Play around, procrastinate, make a mess...

amanuel melles - Jan 16, 2007 8:58 pm (#1 Total: 25)
With people, with ideas, in action

Thanks for bringing up this issue. As a director, I never worry about my staff's cluttered desks. Everyone has his or her own way of getting "organized"...what matters to me is the bottomline: that what I expect them to do, is done. Of course, people waste more time trying to find materials they need in a cluttered work environment. But people often compensate by the additional time they spend to ensure their work is completed.

Natural ecosystems are often regenerated through random and choatic events (coral reefs bleaching; forest fires). The reality of today's workplace and organizations (artificial ecosystems) is that order,  tidiness and strategic planning are rewarded. We don't know how to handle messy, creative and usually productive  staff.

amanuel

zoe brooks - Jan 17, 2007 2:35 am (#2 Total: 25)
East Oxford Action


My husband worked for a number of the top publishing firms and tells me he could always tell how creative and original the company was by the messiness of the desks - the messier the more creative. I spent several years working in community arts and theatre and my observation supports my husband's position.

Creativity often comes from the juxtaposition of apparently unrelated ideas. Even the time "wasted" tidying up my desk is important to me, I find the random shuffling of papers allows me to see connections. Once the papers are filed they cease to exist. That is not to say that order is not also needed - there is a need for people who tidy up and organise within any organisation and moreover creativity is after all about bringing a new order to chaos. But for too long the tidy police have been patrolling offices!

ClaraJ - Jan 17, 2007 4:14 am (#3 Total: 25)
Founder: Be Good, Give Goooood (tm?), Promote Good


Purposeful random chaos/play/procrastination introduce and allow for the ultimate designer (energy or incarnate) into the creative process. It is INDEED "a form of listening" (Cameron) and a way to ask for help in "LINKING apparently unrelated ideas." (Brooks)

??? I'm a theist.. hipbone... would you elaborate on what you mean by the "don't push the river" Taoist philosophy? The river is a great image.. one that I use in my personal definition of spirituality.. taken from a quote by Tolstoy.

Namaste Chiara

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Jan 17, 2007 11:27 am (#4 Total: 25)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates


Hey, I'm impressed. I expected this topic would either be attacked by the forces of tidiness and timeliness, or ignored -- and lo, three of you have written in taking positive attitudes to the disgracefully untidy suggestion I've made! ; )

Amanuel, I thank you for the mention of corals and fires, and for your comment that (normally) "order, tidiness and strategic planning are rewarded". Perhaops Abrahamson and Freedman's book will loosen things up a bit -- but isn't it encouraging to see others here with a high tolerance, and even respect, for cluttered desks and creative minds? The correlation between the two is instructive!

One of the most brilliant minds I've ever met, a senior researcher and modeling software developer at the Brookings Institution, has a desk piled high with books and papers which overflow across the floor -- up to the same height -- for sveral feet on either sidxe of the desk. Most impressive.

Zoe: great to read you here. East Oxford? somewhere out past Magdalen bridge, then? Headington, Cowley? Oxford's my once-upon-a-time home town.

You write:

Creativity often comes from the juxtaposition of apparently unrelated ideas.

That's absolutely right,and we can go a little further and specify that the juxtaposition comes about through an analogy or homology between the two disparate ideas... That juxtaposition, indeed, is the precise target of my HipBone Games:

http://home.earthlink.net/~hipbone

Clara:

Please allow me to hold my response to you over for another post -- I have a rather long quote I'd like to deliver, and fear it would overwhelm this one!

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Jan 17, 2007 11:53 am (#5 Total: 25)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates


Hi Clara:

You asked:

would you elaborate on what you mean by the "don't push the river" Taoist philosophy?

