reclaim) time to think.  This blog is testimony to my answer.  See also my profile, which says, "I read to explore ideas."  Yep, I'm all for thinking about stuff.

How would you answer Wheatley's question, "Am I willing to reclaim time to think?"