May 1, 2010
Thursday is our weekly staff meeting here at 1013 Leavenworth St. We stand in the small kitchen by the sink and make our coffee. Chris likes his black as molasses. I have half a cup of water and half a cup of coffee. Jara, Hilary, Phileena, and Marcia have switched to brewed tea. After 15 minutes of chit chat we head into the conference room. These days we all squeeze around the end of the table with no spaces between us, in a half circle.
It’s my turn to facilitate the meeting so I open with a prayer and then share some simple words from a book or a poem. “What does this poem call to your mind?” I ask the group. We sit in silence then go around the table, each person with a turn to answer the question while holding our talking piece, a rosary from my Great-Great Aunt Connie that hangs by my desk. When someone has the talking piece the rest of the group practices listening with an adoring posture towards them, eyes closed or open, no questions or correcting statements. When it’s your turn to share you share what you want, what you feel, or nothing at all. It doesn’t have to be profound. Our goal is simply to “create a space where the soul feels safe…” as Parker Palmer says in A Hidden Wholeness.
I cherish these times that we check in with each other. I am beginning to feel truly safe in the circle, sometimes I find myself sharing something that brings me to tears before I focus on the tasks of the day, week, and month. This year we will also move our weekly prayer time into the work day, instead of an optional pre-work slot, we’ll be together from 9 – 10 am during our day. These things are all so inefficient. I mean 45 minutes of inefficient communication before we begin the actual business of our staff meeting? And 9- 10 am is one of my most productive work hours, that I will soon give up to sit on a small red shag carpet with the 12 people in this office and pray together?! It seems crazy.
In many ways our office is a typical work space with typical things, people talking too loudly while others are working, people sending tons of e-mails and Outlook calendar appointments, lots of meetings, and file cabinets everywhere you look. However, in our decisions to make space for our souls to show up we are stating our intent to be more than co-workers – to be a community. We are learning better to respect, love, and serve each other. We are bringing healing in little ways here together so that we can be part of healing around the world. Our inefficiencies are beautiful to me today.
This is the poem I closed our meeting with, by Mary Oliver. It’s called “Wild Geese.”
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Love,
Liz