Pushing boundaries

http://www.couragerenewal.org/13-ways-of-looking-at-community_parker-pal...

RIP Tulsatime

I've read Parker Palmer previously. He's interesting.

This quote got me thinking about the Zone, its community members, and its power structures.

Suffering is what happens when you hold in trust a space for community to emerge but others lack the trust to enter the space and receive the gift. Suffering is what happens while you wait out their resistance, believing that people have more resources than they themselves believe they have. But leaders do not want to suffer. So we create and maintain institutional arrangements that protect leaders from suffering by assuming the worst of followers and encouraging leaders to dominate them by means of power.

Gravy, I "resonate" with that quote. It's been 6 weeks since Viva went live. Everyone knew what kind of community we hoped to have create itself, and we knew it would take time for people to settle in and use/be their own resources. I see fantastic examples of that already, but also, yes, as the person who became the leader I am suffering while I wait and work with it. There is incredible life here; interesting people, great music to share, so many things to come together around. It's not enough for me to wait passively in all cases. There are people who aren't good Zoners, who are destructive of the scene. I don't need them to change if they don't want to be respectful, civil and kind, they just have to go to another place. I don't think we've been very effective in protecting me from suffering. I have never assumed the worst of the Viva community or its members, nor have I, nor anyone else, been encouraged to, nor attempted to, dominate by means of power. This is a tough process and I'm (we're) in it.

Viva la Zone!

Oh, the suffering!

zoner please

Sit, Roll Over, Shake Hands, Play Dead, Speak...

>>>I don't need them to change if they don't want to be respectful, civil and kind, they just have to go to another place. (Fixed that for ya.)

Right on. 

If you don't like it, go create another forum where you can treat each other as you see fit. Or e-mail each other. Or phone each other. Easy solutions.

Viva may have grown out of the Phil Zone, but it is NOT the Phil Zone, and the expectations are a little different. YMMV. 

Who knows, maybe another site will grow out of the PZ and people will have choices. Could happen. 

Like Barack said, you create the change.

We're here for you, Slacker.

Thanks, Slick.

Judit,

Thank you so much for posting the link to Parker J Palmer.  I was inspired and read the quote below at a local town hall meeting I attended. Within that hall was a community that sadly needs healing. The words were well received with hoots and hollers to accompany the applause.  

Viva La Zone strikes again!

 "Whether we know it or not, like it or not, honor it or not, we are embedded in community. Whether we think of ourselves as biological creatures or spiritual beings or both, the truth remains: we were created in and for a complex ecology of relatedness, and without it we wither and die. This simple fact has critical implications: community is not a goal to be achieved but a gift to be received. When we treat community as a product that we must manufacture instead of a gift we have been given, it will elude us eternally. When we try to “make community happen,” driven by desire, design, and determination—places within us where the ego often lurks—we can make a good guess at the outcome: we will exhaust ourselves and alienate each other, snapping the connections we yearn for. Too many relationships have been diminished or destroyed by a drive toward “community-building” which evokes a grasping that is the opposite of what we need to do: relax into our created condition and receive the gift we have been given."

some cringeworthy stuff here