Facilitating Change

Ran across this in my online travels tonight. It was written by Sister Corita Kent. My favorites are number 6 and number 8.

I found it because Bruno told me a story about clay pots this week that stuck with me. And so I went googling to find more about it. Both the rules and the story are in the same category: feel-good cheezy stuff you sorta know and good to remember and really hard to apply in the everyday.

Nothing is a mistake. When I was doing my masters I wrote an essay on the importance of failure. And yet I fear it so much. Most of us do. In conversations with Floro and Theresa it’s come up as well. Celebrate failure. I read somewhere that Google encourages employees to fail. And there’s lots of writing connecting failure with innovation. But this is a real challenge in a world of impact assessments, results-based monitoring, and performance-based contracts. Investors and donors like charts with with lines climbing steadily north east. Too much at stake. Too much to lose. Better to stick with the success story. (Recently I watched a video of a Žižek lecture where he talks about the lies we collectively decide to believe. Likely more out of momentum than malice.) And I understand it. I wouldn’t want  you to waste my investment. Learning and growing is uncomfortable territory.

Take, for example, International Development, a concept I find increasingly problematic. I have to confess: Sen, Easterly, and Stiglitz remain on my bookshelf, unread. But here’s a suggestion: Less professional consultants flying about (I have done my fair share of this) and more convenings of community organizers. People rooted in and focused on their own places getting together once and a while to compare notes. That’s a model that I’d like to explore. I’m trying to move in that direction. It’s a better fit for me.

Ooops, all I intended to do here is share Sister Corita’s rules. Seems I got rambling. Sorry about that. My mistake.