I’m in a really awesome spiritual community here in Palo Alto. There aren’t that many of us right now, but it’s getting sizable enough where sometimes I want to do the following exercise: sit everyone down for an hour, give them 1 piece of paper and a pen, and say, “Answer these questions on paper: what are we trying to become, and why, and how do you feel about that?”. Then, we each read our “papers” aloud to the others.
There are other ways to ask the question of course–what is the goal of this community? Why are we doing this? What is it we are doing exactly? Why are we here? But my favorite is still, “what are we trying to become, and why?”
My bet is that people would not all write the same thing, nor would they feel the same about what others wrote. What does that mean? How much should we want to “be on the same page” (i.e., have unity of vision), what does it take to get there, and what’s worth sacrificing for it?
4 replies on “Community In 1 Page Or Less”
I think that is a great idea. Not only would it be great to “get everyone on the same page,” but I think it would also have a community-building value in itself. Could we make that the topic/activity for our dinner either this weekend or next?
I guess the question, Tbone, was more, what happens if (as might be the case) there are multiple answers? What does that mean?
I don’t think I was really suggesting that we do the exercise–more using the imagination of it as a thought experiment. We could really do it though.
One page? One hour? Great!
very insightful, jonathan. i might have to keep that one in mind for sometime in the future / pass this on to the dream awakener in our canvas group…