I think the best way I can express it is via a quote from Alan Watts and Al Huang's book, Tao: The Watercourse Way:

Because ink is mostly water, Chinese calligraphy – controlling the flow of water with the soft brush as distinct from the hard pen – requires that you go with the flow. If you hesitate, hold the brush too long in one place, or hurry, or try to correct what you have written, the blemishes are all too obvious. But if you write well there is at the same time the sensation that the work is happening on its own, that the brush is writing all by itself – as a river, by following the line of least resistance, makes elegant curves. The beauty of Chinese calligraphy is thus the same beauty which we recognize in moving water, in foam, spray, eddies, and waves, as well as in clouds, flames, and weavings of smoke in sunlight. The Chinese call this kind of beauty the following of li, an ideogram which referred originally to the grain in jade and wood... Li is the pattern of behavior which comes about when one is in accord with the Tao, the watercourse of nature.

Taoism as a philosophy aims for the natural flow (think also of Milhalyi Csikszentmihalyi's book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience) of the river or watercourse, for a path or way that neither "tries too hard" nor "gives up in despair" -- but rather, in a delicate and continuously sensed balance, moves through life without undue stress and with innate gracefulness.

The watercourse way is not "as the crow flies" -- direct and rigid as a line drawn with a straight edge -- nor is it tortured by its own complexity. If I can put it this way, it allows for eddies and picks up stray leaves as it flows ever onwards...

ClaraJ - Jan 17, 2007 12:17 pm (#6 Total: 25)
Founder: Be Good, Give Goooood (tm?), Promote Good


Love the ink image! Have not done calligraphy... but remembering the scene from "crouching tiger" & remembering the calligraphy at the asian museums I've been to... you are exactly right!

The funny thing is this watercourse way as you describe it... I learned its management style from my ED at Sanctuary Arts Center - an art center for homeless youth - Leslie had a way of managing by the Holy Spirit (that would be the Christian equivalent metaphor to what you're talking about... the Father/Son parts of the trinity has a "as the crow flies" qualities about it... but listening to the Holy Spirit of the trinity... well, you HAVE to listen to how the "Way" is operating *already* in our lives. For profit Msft taught me the "as the crow flies" management style. Not for profit SAC taught me the "watercourse" management style.

There's also another favorite Taoist saying ... there are 3 kinds of leadership: those who are anonymous, those who are loved, and those who are feared. Well, based on my experience, you can only lead anonymously by paying GR8 attention to the WAY - whether that's Taoist or the Holy Spirit of the Trinity.

Clara

tutormentor - Jan 18, 2007 7:32 am (#7 Total: 25)
Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection


Some random thoughts on this topic.

I vote for the cluttered desk. Give me flat space, I fill it with papers and books. In the book titled The Spider and the Star fish there is a reference to how some people thrive in ambiguity and others require structure.

I've read management books that talk of stages of growth. When your in the creative stage there is lots of ambuguity because you're building something new, and generally don't have lots of help doing it. As the organization grows, the need for structure, and the resources to provide structure grow. That's becasue a larger organization needs to find organized ways to keep everyone focused on the same goals. Maybe this goes overboard and stiffles innovation. That's probably another discussion.

The idea of going with the flow is an important one. I'm constantly reaching out to people all over the country/world. Yet, I can't control how fast they respond. I have to go with the flow.

However, I think the role of the entrepreneur, or the innovator, is to sometimes dig a canal, and change the flow of the river. If we keep doing what we have done in the past (flow of the river), we keep getting the same results.

ClaraJ - Jan 18, 2007 7:45 am (#8 Total: 25)
Founder: Be Good, Give Goooood (tm?), Promote Good


True, social justice agents have to know when to change the flow of the river... however... I think.. if we want the kind of change akin to the Berlin Wall (a peaceful revolution) vs. the civil rights movement (a peaceful yet violent revolution), then I think the answer lies not so much in digging a canal, as to know when to change flows of river. A paraglider moves from air current to air current - so the sign of an anonymous leader is one who moves from river to river depending on a divinely inspired calling. MLK Jr. had it! And so did Gandhi!

And still, yet, sometimes, I agree, changing flows or brushes is not sufficient. There are times we have to grunt and dig a canal - but then we have to be prepared for massive resistance from the water. The higher the good, the greater the evil that resurrects in all of us.

