Tender Chicken

I got involved with intentional community in 1974, when I joined with three others to start Sandhill Farm. Because I've found a lifestyle that has worked for me—providing just the right balance of stimulation, support, and authenticity—I've stayed.

Moving beyond personal support, I see my life in community also as a platform for social change work. It's about incorporating one's values into everyday life, and about control of one's time—having sufficient flexibility and support to be able to concentrate my attention on what's happening (to me and around me), so that I can learn, and then share what I'm learning.

One of the most important lessons for me has been the need to integrate one's thinking with one's feelings—about paying attention to both the head and the belly, honoring for the insights and compensating for the blindness of each. At its best, community is a nutrient rich environment, perfect for fostering the development of this special kind of indigo hybrid, replete with its promise of understanding and compassion—two fruits for which there is rarely a surplus.

As a process consultant, I teach that a good facilitator must be able to work both with Content and with Energy. While this entails completely different skill sets, both are important and need attention. Taking this further, I believe that World Peace will depend on our species learning better how to integrate these two primal energies: thought and emotion. They represent different ways of receiving information, different ways of knowing information, and different ways of sharing information. I am convinced that working successfully with conflict means learning how to work in both realms—often simultaneously and with maximal discernment and minimal judgment. While I won't pretend this is easy, it can be done.

• • •

In reflecting both on how important this challenge of integration is, and how hard it is to accomplish, I want to relate the story of a recent check-in (or chicken, as we call them at Sandhill, per my previous blog) that I had with two other long-term communitarians—both of whom have more than a dozen years of community living under their belt and believe strongly in the ideal of community as a positive force in the world.

I tell this story with sadness, and no small amount of humility, as it highlights just how far we have yet to go. I'll call these communards Dale and Terry.

Dale's Story
When Dale and I first got together, I asked how things were going at home. I'd heard that they had recently lost a member to a drug overddose that was considered a suicide. Dale reported that it wasn't as bad as it might have been because the woman who had ended her life had been rather reclusive and a lot of people didn't know her well.

I told Dale that I had heard that:
o The suicide had occurred shortly after a difficult community meeting during which the woman's behavior had been labeled addictive and the community was discussing what, if anything, to do about it.
o There was neither agreement about the diagnosis nor about the best course of action.
o The woman was aware of the meeting and was upset by it.

When Dale agreed that that was how it went down, I wondered if there weren't serious feelings that arose from that sequence. Dale admitted that some members did have strong reactions. When I aked if the community was talking about it, Dale snapped back: "Not everyone thinks that we have to have a meeting about everything. We do things differently at my community."

Well, it didn't take a Ouija Board to figure out that I was being disinvited to ask more, and I let it go. Inside however, I was wondering how you could possibly not talk about it as a group. It's been my experience that pain like this does not go away on its own—especially when interlarded with guilt and anger. Rather, it festers and degrades trust and good will. When not dealt with openly, this kind of thing can become anaerobic and malignant. Toughing it out, in my experience, essentially translates into not facing the tough stuff out in the open. I'm worried about communities that don't have a way to grieve together.

Leaving the story of the suicide, Dale went on to share news of another member who had recently faced a near-death medical emergency, only this person survived. This second trauma had shaken Dale up more than the suicide because of a closer personal connection. When Dale finished, I turned to Terry, who had joined us while Dale's check-in was in progress.

Terry's Story
Earlier that day, I had overheard Terry describing to a friend the challenges of parenting two young children. In particular, Terry was alert to the need for children to be able to develop their capacity to identify and voice their feelings, especially when the kids are young and they don't yet have sufficient vocabulary and are just learning the art of self-reflection. As a parent emeritus, I found Terry's overview sensitive and insightful. I was impressed.

Imagine my surpirse when Terry stated—after listening politely while Dale described a gut-wrenching emotional roller coaster: "I'd rather just get down to business so we can get this over with. I have a lot to do." As a cooperator, I found Terry's choice insensitive and callous. Again I was impressed, though this time unfavorably.

How, I wondered, could someone see so well what children needed, yet fail to see that they needed it as well?

While I'll freely admit that neither of these two communitarians had ever been accused of being poster children for heart circles, this pair of tender, yet awkward chickens touched me as a profound example of how far we must still travel to find the integration I beieve to be so essential to waging peace. There's still a lot of pain out there.

The Opening Chicken

Over the course of our 35 years as an intentional community, Sandhill Farm has had an incredible variety of visitors, and therefore, we've accumulated an equally incredible wealth of visitor stories. One of my favorite memories goes back about 25 years, when we asked a visitor for his impressions of the community after being with is for a week. After a moment of reflection, he replied solemnly, “I really like chickens.”

For a moment, no one spoke. After all, we had been living with poultry (and our own egg supply) almost from the beginning and most of us had a fondness for chickens, but we also knew that no one had ever considered that such a standout feature of our community life. Some of us were thinking, “Did he really say that?”

