wanordelijke gedachten

Influence vs Control...

2007-01-28T18:55:00.000-08:00

Recent events have challenged me to consider again the difference between the things I am responsible to control, and the things I am able to influence.

Especially in christian circles, its easy to become tangled up in the idea that it's our responsibility to stop people from doing things we think are bad for them. ie. make a direct personal intervention that uses the maximum power we posses to prevent that event from occuring.

A more non-consequentialist, or existentialist approach would probably suggest that any intervention or influence at all is purely selfish (but that selfishness might be a good reason anyway).

Stephen Covey, in 7 habits of highly effective people, outlines some very interesting patterns that can be observed as we try and influence and control the things in our life. Covey suggests that there are many many things in our lives that we are concerned with or about. He draws a big circle around these things and calls it our 'circle of concern'.

He then suggests that there is a smaller group of things within those things we are concerned with or about, that we are able to respond to. He calls this our circle of influence. Some of the things within this circle, we are only able to affect in small ways, with others: we are personally and individually responsible for their control.

He goes on to describe the way that our actions affect the size of our circle of influence... and in so doing outlines a fundemental law of human interaction and social psychology. The way that we use our influence either earns, or burns, our right to influence further.

If we are pro-active in the way that we use our influence, doing the things that we can do, and not worrying about the things we can't do, and aren't responsible to change, then as time goes by, we increase our personal problem solving resources, and we increase people's trust and confidence in us... and our circle of influence grows.

If conversely, we either do nothing about the things we are responsible for, or we try to control things that we have no right to control, then our personal problem solving resources are damaged and depleted, and we loose people's trust and confidence, and our circle of influence rapidly shrinks.

So if you feel as though your friends value and respect your input, and want you around even when you need to bring negative or critical energy, you can be fairly confident you are working effectively within your circle of influence, and trust and relationship will continue to grow.

If however you feel as though your friends avoid telling you the details of what is occuring in their lives, and appear disinterested and distant from your 'verry important' advice... perhaps its worth asking yourself, "am I trying to control something I only have the right to infleunce?" or even "am I trying to influence something I haven't earned the trust to discuss?"

This is a life law, not something that people do or enforce. When we get this wrong, we alienate ourselves from people, and them from us. When we get it right love flows freely between us.

You cannot break the law, you can only break yourself against it.

I'm having a baby!

2007-01-24T20:29:00.000-08:00

Hey faithful readers... (otherwise known as people who made the mistake of adding me to their RSS list in the misguided belief that I would keep writing things... or even that those things would be interesting!)

Well I have been insipid... i mean... inspired... to write some new stuff.... but this blog is quite green and scattery and I decided new whine needed a new whineskin... so this is my other blog:

http://peaceisaparadox.blogspot.com/

I even wrote an introduction. Maybe I'll write more than that too in time.

I suspect wanged, as bec affectionally (or not) dubbed it... will live on in breif moments of disordered thoughtfullness... but I feel a new sense of energy and direction and... other decisive sounding stuff that will only be meaningful if i follow through with it... about my new idea.

So pop on over and read my introduction, and feel free to tell me I'm dreaming.

Boys, Boats & Beer

2006-11-26T23:15:00.000-08:00

Well...

I just got back from the V8 JetBoat Sprints at Griffith in NSW... working with the safety crew. What a crazy weekend!

A lot of them were memebers of a scout troop... and I'm just a tiney bit tired of scouting egoes... although most were really great... and volunteers being treated like slaves is never the go... but fortunately only one race official made that mistake, and he found out pretty quickly it wasn't gonna get far.

I think I hit 25 and decided not to take crap from people. I don't mean to be rude... I guess I just refuse to be bullied.

Anyway by the end of the week I reckon we had a pretty grouse sense of community.

A lot of that would have to be down to the cheif - Dougy who used to make shoes and now is a proffessional male nurse who dresses like a clown. Great guy. Ronnie had a lot of cool things to say too... being Mauri, Scottish and Italian all at once.

