As the dog and I walked down the street early this morning, I heard the scraping of a car windshield, heralding this season’s first frost. I’m reminded that it’s the autumnal equinox today, and I brace myself for the coming shorter days with a sense of dread by pulling my sweater tighter around me.
I return home and sit down at my desk to look through coursework for a class I’m taking with MIT and the Presencing Institute called u.lab: Leading change from the emerging future. After nearly a decade in healthcare advocacy, my tools and models don’t seem robust enough for the changes we’re trying to make. Our healthcare system is struggling at the precise moment that our ecological system, our educational system, our political system and our financial system seem on the verge of collapse, and I can’t help but suspect that we need something more than small incremental change, root cause analyses and evaluations. I’m looking for inspiration and new ideas.
This is the first week of the class, and I’m still getting oriented. The course team offers a welcome:
“The disruptive social, environmental and cultural changes we face confront us with challenges of a new order of magnitude. These challenges hold the seeds for profound levels of breakthrough innovation while also holding the possibility of massive disruption and breakdown. Whether it’s one or the other depends on our capacity to rise to the occasion and to reframe problems into opportunities for system-wide innovation and renewal. We believe it’s possible to create profound societal renewal in our generation. It will take all of us. We’re glad you’ve joined for the journey.”
The u.lab team
After some readings and videos, I shift to the reflection questions and journaling. There are no small questions here. Their richness and depth makes me feel hopeful, like I’m in the right place:
Where do you experience a world that is ending and dying?
Where do you experience a world that is wanting to be born?
At mid-day, the dog and I head out again. This time I stand in front of a brick wall warmed by the sun. The anemones, the sunflowers, the verbena are all in full bloom and show no signs of quitting soon. As summer wanes, a source deep inside them tells them to pick up the pace, creating the seeds that will sprout next spring. The flowers are dying; they are also wanting to be born.
I have spent the past few months seeing the endings of things. Endings at work, endings of my children being kids, ending of phases. But there are things that have been waiting, wanting to be born. Today I see them, too.
Where do you experience a world that is ending and dying, and one that is wanting to be born?
We are in the middle of a federal election campaign in Canada, with politicians jockeying with their “trinkets” to make us rich or something, and promising “economic growth,” supposedly at no cost. It feels like dying and ending to me, because all I want to hear about is what their plans are to deal with climate change. And then I hear a breathless interview with Diana Beresford Kroeger, who has been talking about trees for decades and now has a new book called To Speak for the Trees. I want to be on her team, and that feels like a world wanting to be born. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/575305/to-speak-for-the-trees-by-diana-beresford-kroeger/9780735275072
Yes, this is a time of promises that seem built on things that don’t work anymore. Thanks so much for sharing your story from the front lines. The book looks great. Let’s all go hug a tree without shame.
Thank you, Cristin, for your reflection question about where do I experience a world that is ending and dying, and one that is wanting to be born. Especially in the last few months I have been reflecting on the tasks and discipline of mending and repairing. This comes partly from a colleague who is working on a theology of mending and mends old sweaters and socks as a spiritual discipline. And spending the past year restoring a family house severely damaged by hurricane Harvey has led me to question why and how we go about repairing objects in our lives.Which ones are worth repairing? Mending and repairing can be messy work. Perhaps we need to practice mending physical objects with our hands so we can learn how to mend larger tears in our relationships and in society.
This weekend I invested in repairing an old cell phone instead of buying a new one. It felt great, even though I do really want a new camera. Yes, maybe sacred even. I thought more about how it conserved resources, but I can see how there is something beautiful in simply the act of repairing. Thanks for sharing that.