I have not made much blogging time during my Sabbatical, but really like some of this stuff I am working with so I thought I would post it. It comes from a book by Peter Block, “Community: The Structure of Belonging.” - good stuff. It feels like something Covenant could and would write if we were to share the collective wisdom we have been gathering over the years.
Here is a short excerpt that I found especially helpful.
“Certain properties of collective transformation create the conditions for greater belonging and stronger social fabric. The following are the properties, in Christopher Alexander’s terms, that when undertaken with a consciousness of the whole, can produce a new future:
Leadership is convening.The small group is the unit of transformation.
Questions are more transformative that answers.
Six conversations materialize belonging
• Invitation
• Possibility
• Ownership
• Dissent
• Commitment
• Gifts
Hospitality, the welcoming of strangers, is central.
Physical and social space support belonging.”
It is amazing how many of these are deep values and practices of Covenant. I wonder which ones we might need to put some energy into as we deepening our own structures belonging.