Well, it turned out he didn’t. He’d said that he really liked check-ins, and we’d all simply transposed the vowels. We had such a good laugh over it that we decided, on the spot, to start calling check-ins chickens, and have incorporated that malapropism into our local argot ever since.

• • •

Last Thursday, Ma’ikwe and I arrived in Asheville NC for Weekend IV of the two-year Integrative Facilitation training we’re conducting in the Southeast. That evening we had one of the most amazing chickens I’d ever experienced.

Ma’ikwe and I set the tone by describing our journey around opening up our marriage to include the possibility of having other lovers [see my blogs of April 19, May 7, May 21, and June 1 for more on this], and we immediately had everyone's attention. That set the stage for sharing deeply with one another about what was going on in our lives, and here's an overview of what came out:

Person A: My marital challenges are getting better. My wife and I are now talking regularly about our relationship and it’s made a surprising amount of difference that I’ve learned (in this training) to raise my energy to meet hers when she’s upset. As you know, I’m a teacher and I’m missing graduation to attend this training weekend; I was really torn about having to make the choice, yet couldn’t stay away.

Person B: Work is totally chaotic right now yet I knew I needed to get away for a weekend. If I’d stayed home and worked, it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference—it’d be just as crazy Monday morning whether I'd worked all weekend or not.

Person C: I’m visiting a nearby community on a trial basis and having a very positive experience. While I’m getting closer to being ready to facilitate groups, I'm not quite there. I’ve still got considerable performance anxiety.

Person D: I’m trying to enter the job market right now, but the timing is terrible. My marriage is shaky, but we’re doing counseling together and trying to save it.

Person E: I was discouraged by backlash at my home community to working on conflict. It took me a while to work through my feelings and see how much my pushing for this is not helping. On the other hand, I mediated a session between two people who’ve been at odds with each other for years and they achieved a breakthrough with my help. That felt great. I’m also struggling to decide between continuing to work at the college I’m at now, which is great but has no job security versus accepting a tenure track position at another college.

Person F: I'm struggling with diminished energy. While some of it may be aging, I suspect it’s mostly emotional turbulence, and I’m working on trying to control things less and trusting that things will work out well even if I’m not so directive.

Person G: I’ve recently joined a new clinic and I’m overwhelmed by the workload. I'm happy to take a break from it this weekend. Meanwhile, I’m inspired by what my partner has been getting out of the training.

Person H: I’m deeply involved in process work at home and am excited to be applying what we’re learning in the training. Already I’m seeing meetings more clearly and regularly have ideas about how to improve things. My growth edge is working with conflict. I’ve been clearing the decks in preparation for adopting, and am starting to look at which country I’d like to focus on.

Person I: I’m exploring life at a new community and it’s being very rich. I’m even experimenting with taking on a leadership role in my prospective home. In the last couple months I’ve gotten a chance to teach a consensus introduction, and that went well.

Person J: I’ve been exhausted by the task of shutting down a 6-year business with my husband. Though it was clearly the right decision, I got to see how much I want to be liked as a leader and how painful it was getting criticized by employees we had to let go. In meetings it’s become increasingly clear to me how crucial it is to have clear objectives. In recent months I’ve been able to get to a much better place about concentrating on learning and not getting distracted about looking good when things don’t go well. I also just ended a term on the local school board, where I was able to make a big difference in turning around the energy at meetings and finding good people to fill open seats on the board.

Person K: I just deposited my first payment as a process consultant! I’ve been teaching a group in California how to conduct salons and they love it! I want help this weekend with ideas about how to handle a difficult person in my community who drives me bonkers.

Person L: I used what I’ve been learning at meetings of the local fire department and people liked what I did so much I was voted Firefighter of the Month. I love what I’ve been learning about conflict, and was even able to apply it in a dispute with my ex-wife. After I stepped back from my own hurt and thought about how things must look to her, I was able to make a bridging statement and she stopped fighting me. It was a miracle!

Person M: I wrestled with two big challenges the last two months: a) I discovered that my family owed the IRS about $20,000 and I knew my husband was going to pitch a fit when he found out; and b) my husband and I have been trying to adopt a second child for about three years and we just learned that our application has been rejected. There are now new rules for international adoption and we’ve been told we have to start over. We’re devastated. Meanwhile my home community has been very appreciative of my growing skills as a facilitator.

Person N: I’ve had no room in my life to prep for this weekend, and haven’t read the handouts. At work I’m finding myself in a dissociated state, as I’ve realized I’m not doing what I want to be doing with my life. I’m exhausted at the end of each training weekend and am terrified of doing emotional work. Still, I keep coming back...

Person O: I’m just an auditor and this is my first time in the circle. I get it that people in this training are working on themselves and not just here to learn rules about how to run meetings!

• • •

To be sure, this was not a random mix of 15 people off the street. These were, in fact, a bunch of people who choose to scratch an itch about learning how groups can function more cooperatively, and there wasn't a chicken in the bunch. This was a snapshot of how far a group can travel down the road of authenticity and connection after just three prior weekends sitting in the fire of group dynamics together. Ma’ikwe and I were honored to be among them.