(reminded me of the guy from 'the wog boy' who said "I'm half Serbian, half Croatian. I wake up in the morning and want to kill myself - so killing you is no problem!")

I used to think men were all strong and important and all knowing and wise... and suddenly every bloke I meet reminds me of a kid I've worked with. I can see them all at primary school... vulnerable kids hoping to be accepted and succesful and proud. Proud warriors with broken hearts.

You could be forgiven for thinking its not so hard for a man to make it in the world... all he has to do is get a trade or a degree and then go and succeed... and anything less than that is some kind of laziness or stupidity or sin. The truth is sooooo incredibly different to that.

Women have had the luxury of liberation... their world has long since changed... and all they have to do is decide what part in it the want to play. Men have no such movement to assosciate with... there's no public face for the movement amongst men to become deeper, wiser, more spiritual, and more real.

Of course for both men and women there are masses of social forces resisting change... and family and friends and community significantly define those experiences regardless of mainstream culture. Someone I once heard suggest that christian kids are often GenXers or generation (nobody knows what to call 'em yet) people raised as baby boomers, lost and confused in a society they don't have a map for. I notice this especially amongst the less progressive of my friends from the reformed church. That's not a criticism... its a deep concern that some of these guys and girls are going to have to do 50 years worth of growing up and learning just to understand the world they live in today!

There's something to be said for having a beer together and letting it all hang out. So often what suprises me is not the bad things that you see... but the good ones. People who genuinely care for their friends... who look out for them... who talk poeticaly of love and kindness.

But maybe I see what I look for?

Anyway I'm raising my glass to the boys, the beer, and the boats!

The dark dark light

2006-11-20T05:53:00.000-08:00

I just read 'Tis by Frank McCourt.

Wow.

Welcome to the real world baby.

We get so tied up in our utopian fantasies... no wait... I do.. do you?
The world, the way I see it, the way it is? All three? none.
Nothing will ever be any more or less than exactly what it becomes.

We can rage all we like against the dieing of the light.
The sun will still rise again tomorrow.
Its as if we think we know the way that things should be
as though our childish windows on the world define some right
some truth... as though the pain we've carried entitles us to claim
we know some truth.

We want to fix the world, till it conforms to our perceptions... our expectations
jesus will make you whole
stop being you and be like me, but don't be me, be free,
I have my own pain, can't you see.

No pain will end before its time, no love outlast is season
we try to tell them that all these things happen for a reason
but its just our fragile minds, trying to find a way
to conform this scary world to the labels in our mind
too scared to realise
to scared to see
this world is all that it was ever gonna be

I can change one thing
there's one person I control
I choose his path... I choose his response
sometimes he rebels against me and strays from my
plans for his life, sometimes he finds a path I never knew was there.

Sure enough, one day he will grow old and die, and I will discover that I am nothing more or less than him... that my life is nothing more or less than his. Will I ever know this man, this self?
We wrestle, we fight... sometimes we don't talk for weeks... sometimes he concedes and follows my advice. So often its the other way around. I surrender my arrogance and accept his humble ways. I learn to see kindly through his eyes.

Sometimes we even work together... the dreamer and the walker. We sing, we talk. Sometimes he dreams and I walk... sometimes when all the dreams are weak... he carries me to a queit creek and reminds me of the reason we are one self... not divided at all.

Being accustomed to walking alone... and yet loving people dearly... wanting the best for everyone... and yet knowing the solitary nature of every soul's journey in this world. To share it... even moments... lifts the burden a little.

We speak of community of unity, continuity, security. The only constant is change... the only security is surrender... the only stability - is unselfish love.

I looked at the beautiful sea of young faces behind and around me on sunday... dreaming... singing... hoping, planning, living. Do they know the world they live in? Do the have any idea the of long long years ahead? Oh to be an adult, we dreamed. The power to be free... to be wild... to choose. But the choices... oh the choices... damning, draining, blinding, hateful fearful choices.

