Sinte@aol.com wrote:
Sinte wrote
--snip--
> I believe we should have more spirituality in the workplace, in the
> schools and in our society. I won't try to define it. I don't think it
> can be defined. Dr. Deming used the term Metanoia. AA uses spiritual
> awakening. Once it has happened to you, you need not discuss it, you feel
> it inside of you and you can feel it in others and you have an acceptance
> of others and of yourself.
It's funny that you mention AA where these kinds of problems come up again
and again. There is the difficulty of defining spirit or power greater
than oneself. There is a great need for discipline so as not to forget
what it feels like to others when you express your own journey.
(Something I think Sinte did wonderfully in this post.)
A story that I heard used was a play on the old barroom trick of picking
up a person in a chair. In that well-lubricated exercise, a person is
challenged to pick up a hefty patron in his chair using only four fingers.
The person fails. Then four others are instructed as to where they should
place their single digits and the chair rises easily. The spirit may be
the glue that exists among people, other people. The problem is that we
must go very soon to words when spirituality is (IMHO) all about
experience. So the conversation might not be about spirituality in the
workplace (thereby avoiding any ruffling of particularities) but instead
ask how is that we can work together so that we come to something more
than what we are. But the answer must not be another way of organizing
ourselves or the work, not another way of relating to each other more
effectively, and not some dandy new resource. Instead we are asked to
reflect on what would happen inside each of us. And then we share that.
It's been a most useful, most provocative thread.
--T.J. Elliott Cavanaugh Leahy http://idt.net/~tjell 914 366-7499
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>