Human to Human • Tenneson Woolf

October 18, 2016

Glow Kids

Among many things, I’m a Dad. One of my kids is an 11 year-old. He’s in 6th grade. He’s a sweet kid. I bit big for his age, I think of him as a gentle giant.

My 11 year-old, like many of his friends, loves his iPad. For the games. For the access to shows. For FaceTime and texting. I’m ok with all of these in moderation. I’m not ok with these as addictions and distractions away from being able to engage, with real curiosity, the people in front of you.

A friend shared this NY Post article with me, “It’s ‘digital heroin’: How screens turn kinds into psychotic junkies.” OK, “psychotic junkie” is stronger than I prefer, by a lot. And, aside from the “catatonic state” that the author references in her six year-old, there’s a lot of provocative, pattern-naming bits in here that I relate to.

digital heroin
focused on his game and losing interest in baseball and reading
tech designers insisting on low-tech schools for their kids
wandering attention spans
affect on the brain’s frontal cortex
needed detox

Yikes, right. It’s not just a neat device or collection of devices anymore, is it. My personal pet peeve is the device turned on between the time of waking in the morning and coming down for breakfast. Or the, “I’m bored,” comment with any lapse in stimulation. It’s why I insist on reading together, first thing upon waking.

Addictive tendencies aren’t new. This article references 1 in 10 predisposed to addiction. Not being able to say no.

Here’s the paragraph I really connect with. “Developmental psychologists understand that children’s healthy development involves social interaction, creative imaginative play and engagement with the real, natural world. Unfortunately, the immersive and addictive world of screens dampens and stunts those developmental processes.”

I get it — gaming can be creative. It’s highly creative. That’s not what I take issue with, nor worry about with my son. It’s when his gaming and umbilical connection with devices crosses over to “can’t stop, irritable” that I do take issue. I want my son to glow in many ways, but not just from the screen in front of him.

October 17, 2016

Nature Never Hurries

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“Nature never hurries, yet everything is accomplished.” — Lao Tzu, Chineses Philosopher, 6th Century BC

Thank you Glen Lauder for sending beautiful nature photos recently with this Lao Tzu caption. The photo above is one that I took from Stewart Falls, Utah in 2009. I spent the better part of a day there, alone. Some of it was taking pictures of what amazingly grows in rocks. I think of it as an irrepressible spirit of life.

Some things can’t help but grow. Can’t not blossom. It is this way with human beings also. And with human beings in groups. I’ve seen it many times. And irrepressible life generated by the most simple interactions, that grows from even very hard places.

October 6, 2016

A Center

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The center of a meeting space is a physical space. Yes. A point to which people have equal access. Or perhaps, unimpeded access. Or, shared access. It could be the center of a circle of chairs, a point on the floor with a book. Or flowers. Or cloths and bowls like in this above photo for a group of 120. It could also be the center of a table, marked by even a pen. A center is different than a front of the room. Yes, a front of the room is called for at times. Good. As always, don’t forget that there are choices. Physically, what I tell people that are just starting to learn participative leadership, is to get used to moving chairs. So that there is a center.

The center of a meeting space is also an energetic space. Yes. An area that can act as holding place for people’s intentions, questions, worries, imaginations, aspirations. It’s an area to place a thought, daring to let it rest with thoughts that others are also contributing. It’s an area to let energetically simmer what is arising from people interacting. I often think of the center as a giant pot for cooking soup. The ingredients for that soup are all that people add to the figurative middle of important work and discovery that we human beings need to cook together.

I love the photos scattered around this center. They were used as physical images in an exercise to invite people to come to the middle, in silence, and to select an image that represents some of how they feel about the business that we would be up to together on this day.

A call to come to the center of the work. A call to go to the center in themselves. They both matter. Physically. Energetically. Repeatedly.

October 5, 2016

Toxic Charity

A few years ago, my good friend and colleague Kathleen Masters gave me a book, Toxic Charity, by Robert Lupton. It’s a book written about the good desires of churches and missions trying to help, but creating unintended consequences of more hurt for those they are trying to help. It doesn’t just apply to churches.

In revisiting this book lately, I remembered the clear example of toxicity shared by the author. It was of a U.S. mission team rushing to Honduras to rebuild homes destroyed by a hurricane. The cost was $30,000 per home. The cost for locals to do it would have been $3,000 per home.

Or this example, a mission trip to repaint an orphanage equal in total cost to what would be needed to hire two local painters and two new full-time teachers, and purchase new uniforms for every student in the school.

Yikes, right.

Now let’s be clear. Mission trips aren’t just about a financial transaction. There are many unseen qualities that can’t be priced. Relationships that change who we are. Stories that we carry for forty years into the future. Being cracked open to sorrow and joy in others and in ourselves. All of that matters. A lot.

And, there is something to be said for reevaluating the values of our giving so as to create more sustainability. Yes, there is the old story of teaching a person to fish rather than giving the person a fish each day.

Lupton offers a compelling “Oath for Compassionate Service” that feels well worth remembering.

Never do for the poor what they have (or could have) the capacity to do for themselves.
Limit one-way giving to emergency situations.
Strive to empower through employment, lending, and investing, using grants sparingly to reinforce achievements.
Subordinate self-interests to the needs of those being served.
Listen closely to those you seek to help.

What I appreciate most in Lupton’s words are that he is helping to evolve an orientation. From the well-intended “give, give, give” to a message of “empower.” It’s an evolution from “doing to” to “doing with.” Even good things can turn out to be toxic — thanks Robert Lupton for helping shed some light on this evolution of charity.