Until we see our own brokeness... our own lustfulness... our own shame. Every year I live... I feel like I better grasp Martin Smith's question:

Why do you let us walk upon a cliff so steep,
when deep below the sea their lies a bed of gold?

(and if this should be our battle place,
don't let me fall, don't let us fall.

won't you keep me
oh keep me)

(from King of Fools - Delirious)

Facilitation Answers - Talking and Listening Part 1

2006-11-08T08:22:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been a long time coming, but here's the beginning of some thoughts.

Q: How does the intereaction & ballance between talking
and listening influence the process of a discussion?

To begin with I'm going to define three kinds of discussions. There are probably heaps of ways of grouping different styles and approaches, but these categories are convenient to my description. Please consider them critically.

Open Discussion: Discussion that has no specific set outcomes or direction, but has some kind of a theme or topic.

Targeted Discussion: has a theme or topic, and begins with the intention of taking participants towards a general conclusion, or on a journey through a predetermined series of different ideas and perspectives.

Closed Discussion: Has one specific expected outcome... is essentially direct instruction through a dialogical process.
(dialogical = dialogue/conversation)

So how much talking should a facilitator do... how much talking should be expected from the participants... and what kind of listening will be involved?

Closed Discussion:

In the context of a closed discussion, this is fairly easy to see - the facilator does most of the talking, conferring with the participants only to confirm that they have taken in the information, and taken it in correctly for their specific context. The facilitator may ask for active listening from the group by getting them to repeat or paraphrase portions of the information being imparted, or to describe a way they might apply the information to a situation of their own.

Good facilitation of a closed discussion would strike an effective ballance between measuring the understanding of each group member, and tayloring the content accordingly or providing individual coaching, and continuing to push through with the bulk of the information to keep the whole group engaged.

Additional tricks might include things like getting participants to present portions of the material, having additional facilitators to provide individual coaching and support for participants who don't catch on as fast, and knowing when and how to move on without losing stragglers. Knowing when to take questions, and how long to suffer the silence and allow participants time to formulate questions and settle their thoughts are important skills, mostly learned through observation and experience.

This format is remarkably directive and allows little space for autonomy of thought and action. It almost doesn't qualify for being considered a discussion, and most teaching is not a discussion... however I believe that most education can be a dialogue, and good educators and facilitators ensure that it is one. I believe this approach should only be used for coaching, training, and teaching purposes, and in contexts where participants have explicitly consented to a specific learning goal for a spefic timeframe in a specific context.

Targeted Discussion:

This format allows a lot more space for differences of opinion, but still has an expected comonality of experience or learning. It allows more freedom when trying to promote an idea amongst people with diverse perspectives, but doesn't provide as much confidence that participants will be learning the same thing, as in a closed discussion.

In targeted discussions it can sometimes be valuable to explore different group members experinces, undestandings, or feelings about the topic(s) and this means that the facilitator becomes a listener amongst the group while another group member does the talking.

It's very important for facilitators to remember what kind of input they have requested from participants, and to respond in form. If the facilitator asks for participants to describe their feelings, they should consider carefully whether their resonses respect the personal nature of what is shared. Its completely inappropriate for instance to say "that's wrong" to someone who has shared their own subjective point of view.

If the view is particularly aggressive, objectionable or offensive to other group members, it may be appropriate to say something like "thankyou for sharing that point of view, but please respect the rights of other group members to think differently" or perhaps "Lee I'm going to have to stop you there, because I don't think the group is ready to discuss the points you have raised. Maybe we can discuss these issues at another time?" Basically if the facilitator has asked people to share their personal feelings, they stand to lose the trust of the group rapidly, if they criticise or even just fail to acknowledge what each group member is able to share. In that context it is the responsibility of the facilitator to listen, to assist in paraphrasing things that may be difficult to understand, to ask questions when sharing might be difficult, and to protect the group from being sidetracked or affronted by inapropriate or badly judged sharing.