Amen.

tutormentor - Jan 18, 2007 12:58 pm (#9 Total: 25)
Cabrini Connections Tutor/Mentor Connection


I'm reading this book now and one quote that got my attention was "In the fight for an ideal, we face those who are deceptive, envious and incompetent. The man who is firm pays no mind to such poeople and wastes no time counting them. For he who marches toward the light need not worry about what occurs in the darkness."

This was praise of Prof. Ennio Amaral, who through his wwork made it possible for poor people in the fields of Brazil to gain access to electric energy benefits.

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Jan 21, 2007 6:33 pm (#10 Total: 25)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates


Re: [ClaraJ] Very cool / Paragliding

I have to admit I'm not too surprised to see your suggested link between the Taoist "watercourse way"” and Christian "Holy Spirit" – but then I got my degree in theology, so I lean that way anyway. And Tao is one of the suggested translations of Logos in Chinese. Having said which, I wanted to sidestep that issue and keep on the mess, randomness and procrastination line of inquiry, which is why I was a bit quiet for a while on first reading your post.

On the subject of knowing when to change flows of river -- I think that’s a great question, and we’re very fortunate to have two brilliant documents from Donella Meadows on the subject:

Places to Intervene in a System
http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid790.php

An astonishingly important paper for anyone hoping to change the way things are, this is Dana’s classic account of where interventions will have the greatest impact. Using Jay Forrester’s systems theory as her basis, she shows that the greatest impact doesn’t come by influencing quantities (numbers, material stocks and flows) but from playing with the rules of the system (incentives, punishment, constraints), the power of self-organization, the goals of the system, and above all the mindset or paradigm out of which the goals, rules, feedback structure arise.

Dancing with Systems: What to do when systems resist change
http://www.sustainabilityinstitute.org/pubs/Dancing.html

This is an excerpt from Donella Meadows's unfinished last book. She suggests that while systems thinking says the future can't be predicted, it can be envisioned and brought lovingly into being. Systems can't be controlled, but they can be designed and redesigned. We can't surge forward with certainty into a world of no surprises, but we can expect surprises and learn from them and even profit from them. We can't impose our will upon a system, but we can listen to what the system tells us, and discover how its properties and our values can work together to bring forth something much better than could ever be produced by our will alone. A brilliant essay in favor of a fully human and humane understanding of complex situations, problems.

-- and note the "watercourse way" thinking that’s present there, too!

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Jan 21, 2007 6:41 pm (#11 Total: 25)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates


Dan:

Hello once again:

When your in the creative stage there is lots of ambuguity because you're building something new, and generally don't have lots of help doing it. As the organization grows, the need for structure, and the resources to provide structure grow. That's becasue a larger organization needs to find organized ways to keep everyone focused on the same goals. Maybe this goes overboard and stiffles innovation. That's probably another discussion.

Yes, but an important one. The anthropologist Victor Turner [in his masterpiece, The Ritual Process] argued that St Francis was trying to create a permanently “liminal” community – one where the creative stage would continue past his own death – in the form of the Franciscan order, but that such an attempt is doomed to failure, and that even before he died the Order was self-organizing in ways that undercut his original sense of values.

Turner makes it clear why the liminal is a necessary refreshement to the normal, but cannot possibly replace it. It's a fascinating I'm drifting close to religious studies again. Let's get back to(wards) business!

I think the role of the entrepreneur, or the innovator, is to sometimes dig a canal, and change the flow of the river. If we keep doing what we have done in the past (flow of the river), we keep getting the same results.

