Some questions for civil society leaders

What questions are we asking? What questions are we living, and organizing into? How are we stuck? Who are we talking to and collaborating with, and who do we not prioritize talking and listening to? How do we decide who to work with, and how to spend our time and energy?

If something challenges us directly, how will we respond? If something offers us the possibility of resources, what are we willing to sacrifice or deprioritize to contest for or keep those resources? If something threatens our resources and safety, how do we decide whether to shrink to accommodate and avoid the threat, or to fight, or run? If we fight, what makes us decide to use the accepted protocols of response, and under what conditions do we decide to resist or respond in a new way?

What causes us to seek out new partners in our work, to resist closing off and accepting stereotypes or quick and reductive judgments of potential partners? When do we approach collaboration only through the lens of what we think will benefit us in our present way of working, our present goals and our present means of attempting to reach those goals? And when do we enter into partnerships with an openness to strategic and tactical transformation or evolution?

When we set ourselves into conflict with an antagonist, and take steps to strengthen our position relative to our antagonist, and probe their weaknesses, what could make us pause to consider the cost of investing our energies in this conflict, rather than preparing ourselves for a different conflict that may pose a greater threat to us but which is not as tangible or easy to access and contest than the conflict we have chosen to prioritize? 

What does it look like, outwardly, to be paralyzed by horror as our republic is engulfed by authoritarian rule? Does it look like business as usual, or a preoccupation with internal conflicts or hyper-specific projects unattached to broader outcomes? And what does it require to break that paralysis and engage in purposeful, coordinated action? 

What do you think?

NPQ: “A Theory & Practice of civil society”

Hot off the digital press! A shockingly brief version of an excessively long essay I worked on for months, with meaningful feedback from many of you! Without further ado, I present “A Theory & Practice of Civil Society - and how it can ‘show up’ today” … thanks to Annie, Veronica, Rabbi Weininger, Allysen, Rhona, Ben, Tracey, Aaron, Josh, Eleanor, and Arif for your feedback and support! More to come!

august 2023

When you think there is no place that can hold you any longer

Go to Dickson Falls;

where tree frond fingers steeple far above your upturned face

and a beam of sunlight stretches across infinite space to 

tousle the spiky, dew limned hair of a sapling spruce.

Cool mist, fir scented, conjured by the waterfall, 

moistens your lips and lungs

draws forth the shehechianu: thank God I am here.

And when you feel there is no place for your words 

to settle into seed

Walk onward to Point Wolfe;

across a cloistered, covered red wooden bridge

containing a single framed opening, overflowing with cool wind, facing south,

where the Point Wolfe River rushes into the Chigneto Bay.

One hundred years ago, massive bodies of trees flowed out in an endless funeral procession, St John bound.

But today, my friend, you will see only the water, 

flowing like rows of monks

with smooth mindful steps, eternal tidal leavetaking,

from every corner and wooded height into the estuary,

In just a few hours, they march miles out into the distance, 

leaving behind the briny, muddy flats, 

boulders like the buried heads of giants, 

covered with fine wisps of algae hair.

And in a few hours more, the lapping procession of monks returns, 

The sea returns.

When you think there is no place that can hold you any longer

And nowhere for your words to settle and into seed

Come to Point Wolfe for a day;

Sit and track the solemn march of the tide

Let yourself sink gently into the rich mud, like

A stone, worn smooth, into an offering.

holiday poem

Trees, I can understand

Our lives are small in comparison, but intelligible;

We watch each other grow, saplings and striplings,

Our elements flow and mingle- carbon and blood; water, soil and sun;

But you, stone, confound me.

You carry mindless, scattered centuries inside you, pressed tight, layers of ancient dust compressed into your core.

A breeze-blown prehistoric frond fell across your flank and became your destiny;

a glacier dragged, inches each year, and carved uncaring features into your face;

symphonies of dying stars played out above your mud plugged eyes.

Human cares, the pulse and play of voices and footfalls on sidewalks, the tendrils of spring flowers in rich black soil, the dreams of children, are meaningless, less than trivial to you.

Today I crawled beneath the shipwrecked roots of an ancient tree with my daughter, and imagined with her the slight green tendrils thickening through centuries into the gnarled roof of roots above our heads;

I prayed in the guttural tones of my forefathers

that her wondering upturned glance, her small fingers on cracked bark, would somehow

rise like sap to every branch and bough, warming the currents of air for hatchling birds for many years yet to come.

********