Well thats all I've got for now. Let me know what you think. Feel free to disagree, question, challenge or chastise... all comments are valuable.

more to come soon

to intervene, or not to intervene?

2006-11-02T07:09:00.000-08:00

I can't get to the answers to my questions... because I'm stuck with this dilemma...

When individuals make choices about programming contnent for groups... to what extent is it acceptable/ethical/effective/wise to deliberately attempt to change the way individuals in that group think. To what extent do those individuals concent to being challenged, changed, informed, educated and so on... by electing to attend?

If you're reading this, and you are thinking about it, please comment with your thoughts. If you can't comment... email me timogilvy@gmail.com and say something.

I wonder if anyone is reading this!?

Hmmm...

Thoughts on facilitation techniques/styles...

2006-10-24T06:42:00.000-07:00

So... this is gonna be quick as I have to sleep and go farm lemons again tomorrow... but there's more to come on this topic. I might just pose some questions tonight and try to answer them at some stage in the future... (Might even use some references!!!)

What kind of questions help/hinder discussion?

How does the intereaction & ballance between talking and listening influence the process of a discussion?

What kind of behaviours undermine a groups safety as a place where people are free to share?

In what ways, and when, is it necessary/appropriate to intervene in group process to effect its direction or tone?

What are the advantages/disadvantages of having a clear agenda, and clear 'learning/process" aims vs having a looser structure and allowing process to arrive at the destination most appropriate to the direction it finds for itself?

What kind of leadership styles are appropriate/effective for different kinds of groups, and what kind of language/persona/tone is required to deliver them?

That's all for now... more to come!

Bosom

2006-10-20T23:26:00.001-07:00

For those who know.

The baggage train is unloaded...

2006-10-20T22:25:00.000-07:00

Well despite the obscure title, this post is goint to remain unspecific... Except to celebrate how nice it is when evil looking monsters that have been lurking dark and deep beneith the surface of life rise to the surface and turn out to be only sharks after all. Okay sharks are still a bit scary but they're no where near as scary as big evil beasts with teeth like small busses and saliva that looks remarkably like molten steel.

Or when something someone hasn't been saying finally gets said and only turns out to be mostly stuff that is reasonably solveable and not particularly new or unexpected.

I'm feeling the positve energy starting to pump back through my veins... wait... should that be lymph nodes? or shakra points? hmmm its so confusing.

Plenty of challenges to come yet... but its so much easier to solve problems when you know what they are!

Thanks to lunch guy for the yarn, and the beverage... its had a very positive influence on me!

Post Driving Stats

2006-10-20T10:20:00.000-07:00

2 Poles every 3 Minutes. That's twice yesterdays average. 90 Poles in 3 days in between doing other jobs!

How did groupy thinything go?

2006-10-18T09:31:00.000-07:00

I'd call it good... but then I'm pretty opinionated for a lemon packer. It seems to me that the core values of the group subverted the stated aims of the programmed evening yet again. There's a dialogical journey that's making its own way through, in and around the things we plan to do on purpose. Sometimes, it almost seems like when we plan to allow it, it eludes us... but when we make other plans, it emerges again proud and defiant... reminding me of the old saying:

"life is what happens while you're making other plans"

I have to actually get my thoughts ordered enough to try and summarise those core values that keep asserting themeslves... unless anyone else has ideas... or wants to remind me of some reason why I am missing the point?

I am a Forklift, you are a Box of Lemons!

2006-10-18T08:48:00.000-07:00

Well... I had that name in my head all afternoon.

Started work back at the lemon fram in silvan. I'd forgotten how much fun I had there. Nothing like a good hard days work to feel like an honest person again.