I’d rephrase that to say the flow sometimes mandates the digging of canals in new and unexpected directions <grin>. Otherwise, I heartily agree.

beautiful complexity - Jan 24, 2007 5:54 am (#12 Total: 25)
Learning at the Intersection of Art, Enterprise & the Environment

As a social & environmental entrepreneur I found myself recently at the liminal moment in time between 2 years of my setting up of a complex project (alone and with little help) and the next phase where people have come to the table to help create a bigger vision.  My desk has been so messy for the past 6 months I have abandoned it in favor of the less distracting dining room table.  Last week I found myself sort of stuck and mindlessly started to clean up one of my shelves.  I came across an old notebook from several years ago, way before my current project was even dreamed of.  I was astonished to find things in that book that directly relate to my current project and the exact stage I find myself at.  The first line in the book is, "All beginnings are mysteries, the mystery of creation" Henri Amiel.  A few pages in I found something I must have copied down from some book or webpage, The 5 componets of Creativity - Foraging, Reflecting, Adopting, Nurturing and Knuckling Down - All of these actions suggest messiness rather than neat and tidy well managed and lineal processes.  My philosophy at the moment is to create, it hardly matters what, but the act of creation seems to keep me in the flow.

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Jan 25, 2007 9:58 am (#13 Total: 25)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates


Here for your general enjoyment is a poem that, shall we say, leans towards the miracle of messiness? It's about car ownership and family...

I wish I could get the software here to do a triple indent, so that the poem itself could be set off with a wide margin and white space all around it -- poetry deserves that kind of treatment IMO.

But anyway, the poem...

The Rules of the New Car
by Wesley McNair

After I got married and became
the stepfather of two children, just before
we had two more, I bought it, the bright
blue sorrowful car that slowly turned
to scratches and the flat black spots
of gum in the seats and stains impossible
to remove from the floor mats. Never again,
I said as our kids, four of them by now,
climbed into the new car. This time,
there will be rules. The first to go
was the rule I made for myself about
cleaning it once a week, though why,
I shouted at the kids in the rearview mirror,
should I have to clean if they would just
remember to fold their hands. Three years
later, it was the same car I had before,
except for the dent my wife put in the grille
when, ignoring the regulation about snacks,
she reached for a bag of chips on her way
home from work and hit a tow truck. Oh,
the ache I felt for broken rules,
and the beautiful car that had been lost,
and the car that we now had, on soft
shocks in the driveway, still unpaid for.
Then one day, for no particular reason except
that the car was loaded down with wood
for the fireplace at my in-laws’ camp
and groceries and sheets and clothes
for the week, my wife in the passenger seat,
the dog lightly panting beside the kids in the back,
all innocent anticipation, waiting for me
to join them, I opened the door to my life.

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Jan 25, 2007 10:07 am (#14 Total: 25)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates


Wonderful post!

Is the Boyne River (of the Boyne River Project, which I learned about in your member's bio) the same river in Ireland which gave us the celebrated Battle of the Boyne? Your facility sounds remarkable indeed. Very much my kind of place.

Cordelia Salter-Nour - Jan 26, 2007 12:39 am (#15 Total: 25)
eShopAfrica.com

Like others in this discussion I believe in a healthy, creative mess... but the car poem touches on squalor which is a different thing.

I was lucky with my children - they grew up in West Africa where any food mess was immediately located by ants who patrolled every square inch of the house 24/7. 

No eating cookies in bed for my kids.... in the night the ants would be there to clean up the smallest crumb.  If you left a candy bar lying around within minutes it would be covered in ants. Highly recommended to create hygiene awareness!

Charles Cameron aka hipbone - Jan 26, 2007 10:38 am (#16 Total: 25)
HipBone Games / Rheingold Associates


Ha! Actually I agree, mess can be creative, gum (in general, affixed to furniture etc) isn't. But it's interesting, the army of ants which you see as virtuously cleaning up the crumbs would be viewed by my wife as far worse than crumbs themselves. In Southern California context.

Myself, I'm busy at the computer...

