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Bringing beauty back to the blog

May 23, 2006 By Music One Comment

My garden Buddha
It was a rainy day here on Bowen Island, so I pushed around some pieces of my blog. Readers familiar with the evolution of Parking Lot over the past four years will remember that I once devoted a great deal of time to reading poetry and collecting the work of poets I admire. I have reset those collections, and you can find them on the sidebar in the “Collections of poetry” page. The Denise Levertov collection is still one of the most popular pages on this whole site.

Also in the sidebar is a restoration of a page that has also been popular over the years. Forty Meditation Practices is a small collection of forty ways to practice in four positions. No excuse now.

Finally, there is the page that contains links to my Webjay playlists called simply Free Music. There you will find the “Parking Lot Soundtrack” to which I will now add the following track, a traditional Norwegian song hauntingly sung in a tomb by Unni Løvlid. Enjoy the beauty!

[tags]Denise+Levertov, Seamus+Heaney, Derek+Walcott, Jorie+Graham, poetry, meditation[/tags]

Good reasons why Canada should change course in Afghanistan

May 22, 2006 By Uncategorized 4 Comments

This past week, the Conservative led Parliament in Canada voted to extend Canada’s military commitment in Afghanistan until the end of President Hamid Karzai’s term in office. In so doing, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the following:

Together, diplomats, workers and soldiers from 35 countries are working with the government of Afghanistan to rebuild that country. We are providing knowledge, financial assistance, security; security that allows the Afghan people to build a justice system, develop and grow their economy, construct schools, hospitals and irrigation systems, and yes, ensure that the rights of the Afghan people are protected.

[Translation]

I am thinking of the right of women to be treated like human beings, of the right to see, read and say whatever one wants, of the right to choose one’s leaders through the electoral process.

You can read the full text of the debate at Hansard.

In trying to make sense of Harper’s reasons for wanting to extend our commitment, the most compelling I could find were the above: that since the invasion of Afghanistan and in the ouster of the Taliban in 2002, human rights have improved.

While I have no doubt that this is the case, the Taliban being one of the worst regimes ever to grace the family of nations, the question of degree is a very important one. We are moving to become a major player in that country, backing Karzai’s government and otherwise participating in the establishment of democratic institutions. To me this is maybe the most compelling reason for being in Afghanistan, even as I stand firmly opposed to our combat military role.

But today I discovered that in fact this core purpose, the establishment of democratic institutions and guarantee of freedoms, the only thing that anyone claims to have been successful, has been a bit of a sham. According to a US Government Commission, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, Afghanistan is on a watch list for exactly the kinds of reforms Harper was trumpeting as successes.

The USCIRF is a multi-faith committee that reviews religious freedom around the world using international standards. In their latest annual report, issued May 3, 2006 (download .pdf here; Afghanistan report starts on page 199) you can read about why Afghanistan is on their watch list. Among the reasons included are the following:

  • The Afghanistan constitution, the one created by Karzai and the Americans and adopted in 2004 contains a clause known as the “repugnancy clause” which states that “no law can be contrary to the beliefs and provisions of the sacred religion of Islam.”
  • There is no constitutional guarantee for freedom of religion, meaning no protection of individual rights or minority rights to practice freely.
  • Journalists such as Ali Mohaqiq Hasab have been jailed and threatened with the death penalty for publishing opposition to punishments such as amputation and stoning, which are legitimate sentences in the Afghanistan legal system.
  • In a public statement to the Commission by Afghanistan Chief Justice Fazl Hadi Shinwari he stated that he completely accepts the UN Declaration on Human Rights except for three clauses – the ones that protect freedom of speech, freedom of religion and equal rights for men and women. The Chief Justice himself protested the presence of women singers on the radio last year.
  • TV and radio stations that have broadcast material considered arbitrarily contrary to Islam or Afghan culture have lost their licenses.

The report has been accepted by the US government.

To me, these reasons fly directly in the face of Harper’s most compelling argument. Canada may be fighting the remnants of the Taliban, whose views on these matters are more repugnant, but it seems that we are fighting at the behest of a President and government that, in law, has entrenched virulently anti-democratic principles that do nothing for the rights of women, journalists or religious minorities. The fact that we are actively participating in the creation of this justice system is appalling.

For formality’s sake, I am writing to Harper and my MP to see what the government’s plan is and will post any response I receive here.

[tags]Afghanistan, religous+freedom, Canada, Stephen+Harper[/tags]

Light blogging, tired souls and non-attachment

May 21, 2006 By Being, Facilitation, Leadership, Learning, Practice 3 Comments

For those of you that read in newsfeeders you won’t have noticed that I changed the template of the blog again. I think it’s now a little easier to read, but let me know.