Thanks to the guy who used to do the forklifting finding a full time Job elsewhere, it looks like I'm going to be on the forks this year. Had a big training session today washing lemons for tomorrow, and packing the truck.

5 Piles of lemon bins, 3 bins high, both sides of the truck, 1cm gaps. The last ones slid in cruisy smooth. Maybe I have finally worked the forking thing out! But I'm not counting my lemons, because tomorrow I have to learn how to load and manage the bins for the grader, and thats means lemons coming off conveyor belts in every direction.

Which reminds me, I had the thrill of washing out the grader tub today, the lovely smell of rotting lemon leves and the odd stuck lemon. This machine cost $50 000 and wouldn't do anything right when it arrived. The boys finally cut it up and got the sheet steel oragami on the inside to fold properly so you can wash it out in the guts. Last year it was like cave diving with the hose to try and flush all the dead leaves out!

And we started putting in trainer wire posts on the rasberry rows across the road. I punched in 45 posts today... and got sunburned and sore in the process. Satisftying tho, seeing those shiny Gal poles all in (almost) neat rows.

All in all, quite an eventful day.

What kind of world do we want to make/live in?

2006-10-16T06:23:00.000-07:00

How much does our perception of whether we create or receive our world influence our experience of living?

I feel as though I am writing to the non existant readers of my infantile blog.... but these are my seed posts. maybe... just maybe I will be dedicated enough to join the patient reading and writing ranks of those who have blogged before me.

Well... I've been feeling really disorientated and out-of-control lately... more like i'm stuck on and ice floe in a thrashing sea than like guiding a raft on a pounding river. (I love making metaphors and then leaving them unexplained.)

Do I want a psych degree? do I want a life? do I want to do anything? why do I think the way I do? Why do I think? Do I really care? Why am I still on the internet so late in the morning?

There's been a whole lot of love missing out of my attitude lately... and I appologise to anyone who's copped a slice of un-love from me! or had to put up with my sullenness. I just read Bec's blog and discovered a whole bunch of thoughts I would have found realy encouraging and all if I'd read them hmmm maybe two weeks ago: before I sledged her in a moment of mental weakness.

I love how I get grumpy with other people when I am insecure.

Its obviously their fault! (yes i have been known to use sarcasm inappropriately) Well that might be the closest I'll get to a public appology for now.

Clearly everything that has gone wrong with my sense of community has been a problem with the eyes I've been looking out of, not the things they've been allegedly taking in. The problem is in short: a lack of sense - not a lack of community.

So often I find myself bitter about the kind of world that is happening to me... and I forget that I can happen to my world.

So often its easy to get comfortable with, or at least accustomed to, the world we have inherited, even comfortable with our little complaints about it... comfortable with whining about how they got it so wrong... and how I would have done it different... that we miss the fact that we are now, and this is here.

I guess I missed a crucial moment or two with our little groupy bubble thing and I feel as though I have lost my voice and ownership a bit... but more basically than that... I know I have been a miserable git lately... and I have withdrawn my voice and my heart from things... waiting for a time when there is more kindness in me to contribute.

Until recently, finding liberty has been a war, with dialouge the battle ground, and love the only weapon. Here I find myself amongst people for whom liberty is an old friend, and I'm not so sure of myself, of my role, of anything. For so long I have refused to bring friends anywhere near a church, comfortable in my conviction that it was neither loving nor godly, to seduce people into captivity, legalism, condemnation. Now I am in a place that is clearly free from that curse... but I am no longer surrounded by the people I once knew who were so desperately in need of an experience of this kind of grace and liberty.

Will my role always be on this fringe? Is there a life to be found in proclaiming freedom to the captives, liberty to the oppressed, and recovery of sight to the blind, within the church itself?