Cordelia Salter-Nour - Jan 30, 2007 4:45 am (#17 Total: 25)
eShopAfrica.com

I didn't really think of them as my cleaners... more as my squalid behaviour detectives

your wife may have personal reasons not to like ants but in fact ants are very clean... members of their colonies are designated as cleaners and ants that farm produce anti-biotics to protect their crops (or should that be ant-i-biotic?)

don't think your computer is safe either... at various times I had colonies of ants setting up residence inside my scanner, speakers and laptop... they would just move in overnight

but as the combined weight of ants is greater than the weight of humans I figure they're here to stay!

beautiful complexity - Jan 30, 2007 2:58 pm (#18 Total: 25)
Learning at the Intersection of Art, Enterprise & the Environment


No Charles - its one of 2 Boyne Rivers in Southern Ontario.  The facilities include the first several miles of pristine source water from several small rivulettes and streams (very messy arrangement of water flowing down through a valley)  Great trout fishing & a fish hatchery to boot!  This Boyne River is about collaboration not the divisions created by the Battle of the Boyne.

Marguerite - Jan 30, 2007 9:05 pm (#19 Total: 25)

Hi Charles -

Long time no post here. But forget the messy desk -- I have a messy mind. It goes in about 10 different directions at a time and I never know which one to follow. 

I seem to always have at least two and sometimes four or five different projects or thought paths going at one time.  I read the same way -- four or five different books laying scattered around the house -- I read a chapter from one then another.  Just can't seem to stay with one thing for long or my mind just goes blank. 

But the "multi-tasking" works for me in that somehow things seem to fit together and flow -- you know something from one project or thought or book will cross-link with something else and then patterns start to emerge and make sense from what seemed in the beginning to be a jumbled chaotic and unrelated mess. 

I go to sleep at night and never remember dreaming, but in the morning most times with the first thoughts of the day a complete picture of something I was puzzling about will emerge. 

My thoughts tumble out in the same jumbled manner as I skip from one subject to another in conversation -- drives people around me nuts trying to figure out where I'm at, but it works for me.  Which is why my live-in companion is my dog Sweet Pea -- she just keeps listening as long as I scratch her back, and life is rosy. 

I've been referre to by several former companions as:  "The crazy lady". 

Well, catch you later -- I'm off to see the wizard.

Wish I had your knack for keeping these discussions going. You always seem to know the right thing to say/write.  Amazing.

 

 

 

 

      

 

 

   

 

Eva-Marie - Jan 31, 2007 5:09 am (#20 Total: 25)

Dear Marguerite,

I read your article and was deeply impressed.

Everything has two sides.

Of course changing from one theme to another can be a sign of fatigue and less concentration, but on the other hand it can be a sign of creativity as well. It can possibly enreach life and believe me, not only yours. So if people can´t follow your associations maybe it is not primarily your fault.

By the way, in working with my patients it was very helpfully to to be empathically with them, because I could see the picture in front of my eyes and after getting one peace of the puzzle I could often take the conclusion about the story behind the story. 

Friendly Regards

Eva-Marie

 

 

Marguerite - Jan 31, 2007 9:13 pm (#21 Total: 25)

Hi Eva-Marie,

Thanks for your gentle and perceptive comments. 

You're right about the creativity part and its allowed me to put very large projects together in a very short time while everyone else is still at step one, and to solve problems that seemingly have no answers.  So, it wasn't my intent to come across as complaining, except men do seem to like dumb blondes better.  But there is always the exception to the rule.

Anyway, like with the "cluttered desk" a "messy  mind" creates chaos, but there is an order within chaos that emerges if you let it. And that's where change begins on the edge of chaos.  So what I was saying is that we should encourage the chaos and then just sit back, relax and watch to see where the multi-dimensional patterns are emerging and let the sub-conscious or the intuitive mind bring them together in a natural and organic manner. Be open to letting life take us down a path instead of trying to create the path. Yet always being in control enough to make a  conscious choice to reach out and tweek it if we see a better way.

In this way we're enouraging both sides of the brain to get involved.  Whereas our current educational system emphasizes left-brain linear thinking.  And left-brain linear can't manage reality because it fails to see the whole dynamic of the situation.

