the spiritual ingredient of organizations

Spiritual resource to share:
your own spiritual specialty baked into your work

In our fourth community meeting, reps from dozens of community organizations, individuals and parents continued to work together on a community wide plan. This is ambitious. This plan will help support our youth while at the same time build community and flush out racism and drug use. Tall, tall order.

To begin the meeting this time around, all were welcome to come into the kitchen and help make Native American fried bread.

Afterwards, we met in a group and the leader noticed that in making the bread, we were missing something. People guessed various ingredients, but no one had the answer. The leader commented that we were missing the blessing. Then he gave an Anishinaabe blessing.

This is a large, sometimes unwieldy group. But their general understanding on the spiritual elements necessary to make this group's work effective are so heartening! I'm sticking with this group until we're done!

Organizations have always been one of my favorite art forms. Whether as an observer or as the organizational architect, the spiritual element has the key roles of being the fuel, the direction and the glue.

MBEddy has some great points about organizations.

• In her autobiography, Retrospection and Introspection, she advises Christian Science teachers to form associations, churches and "any other organic operative method" that is useful and beneficial to mankind. Organization as an organic operative method. Interesting, yes?
• In another article in (from Miscellaneous Writings, p358) MBEddy talks about leaving organizations and its material forms after "a higher spiritual unity is won." She recognizes the value and also the peril of organizations. Referring to organization as a material form of cohesion and fellowship, she recognizes that once it has done its job, it can retard spiritual growth and should be laid off.

What strikes me about her take on material organizations is that they are fluid - an "organic, operative method." And that while they are important in the beginning of an enterprise, one shouldn't overdo it, once its purpose of spiritual unity and fellowship is accomplished.

I can see this -- I have left organizations when I knew it was my time to move on because I felt "done." In other cases, I have known organizations to change to meet their objectives, or an organization simply was not needed -- things just got accomplished organically (I'm thinking about all the times our extended families of 25+ people come together to make holiday meals).

As this community group moves forward, its newly developed goals are lofty, but noble. We are at those first stages of building the organizational structure. It requires of everyone a measure of fluidity, humility, patience and commitment. But first and foremost, we are starting to see the blessing of this work together: spiritual unity in the community. I'm in.







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