While their is so much peace here... there is so little programme. Is it possible that the simple nature of our community has the depth and flexibility in it to sustain the intensity and strain of embracing new people with diverse needs? Do we aim to be merely a collection of comfortable middle class Christians who interact with the broader community only through the veil of organisations such as tear, and collective volunteering as a group to things like community meals and quilt shows... (which I think is fantastic but not the whole story) Or do we have the capacity to draw in, and be changed by people who are not like 'us' as we presently appear... what kind of us are we prepared to become in order to love personally, relationally, revolutionally?

Perhaps its time we began to find out!

A little inspiration

2006-10-15T23:18:00.000-07:00

I don't know if u have much patience for reading lyrics... but I just found a bit of inspiration here from Dave Grey, and I thought it might inspire someone else too. Honestly... sometimes I find it hard to see the good in stuff over all the usual selfish need meeting strategies that we all pursue (especially me) even in the church. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that we are doing anything other than talking to appease our consciences, and while I am all for supporting organisations like tear, and doing things that are social-justice ish on a large scale, I loose faith in myself if I'm not also acting on a small scale.

So often the words of Maximus in Gladiator come back to me (sad tho it is) "there once was a whisper of a dream that was rome" talking about his vision for a democratic rome instead of the butchery that resulted from the leading of the Caesars. While the concept is a bit fanciful the sentiment is what I connect to. So often its a subtle shade of meaning that is the difference between living for self, and living for something bigger.

Talking to Steve about the pressure his church have been putting on him to conform has once again reminded me of how fragile the truths that make christianity anything to do with christ, really are. I have come from places where liberty was abused... and my journey has been one of finding, asserting, and defending that liberty. Not against evil worldly forces, but within the church, against the desire of scared people in positions of responsibility to control things they did not understand. These people, failing to control the circumstances around people, control the people by building prisons in their minds.

You have heard the holy spirit described as a bringer of peace and wholeness and insight. I have seen the holy spirit used as an excuse to manipulate, control, and intimidate. You have seen the law as an instrument of conviction, and grace as an instrument of salvation, I have seen the law as an instrument of condemnation and grace as an instrument of debt.

While I am absolutely for social justice action, for bible study, and for social activities, there is something about being part of vineyard that is greatly more important to me... something small, and fragile, something based on a worldview that can only be realised at the end of a long journey. Liberty.

To you maybe it is a dangerous word, or an obvious truth, to me it is a revolution... and a vulnerable freedom.

Without liberty there is no choice, without choice, no faith, and faith, no salvation. And yet faith is a gift...

-<>-<>-<>--<>-<>-<>--<>-<>-<>--<>-<>-<>--<>-<>-

David Gray Lyrics
Silver Lining

Take this silver lining
Keep it in your own
Sweet head
And shine it when the night is
Burning red
Shine it in the twilight
Shine it on the cold, cold ground
Shine it till these walls
Come tumbling down

We were born with our eyes wide open
So alive with wild hope now
Can you tell me why
Time after time they drag you down
Down in the darkest deep
Fools and their madness all around
Know that the light don't sleep

Step into the silence
Take it in your own
Two hands
And sprinkle it like diamonds
All across these lands
Blaze it in the morning
Wear it like an iron skin
Only things worth living for are
Innocence and magic, amen

We were born with our eyes wide open
So alive with wild hope now
Can you tell me why
Time after time they drag you down
Down in the darkest deep
Fools and their madness all around
Know that the light don't sleep

Woah, wooah

We were born with our eyes wide open
So alive with wild hope now
Can you tell me why
Time after time they drag you down
Down in the talk so cheap
Fools and their madness all around
Know that the light don't sleep
Know that the light don't sleep

Time after time
They drag you down
Down in the darkness deep
Fools in their madness all around
Know that the light don't sleep
Know that the light don't sleep

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Written by David Gray
1997

No I am not dutch

2006-10-15T23:10:00.000-07:00

Yep so..

I just wanted an original name that looked cool and didn't necesarily have to be obviously translated all the time.

It means dissordered thoughts... seems appropriate for a blog.