So, most of us are driving down the freeway of life able to see out of only one side of our vehicle.  And, we wonder why we keep crashing.  Two marvelous books on this are:  Smart Moves - Why Learning Isn't All In Your Head and Brain Dominance by neuroscientist, Dr.Carla Hannaford. 

As a therapist,? Eva-Marie it's marvelous that you are able to work with your clients from a holodynamic plane where the view is expansive. 

 

 

 

arabianmonkey - Feb 1, 2007 11:29 am (#22 Total: 25)
filmmakers change everything!


In a community undergoing enormous transformation, with a cultural challenge towards diversity and embracing change, I've found myself adamant to engage in the 'system', while maintaining a disheveled attitude and packaging, and total individuality. I’ve also noticed that I get their attention more as they inspect and dissect my exterior - then we start talking. The true shock comes when I say, "Go ahead, just change everything. What’s the worst that’s going to happen?”

A couple days ago I met up with an old school friend over an interesting project he needed consulting on. I went to his offices - shiny, new, clean, unlived (or so they seemed, inspite of the many very serious looking people sitting behind desks, who had been there for months apparently). My mouth then said smtg without my brain's control - or so it seemed, "someone should spill a can of bright paint in here". By the time we got to his office, the energy was bouncing off the walls, we had an amazing talk and mapped out a little road ahead. I could tell he kept looking around, thinking: what just happened to my comfort zone?...but I kind of like the feeling!

When we were kids, we explored because we could. We played hard to achieve something. And we played clever to win. We changed the play when it got predictable. And we broke the rules, because we just weren't sure. And we created chaos because we were exploring. And we made a mess to get attention.

And sometimes that's the only way to get someone to listen - to themselves, to you, to the world around them, so that they allow themselves another angle. So that they see and hear the same things in a different way, and say, “aha”!

As I look back on my last 18 years of work, I’ve jump started organizations and programs where many said ‘impossible’. I've thrived on chaos, and those who found it difficult to deal with reached out to me. Today I like that about myself. My disruptive theory works (most of the time). The times I decided to procrastinate, the waiting turned into golden opportunities where something so new and relevant appeared and made the world of difference.

In today’s time stealing world, we just don’t seem to let space in. And on a planet that is obsessed with rules, we’ve forgotten how to think. And in times driven by formulae, we’ve neglected to remind ourselves that humanity by nature copes with disorder. But fear is what holds some back! So perhaps it is fear that we must address rather than messy or clean desks.

Marguerite - Feb 1, 2007 9:12 pm (#23 Total: 25)

arabianmonkey writes in part:

When we were kids, we explored because we could. We played hard to achieve something. And we played clever to win. We changed the play when it got predictable. And we broke the rules, because we just weren't sure. And we created chaos because we were exploring. And we made a mess to get attention.

(snip)

In today’s time stealing world, we just don’t seem to let space in. And on a planet that is obsessed with rules, we’ve forgotten how to think. And in times driven by formulae, we’ve neglected to remind ourselves that humanity by nature copes with disorder. But fear is what holds some back! So perhaps it is fear that we must address rather than messy or clean desks.

I love this because it points out so perfectly that before the "education system" got a hold of us, whether that be mom and dad, or the church, or school, we were so innocent -- so full of curiosity and afraid of nothing. And then after a few raps across the knuckles and other places, or a trip to one's room or the principle's office, and the innocense and curiosity get stuffed as one learns that a cluttered desk or mind is not appropriate -- everything has to be orderly. And then the withdrawal into fear begins.   

I'm also thinking that since the Great Depression, which few of us remember, we've not been faced with any degree of adversity here on our own soil.  And especially for the middle class we've not been challenged to any degree to really think outside of the box the fear factor has created.  But for the poverty-stricken -- that's a whole nother ball game.  

Now my mind's jumped to another subject and I'm considering how the middle and and upper classes are going to handle global climate change and the "right in your face" kind of challenges this is bringing about.  It seems to be that those who are poverty-stricken have a lot better chance of getting through this than the average American since they are use to solving problems where no answers seem apparent --and it becomes a matter at some level of consciousness of "be creative or die".      