At any rate, light blogging this month. I have been involved in some incredibly draining work of late, the most recent of which required me to be substantially bigger than I normally have been. I was holding space for a day long circle dialogue on Aboriginal child welfare in British Columbia. It was a full day with many important people from throughout the system who came together to look at how we might work at changing the deepest assumptions about the child welfare system to focus on interdependence. A very rewarding day, and a few reports are forthcoming, but I found myself deeply tired after this event. On reflection, I think it was largely a result of holding myself in solid purpose, and deeply committed to facilitating a process that took a conversation to a place none of us could have guessed. It was, in the words of Donald Rothberg, committed action with nonnattachment to outcome. And it’s a very draining thing to do.

When I say that the day required me to “be bigger” I mean, metaphorically speaking, that process work like this requires us to be both big enough to contain the energy and the edges of the circle, and small enough that we don’t get in the way of what is emerging. It is to be both committed to the action and invisible enough that the outcome arises collectively, without personal baggage attached. And there was another level at work here too, in which I needed to embody the values that were being articulated by the group. They were saying for example, that the Aboriginal child welfare system needs to be based on the assumption that no one person can make a decision for a child. For a facilitator hearing that who is willing to embody this deep change in real time, I was required to be in a present moment of reflective practice: “How can I embody this emerging value and validate the group’s sense that we need to base process on this value?   Right now, even?” Very tiring to do that and still hold the container open.

I mention Buddhist teacher Donald Rothberg because today I was listening to this podcast where he speaks of this kind of work. Towards the end of this talk, he mentions characteristics of committed action with nonattachment to outcomes:

  • Appreciating the journey. If results are not everything, then we can have a greater appreciation for the journey we are on, and we are better able to live in the present moment and be of best use there.
  • Recognizing that there is no failure. This is not to absolve oneself of responsibility. It is rather to adopt the mindset that every experience contains the seeds of great teaching. We can learn from everything that happens if we view “results” as simply another point in time at which we reflect, and that we undertake that reflection with no judgement.   Rather we seek to evaluate based on what we can learn in the present in order to adjust our future actions. Developing these reflective capacities is a central practice of good facilitation, good leadership and good action.
  • Long term view. Accepting the fact that failure is really just an approach to results means that we are freer to see the impact of our work over the long term. Rothberg mentions the founder of Sarvodaya, Dr. AT Ariyaratne who says that the peace plan for the civil war in Sri Lanka must be a 500 year plan because the roots of the conflict extend back that far. There is no way we can measure results if there is a 500 year view, but if there is to be true, deep and sustainable peace in Sri Lanka, the solution must come from the true, deep and sustainable foundation. Nonattachment to outcomes allows us to see deeper causes and longer term sustainable solutions. We work then on a vector, in a direction and not towards an end in itself.
  • Resting in the mystery of how things happen. I can think of dozens of small decisions in my life that have resulted in huge life changes. Deciding one afternoon to visit a friend who offered me a job which set my career in motion. Waking up one morning and deciding it was worth it to brave a autumn sleet storm to see a live CBC radio broadcast, and meeting my life partner that morning as a result. Everyone has these experiences. The fact is that nonattachment to outcomes admits the possibilities that the smallest things might actually have the biggect impact. You may spend the next year at work toughing it out to bring a project to life, working late hours and always being the last one to leave the office. The project may be a success or not, but what if the relationship you develop with the evening security guard, the simple greetings and the occaisional short chat were enough to bring him from a state of despondant isolation to appreciating life again? Sometimes people can be brought back from the brink of isolation and suicide by people reaching out to them. That may be the most important result of your year long project.

It’s a serious practice, this idea of being fully committed and nonattached to outcomes, but recently it has helped me get through some heavy work. I wonder where it shows up in your life and practice?

Six observations about seeing

May 15, 2006 By Being, Conversation, Facilitation, Leadership, Practice 3 Comments

As Michael and I make some progress on our writing, I find that I have been assembling together bits and pieces of writing I have done over the years and putting some papers up at my site.

Today I want to invite you to have a look at a new paper called “Six observations about seeing” which is composed from some blog posts I made 18 months ago or so.

As always, comments are welcome.

Language and leadership practice for convening dialogue

May 10, 2006 By Conversation, Facilitation, Leadership, Practice 3 Comments

Inspired by a project I have been involved in with the Anecdote boys and Viv McWaters, I have written a paper on language and leadership practices in convening a dialogue. Here’s the introduction…

William Isaacs book Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together is continually inspiring reading. It equates very well with the practices that we are teaching fo Open Space facilitation and it is a useful guide for other forms of process facilitation. In the book, Isaacs describes four fields of conversation, essentially politeness, breakdown, inquiry and flow. Within each of these four fields of dialogue, there are a number of practices to cultivate and things to do as the nature of the dialogue keeps changing. In a short chapter but important on convening dialogue, Isaacs outlines a guide for leadership in each of these four areas. I have been using this guide more and more frequently and, in addition to Isaacs’ work, I have been collecting questions and language approaches to help move deeper into these dialogic spaces. What follows is a brief overview of the four fields, Isaacs guide to navigating the fields and the questions with which I have been working.

The whole paper is yours to read. I’d appreciate any comments.