 

  

  

 

ClaraJ - Feb 1, 2007 9:28 pm (#24 Total: 25)
Founder: Be Good, Give Goooood (tm?), Promote Good


for the Donella Meadows article, esp. the one titled Dancing with Systems. There's much to ponder in her writing.

You studied theology? No wonder... :) How fascinating about St. Francis. His "liminalism" reminds me also of his radical stance on "poverty," so radical that he advocated against financial sustainability on an organizational level. Course other mendicant orders like the Dominicans would vote otherwise, and grow much larger than the Franciscans.

Thank you for giving me much to ponder...

Clara

ClaraJ - Feb 2, 2007 11:09 am (#25 Total: 25)
Founder: Be Good, Give Goooood (tm?), Promote Good


Eva Marie,

I agree with you about the importance of interplaying with left handers... :) One of my favorite activities is interplay where you get to balance both the left and right hand..

Anyone who wants to "dance with systems," male or female should REALLY try out interplay. What's interplay? It is "world-wide movement dedicated to ease and fullness, peace and diversity, creativity and community, development and change. It is an easy-to-learn practice, and a set of simple but powerful ideas that can change the way you live your life. It integrates body, mind, heart and spirit. It gets you running on “all your cylinders.” It creates strong, caring communities. Find out more! www.interplay.org.

Charles, if you love meadows, you'd love interplay. One feedback to her docs is ... it'd be nice to integrate more of the body wisdom as she suggests in her title of her paper

People on this blog stream have mentioned how messiness encourages the incorporation of spontaneity.. and how despite the messiness... being in tune with the "way of the tao" converges the messiness into a beautiful pattern.

Try out interplay! It's a blast! You laugh and it's quite healing. It's also what I do when my brain feels fried. I let my body take the lead then over my over-analytical brain.

And speaking of messiness and spontaneity, I'm writing this in Big Sur on a mini retreat vacation and the first page I turned to in a poetry book was this... I find it quite appropriate to post it now.. though it is deeply personal. And Eva Marie, you should listen to your instincts.. if your soul is telling you something is too personal to post on the internet, it probably is and you shouldn't - at least at this moment. Thankfully, social edge allows you to delete and edit blogs... a key feature!!! Can't change history... but sometimes, shelving history is best for all involved.

So here's the poem I found by Carolyn Mary Kleefeld and David Wayne Dunn in the messiness of books in this library..

Your Quiet Godliness

In the quiet of your godliness, can you know the thrust of your spirit's flame gave me the eyes to behold, the ears to imbibe the orchestration of the tides?

In the quiet of your godliness, can you know the pines standing so silently tall murmur from their roots into mine?

Your quiet godliness touches me with a creature's pulse, as deeply as the songs of the whispering stream soothe my soul

Can you know the thrust of your spirit's flame has emblazoned my senses to unknown rhapsody?

In the quiet of your godliness can you know?

p.s. Charles, I'm still chewing on St. Francis.. he never advocated financial sustainability.. but his radical poverty sure ignited a social movement.. could argue had longer social impact though business wise was foolish. Something to think about. Makes me think of Bill Shore's latest book... we started thinking of social enterprises, then social entreprenuers in a business integrated sense... but people like MLK sure wasn't "business" minded.. though politically savvy and he sure ignited something. Perhaps Francis never wanted and yet wanted a the same time to cannibalize his own organization. The Dominicans flourished... so did the Jesuits... and perhaps ... that was a higher will than what Francis or us in our "human finite" view could foresee.

I wonder if the next skoll forum has a talk on integrating faith and spirituality... there's something about religion and faith that can ignite a social movement. MLK was in the end a preacher... a generational preacher... and that served him well. Even Gandhi said that "prayer when used appropriately is the most instrumental form of action." Unbusinesslike? and totally irrational.. huh?

Clara